Download or read book Collective Action in the Formation of Pre-Modern States written by Richard Blanton and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2008 with total page 470 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Anthropological archaeology and other disciplines concerned with the formation of early complex societies are undergoing a theoretical shift. Given the need for new directions in theory, the book proposes that anthropologists look to political science, especially the rational choice theory of collective action. The authors subject collective action theory to a methodologically rigorous evaluation using systematic cross-cultural analysis based on a world-wide sample of societies.