A major social science encyclopedia had no primary entry on civilization
Evidence
- Durkheim and Mauss, “Notion of Civilization,” p. 811; Braudel, On History, pp. 177, 202; Melko, Nature of Civilizations, p. 8; Wallerstein, Geopolitics and Geoculture, p. 215; Dawson, Dynamics of World History, pp. 51, 402; Spengler, Decline of the West, I, p. 31. Interestingly, the International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (New York: Macmillan and Free Press, ed. David L. Sills, 17 vols., 1968) contains no primary article on “civilization” or “civilizations.” The “concept of civilization” (singular) is treated in a subsection of the article called “Urban Revolution” while civilizations (plural) receive passing mention in an article called “Culture.” — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 925
Categorization
- QUESTION: Why would the leading social science encyclopedia omit civilization as a primary concept? The relegation to ‘Urban Revolution’ and ‘Culture’ hints at mid-century sociology’s discomfort with civilization as an analytic unit.