Pre-Industrial Societies

One would not normally expect students of biology to dissect frogs
without prior knowledge of frog anatomy; yet students of history
are regularly expected to analyse pre-modern institutions and
events without any prior knowledge whatsoever of the general
anatomy of pre-industrial societies. Gifted students will often
acquire considerable knowledge of their particular areas - own
individual frogs, so to speak - but the extent to which these
conform to or depart from a common pattern remains unknown to them,
a fact which seriously limits their capacity for interpretation.

What goes for students goes for non-academic readers too. They
have at their disposal a mountain of historical works written at
every conceivable level of popularization and specialization. But
most of these works are devoted to specific historical phenomena,
or at most to a comparison between two or three; and those which
attempt more general surveys tend to be either inordinately long or
else inordinately abstract. Where does one turn for a brief summary
of the ground-rules? A bluffer's guide to the behaviour of
pre-modern societies does not seem to be available.

What this book attempts is precisely that: to offer a bluffer's
guide to the nature of pre-industrial societies, or more precisely
to pre-industrial societies of the complex type (omitting primitive
societies whose nature, again, is different). It sketches out the
general anatomy of all such societies without attempting a full
description of any one; and it is neither excessively long nor (it
is hoped) excessively abstract. Armed with this book, the reader
ought to find the specific cultures, societies, institutions and
events of pre-industrial history considerable less puzzling than
they are when approached directly.