The Political Landscape: Constellations of Authority in Early Complex Polities

Adam T Smith

Published by University of California Press 2003

The Political Landscape

Constellations of Authority in Early Complex Polities

Adam T Smith

https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520936997

Overview
Contents

About this book

How do landscapes—defined in the broadest sense to incorporate the physical contours of the built environment, the aesthetics of form, and the imaginative reflections of spatial representations—contribute to the making of politics? Shifting through the archaeological, epigraphic, and artistic remains of early complex societies, this provocative and far-reaching book is the first systematic attempt to explain the links between spatial organization and politics from an anthropological point of view.

The Classic-period Maya, the kingdom of Urartu, and the cities of early southern Mesopotamia provide the focal points for this multidimensional account of human polities. Are the cities and villages in which we live and work, the lands that are woven into our senses of cultural and personal identity, and the national territories we occupy merely stages on which historical processes and political rituals are enacted? Or do the forms of buildings and streets, the evocative sensibilities of architecture and vista, the aesthetics of place conjured in art and media constitute political landscapes—broad sets of spatial practices critical to the formation, operation, and overthrow of polities, regimes, and institutions? Smith brings together contemporary theoretical developments from geography and social theory with anthropological perspectives and archaeological data to pursue these questions.

Author / Editor information

Smith Adam T :

Adam T. Smith is Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology and in the College of the University of Chicago. He is the coeditor of Archaeology in the Borderlands: Investigations in Caucasia and Beyond (2003).

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Illustrations Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	xiii
Introduction: Surveying the Political Landscape Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1. Sublimated Spaces Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	30
2. Archaeologies of Political Authority Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	78
3. Geopolitics Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	112
4. Polities Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	149
5. Regimes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	184
6. Institutions Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	232
Conclusion: Toward a Cartography of Political Landscapes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	271
References Cited Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	283
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	315