Island Networks: Communication, Kinship, and Classification Structures in Oceania: 11 (Structural Analysis in the Social Sciences, Series Number 11) - Hardcover

Hage, Per; Harary, Frank

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 052155232X ISBN 13: 9780521552325

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 1997

Synopsis

Using network models from graph theory, this book analyses the formation of Pacific island empires.

About this title

From the Back Cover

In their previous book, Exchange in Oceania, anthropologist Per Hage and mathematician Frank Harary demonstrated that models from graph theory, a branch of pure mathematics, provide the essential basis for analyzing the great variety of exchange systems in Micronesian, Melanesian, and Polynesian societies. In this new book the authors extend these models and apply them to the analysis of communication, kinship, and classification structures in the island societies of Oceania, presenting the relevant topics from graph theory in a form accessible to the nonmathematical reader. The research problems include the formation of island empires, the social basis of dialect groups, the emergence of trade and political centers, the evolution and devolution of social stratification, the transformations of marriage and descent systems, the historical development of kinship terminologies, and the reconstruction of protosocieties.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 052155232X
• ISBN 13: 9780521552325
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 320