Monday, January 24, 2011

Revolution Versus Transtion

Ruby Lin

Uruk Ch.1-2

Liverani’s first two chapters of Uruk examined the history of the question of origin of chiefdom and states, and the factors that led to rise of the Uruk political state itself. In the first chapter, Liverani explained the conflict historians and sociologists have when using the word “transition” versus “revolution” when describing the development of the political state. According to Liverani, modern-day thinkers find the word “revolution” too abrupt and too “subversive” to describe change. Liverani, however, somewhat censured too harshly such hesitations of using the word, “revolution”.

He even went so far to suggest that those who resort to uses of words like “transition” were cowards. He admits that societies are “complex and require multi-factorial explanations” (11), but completely discounts this counterargument by saying that those researchers fail because they lack “the courage to make choices” (11) and that “elegance lies in simplicity”. Although Liverani may be right on this point that some factors of the origin of the state may be more important than others, he fails to take into account that without proof, researchers are unable to choose one factor over the other and thus currently are only able to describe all of the possible factors.

Liverani argues further that “transition” “tends to obscure the event in a progressive set and is devoid of political implications”. However, the word “transition” does connote change for many readers, including myself, and that revolution does connote an overhaul. It seems that Liverani is taking too much time to make an argument to change the connotations of the English language.

However, Liverani does indeed make a compromise in this text later. When describing how plant surpluses changed political organizations in chapter two, he de described it with the word “revolution”, but with quotation marks and justified why he is allowed to use such a word. Ironically, he even realizes the problem of using the word “revolution” straightforwardly with his audience.

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