Society Types

How the Scottish Enlightenment Invented the Concept of the "Commercial Society"

Plus why modern scholarship abandoned this crucial concept, and why that was a mistake.

2 hrs ago • Michael Magoon

The Prehistoric Migrations That Built the Pre-Modern World

How Society Types, Languages, and Genes Spread Long Before European Conquest

Feb 12 • Michael Magoon

The Five Great Divergences That Shaped Human History

How Rare Breaks in Food and Energy Determined the Kinds of Societies Humans Could Form

Feb 2 • Michael Magoon

The Deep Roots of African Diversity: How Subsistence Shaped Tribal Societies

The concept of "Society Type" is the Missing Framework in African Anthropology

Jan 15 • Michael Magoon

Why Some Nations Are Richer Than Others

How the Legacy of Society Types shapes today’s global inequality

Nov 10, 2025 • Michael Magoon

Understanding Commercial societies (the series)

The societies that invented material progress for the masses: humanity's greatest accomplishment.

Jan 19, 2025 • Michael Magoon

Society Types (the series)

Coming to grips with a critical concept for understanding human history

Dec 26, 2024 • Michael Magoon

Does Progress always move in a straight line?

Is progress inevitable? Will progress continue forever?

Apr 18, 2024 • Michael Magoon

How and why Commercial Societies created material progress

And why they did so long before the Industrial Revolution

Mar 18, 2024 • Michael Magoon

Free Peasant societies in history

Or why Scandinavia is so free, equal and prosperous

Feb 20, 2024 • Michael Magoon

The Holy Roman Empire was an incubator of Progress

It own dysfunctionality turned out to be its key benefit

Feb 15, 2024 • Michael Magoon

The geographical preconditions of Commercial societies

And why they were not enough to ensure the evolution of Commercial societies

Feb 14, 2024 • Michael Magoon

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