Who Is He Calling WEIRD?
Name
jinh_a_01699.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
168.62 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
750054617f8018dd45d27494185f1330
Author(s)
McCants, Anne EC
Date Issued
2021
Journal
The Journal of Interdisciplinary History
Publisher
MIT Press - Journals
Citation
McCants, Anne EC. 2021. "Who Is He Calling WEIRD?." The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 52 (2).
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Abstract
In The WEIRDest People in the World, Henrich offers something of a big-think, global, social-science history that covers everything from psychology experiments to anthropological narrative, economic argumentation, and kinship studies, all grounded in a purported history of religious and family law. The book seeks to persuade that the West is cognitively different from the rest of the world and that its uniqueness explains every fundamental aspect of its modern trajectory—its wealth and education distributions, the progress and spread of its innovations, the presence or absence of trust outside its local communities, its formal institutions of democratic governance, and its beliefs about fairness and equality. Even more important for historically oriented readers, the book seeks to uncover how this major cognitive development emerged. The quantitative methods that the book employs to support its sweeping claims, however, are flawed, and its version of European church- and family-law history is inconsistent with the consensus view of specialist historians.
In The WEIRDest People in the World, Henrich offers something of a big-think, global, social-science history that covers everything from psychology experiments to anthropological narrative, economic argumentation, and kinship studies, all grounded in a purported history of religious and family law. The book seeks to persuade that the West is cognitively different from the rest of the world and that its uniqueness explains every fundamental aspect of its modern trajectory—its wealth and education distributions, the progress and spread of its innovations, the presence or absence of trust outside its local communities, its formal institutions of democratic governance, and its beliefs about fairness and equality. Even more important for historically oriented readers, the book seeks to uncover how this major cognitive development emerged. The quantitative methods that the book employs to support its sweeping claims, however, are flawed, and its version of European church- and family-law history is inconsistent with the consensus view of specialist historians.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. History Section
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Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1162/JINH_A_01699
