The Political Machine
Assembling Sovereignty in the Bronze Age Caucasus
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Princeton University Press
Published:24th Aug '20
Should be back in stock very soon
This paperback is available in another edition too:
- Hardback£42.00(9780691163239)
The Political Machine investigates the essential role that material culture plays in the practices and maintenance of political sovereignty. Through an archaeological exploration of the Bronze Age Caucasus, Adam Smith demonstrates that beyond assemblies of people, polities are just as importantly assemblages of things—from ballots and bullets to crowns, regalia, and licenses. Smith looks at the ways that these assemblages help to forge cohesive publics, separate sovereigns from a wider social mass, and formalize governance—and he considers how these developments continue to shape politics today.
Smith shows that the formation of polities is as much about the process of manufacturing assemblages as it is about disciplining subjects, and that these material objects or "machines" sustain communities, orders, and institutions. The sensibilities, senses, and sentiments connecting people to things enabled political authority during the Bronze Age and fortify political power even in the contemporary world. Smith provides a detailed account of the transformation of communities in the Caucasus, from small-scale early Bronze Age villages committed to egalitarianism, to Late Bronze Age polities predicated on radical inequality, organized violence, and a centralized apparatus of rule.
From Bronze Age traditions of mortuary ritual and divination to current controversies over flag pins and Predator drones, The Political Machine sheds new light on how material goods authorize and defend political order.
"The coherence and brevity of the book reflects its development from the 2013 Rostovtzeff Lecture Series at New York University. The book can be read quickly, and its significance for evolutionary studies can be assimilated thoughtfully. It deserves to be read broadly by academics, graduate students and an interested public."---Timothy Earle, Antiquity
"I most strongly recommend this as a book with which to argue, for all interested in the newest forms of theory concerning politics and objects, as well as anyone examining ancient Eurasian cultural forms and connections."---Chris Gosden, American Anthropologist
"The Political Machine surely succeeds in bringing the political back into the mainstream of archaeological theory. Smith's provocative work will be studied by all interested in ontology and the epistemology of things, and by archaeological theorists."---Geoffrey D. Summers, Bryn Mawr Classical Review
ISBN: 9780691211480
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
264 pages