write a short essay comparing the forms of societies

Ancient Greece: Writing a Research-Based Essay to Compare the Societies of Athens and Sparta

4.1 Types of Societies

Learning objectives.

By the end of this section, you should be able to:

Describe the difference between preindustrial, industrial, and postindustrial societies
Explain the role of environment on preindustrial societies
Interpret the ways that technology impacts societal development

In sociological terms, society refers to a group of people who live in a definable community and share the same cultural components. On a broader scale, society consists of the people and institutions around us, our shared beliefs, and our cultural ideas. Typically, many societies also share a political authority.

Consider China and the United States. Both are technologically advanced, have dense networks of transportation and communications, rely on foreign trading partners for large portions of their economies, focus on education as a way to advance their citizens, and have large and expensive militaries. Both countries have citizens that may be largely satisfied with their governments and ways of life, while still holding some degree of distrust or discontent regarding their leaders. And both have a rural versus urban disparity that can cause tension and economic inequality among the population. An individual family or even a whole office full of people in one of the countries may look and act very similarly to families or offices in the other country.

But what is different? In China, a far greater percentage of people may be involved in manufacturing than America. Many of China’s cities didn’t evolve from ports, transit centers, or river confluences hundreds of years ago, but are newly created urban centers inhabited by recent transplants from other locations. While citizens in the U.S. can openly express their dissatisfaction with their government through social activism in person or, especially, online, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube are banned in China, and the press is controlled by the government. Their appearance might be very similar, but the two countries are very different societies.

Sociologist Gerhard Lenski Jr. (1924–2015) defined societies in terms of their technological sophistication. As a society advances, so does its use of technology. Societies with rudimentary technology depend on the fluctuations of their environments, while industrialized societies have more control over the impact of their surroundings and thus develop different cultural features. This distinction is so important that sociologists generally classify societies along a spectrum of their level of industrialization—from preindustrial to industrial to postindustrial.

Preindustrial Societies

Hunter-Gatherer

Hunter-gatherer societies demonstrate the strongest dependence on the environment of the various types of preindustrial societies. As the basic structure of human society until about 10,000–12,000 years ago, these groups were based around kinship or tribes. Hunter-gatherers relied on their surroundings for survival—they hunted wild animals and foraged for uncultivated plants for food. When resources became scarce, the group moved to a new area to find sustenance, meaning they were nomadic. These societies were common until several hundred years ago, but today only a few hundred remain in existence, such as indigenous Australian tribes sometimes referred to as “aborigines,” or the Bambuti, a group of pygmy hunter-gatherers residing in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Hunter-gatherer groups are quickly disappearing as the world’s population explodes.

Changing conditions and adaptations led some societies to rely on the domestication of animals where circumstances permitted. Roughly 7,500 years ago, human societies began to recognize their ability to tame and breed animals and to grow and cultivate their own plants. Pastoral societies , such as the Maasai villagers, rely on the domestication of animals as a resource for survival. Unlike earlier hunter-gatherers who depended entirely on existing resources to stay alive, pastoral groups were able to breed livestock for food, clothing, and transportation, and they created a surplus of goods. Herding, or pastoral, societies remained nomadic because they were forced to follow their animals to fresh feeding grounds. Around the time that pastoral societies emerged, specialized occupations began to develop, and societies commenced trading with local groups.

Sociology in the Real World

Where societies meet—the worst and the best.

When cultures meet, technology can help, hinder, and even destroy. The Exxon Valdez oil spillage in Alaska nearly destroyed the local inhabitants' entire way of life. Oil spills in the Nigerian Delta have forced many of the Ogoni tribe from their land and forced removal has meant that over 100,000 Ogoni have sought refuge in the country of Benin (University of Michigan, n.d.). And the massive Deepwater Horizon oil spill of 2010 drew great attention as it occurred in the United States. Environmental disasters continue as Western technology and its need for energy expands into less developed (peripheral) regions of the globe.

Of course not all technology is bad. We take electric light for granted in the United States, Europe, and the rest of the developed world. Such light extends the day and allows us to work, read, and travel at night. It makes us safer and more productive. But regions in India, Africa, and elsewhere are not so fortunate. Meeting the challenge, one particular organization, Barefoot College, located in District Ajmer, Rajasthan, India, works with numerous less developed nations to bring solar electricity, water solutions, and education. The focus for the solar projects is the village elders. The elders agree to select two grandmothers to be trained as solar engineers and choose a village committee composed of men and women to help operate the solar program.

The program has brought light to over 450,000 people in 1,015 villages. The environmental rewards include a large reduction in the use of kerosene and in carbon dioxide emissions. The fact that the villagers are operating the projects themselves helps minimize their sense of dependence.

Horticultural

Around the same time that pastoral societies were on the rise, another type of society developed, based on the newly developed capacity for people to grow and cultivate plants. Previously, the depletion of a region’s crops or water supply forced pastoral societies to relocate in search of food sources for their livestock. Horticultural societies formed in areas where rainfall and other conditions allowed them to grow stable crops. They were similar to hunter-gatherers in that they largely depended on the environment for survival, but since they didn’t have to abandon their location to follow resources, they were able to start permanent settlements. This created more stability and more material goods and became the basis for the first revolution in human survival.

Agricultural

While pastoral and horticultural societies used small, temporary tools such as digging sticks or hoes, agricultural societies relied on permanent tools for survival. Around 10,000 B.C.E., an explosion of new technology known as the Agricultural Revolution made farming possible—and profitable. Farmers learned to rotate the types of crops grown on their fields and to reuse waste products such as manure as fertilizer, which led to better harvests and bigger surpluses of food. New tools for digging and harvesting were made of metal, and this made them more effective and longer lasting. Human settlements grew into towns and cities, and particularly bountiful regions became centers of trade and commerce.

This is also the age in which people had the time and comfort to engage in more contemplative and thoughtful activities, such as music, poetry, and philosophy. This period became referred to as the “dawn of civilization” by some because of the development of leisure and humanities. Craftspeople were able to support themselves through the production of creative, decorative, or thought-provoking aesthetic objects and writings.

As resources became more plentiful, social classes became more divisive. Those who had more resources could afford better living and developed into a class of nobility. Difference in social standing between men and women increased. As cities expanded, ownership and preservation of resources became a pressing concern.

The ninth century gave rise to feudal societies . These societies contained a strict hierarchical system of power based around land ownership and protection. The nobility, known as lords, placed vassals in charge of pieces of land. In return for the resources that the land provided, vassals promised to fight for their lords.

These individual pieces of land, known as fiefdoms, were cultivated by the lower class. In return for maintaining the land, peasants were guaranteed a place to live and protection from outside enemies. Power was handed down through family lines, with peasant families serving lords for generations and generations. Ultimately, the social and economic system of feudalism failed and was replaced by capitalism and the technological advances of the industrial era.

Industrial Society

In the eighteenth century, Europe experienced a dramatic rise in technological invention, ushering in an era known as the Industrial Revolution. What made this period remarkable was the number of new inventions that influenced people’s daily lives. Within a generation, tasks that had until this point required months of labor became achievable in a matter of days. Before the Industrial Revolution, work was largely person- or animal-based, and relied on human workers or horses to power mills and drive pumps. In 1782, James Watt and Matthew Boulton created a steam engine that could do the work of twelve horses by itself.

Steam power began appearing everywhere. Instead of paying artisans to painstakingly spin wool and weave it into cloth, people turned to textile mills that produced fabric quickly at a better price and often with better quality. Rather than planting and harvesting fields by hand, farmers were able to purchase mechanical seeders and threshing machines that caused agricultural productivity to soar. Products such as paper and glass became available to the average person, and the quality and accessibility of education and health care soared. Gas lights allowed increased visibility in the dark, and towns and cities developed a nightlife.

One of the results of increased productivity and technology was the rise of urban centers. Workers flocked to factories for jobs, and the populations of cities became increasingly diverse. The new generation became less preoccupied with maintaining family land and traditions and more focused on acquiring wealth and achieving upward mobility for themselves and their families. People wanted their children and their children’s children to continue to rise to the top, and as capitalism increased, so did social mobility.

It was during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries of the Industrial Revolution that sociology was born. Life was changing quickly and the long-established traditions of the agricultural eras did not apply to life in the larger cities. Masses of people were moving to new environments and often found themselves faced with horrendous conditions of filth, overcrowding, and poverty. Social scientists emerged to study the relationship between the individual members of society and society as a whole.

It was during this time that power moved from the hands of the aristocracy and “old money” to business-savvy newcomers who amassed fortunes in their lifetimes. Families such as the Rockefellers and the Vanderbilts became the new power players and used their influence in business to control aspects of government as well. Eventually, concerns over the exploitation of workers led to the formation of labor unions and laws that set mandatory conditions for employees. Although the introduction of new technology at the end of the nineteenth century ended the industrial age, much of our social structure and social ideas—like family, childhood, and time standardization—have a basis in industrial society.

Postindustrial Society

Information societies , sometimes known as postindustrial or digital societies, are a recent development. Unlike industrial societies that are rooted in the production of material goods, information societies are based on the production of information and services.

Digital technology is the steam engine of information societies, and computer moguls such as Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are its John D. Rockefellers and Cornelius Vanderbilts. Since the economy of information societies is driven by knowledge and not material goods, power lies with those in charge of storing and distributing information. Members of a postindustrial society are likely to be employed as sellers of services—software programmers or business consultants, for example—instead of producers of goods. Social classes are divided by access to education, since without technical skills, people in an information society lack the means for success.

As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.

This book may not be used in the training of large language models or otherwise be ingested into large language models or generative AI offerings without OpenStax's permission.

Want to cite, share, or modify this book? This book uses the Creative Commons Attribution License and you must attribute OpenStax.

Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/introduction-sociology-3e/pages/1-introduction

Authors: Tonja R. Conerly, Kathleen Holmes, Asha Lal Tamang
Publisher/website: OpenStax
Book title: Introduction to Sociology 3e
Publication date: Jun 3, 2021
Location: Houston, Texas
Book URL: https://openstax.org/books/introduction-sociology-3e/pages/1-introduction
Section URL: https://openstax.org/books/introduction-sociology-3e/pages/4-1-types-of-societies

© Jan 18, 2024 OpenStax. Textbook content produced by OpenStax is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License . The OpenStax name, OpenStax logo, OpenStax book covers, OpenStax CNX name, and OpenStax CNX logo are not subject to the Creative Commons license and may not be reproduced without the prior and express written consent of Rice University.

4. Society and Social Interaction

Types of societies, learning objectives.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

Describe the difference between preindustrial, industrial, and postindustrial societies
Understand the role of environment on preindustrial societies
Understand how technology impacts societal development

This photo is a police officer looking down at his phone and texting while on duty

How does technology influence a society’s daily occupations? (Photo courtesy of Mo Riza/flickr)

Hunting and gathering tribes, industrialized Japan, Americans—each is a society. But what does this mean? Exactly what is a society? In sociological terms, society refers to a group of people who live in a definable community and share the same culture. On a broader scale, society consists of the people and institutions around us, our shared beliefs, and our cultural ideas. Typically, more-advanced societies also share a political authority.

Sociologist Gerhard Lenski (1924–) defined societies in terms of their technological sophistication. As a society advances, so does its use of technology. Societies with rudimentary technology depend on the fluctuations of their environments, while industrialized societies have more control over the impact of their surroundings and thus develop different cultural features. This distinction is so important that sociologists generally classify societies along a spectrum of their level of industrialization—from preindustrial to industrial to postindustrial.

Preindustrial Societies

Hunter-Gatherer

Where Societies Meet—The Worst and the Best

When cultures meet, technology can help, hinder, and even destroy. The Exxon Valdez oil spillage in Alaska nearly destroyed the local inhabitant’s entire way of life. Oil spills in the Nigerian Delta have forced many of the Ogoni tribe from their land and forced removal has meant that over 100,000 Ogoni have sought refuge in the country of Benin (University of Michigan, n.d.). And the massive Deepwater Horizon oil spill of 2006 drew great attention as it occurred in what is the most developed country, the United States. Environmental disasters continue as Western technology and its need for energy expands into less developed (peripheral) regions of the globe.

Alt text: A photo of a family of villagers in Africa in front of a solar panel on top of a roof

Otherwise skeptic or hesitant villagers are more easily convinced of the value of the solar project when they realize that the “solar engineers” are their local grandmothers. (Photo courtesy of Abri le Roux/flickr)

Horticultural

Agricultural

While pastoral and horticultural societies used small, temporary tools such as digging sticks or hoes, agricultural societies relied on permanent tools for survival. Around 3000 B.C.E., an explosion of new technology known as the Agricultural Revolution made farming possible—and profitable. Farmers learned to rotate the types of crops grown on their fields and to reuse waste products such as fertilizer, which led to better harvests and bigger surpluses of food. New tools for digging and harvesting were made of metal, and this made them more effective and longer lasting. Human settlements grew into towns and cities, and particularly bountiful regions became centers of trade and commerce.

Industrial Society

John D. Rockefeller, cofounder of the Standard Oil Company, came from an unremarkable family of salesmen and menial laborers. By his death at age 98, he was worth $1.4 billion. In industrial societies, business owners such as Rockefeller hold the majority of the power. (Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

Postindustrial Society

Societies are classified according to their development and use of technology. For most of human history, people lived in preindustrial societies characterized by limited technology and low production of goods. After the Industrial Revolution, many societies based their economies around mechanized labor, leading to greater profits and a trend toward greater social mobility. At the turn of the new millennium, a new type of society emerged. This postindustrial, or information, society is built on digital technology and nonmaterial goods.

Short Answer

In which type or types of societies do the benefits seem to outweigh the costs? Explain your answer, and cite social and economic reasons.

Is Gerhard Lenski right in classifying societies based on technological advances? What other criteria might be appropriate, based on what you have read?

Further Research

The Maasai are a modern pastoral society with an economy largely structured around herds of cattle. Read more about the Maasai people and see pictures of their daily lives here: http://openstaxcollege.org/l/The-Maasai

Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada. 2005. “Israel: Treatment of Bedouin, Including Incidents of Harassment, Discrimination or Attacks; State Protection (January 2003–July 2005)”, Refworld, July 29. Retrieved February 10, 2012 ( http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/440ed71325.html ).

Kjeilen, Tore. “Bedouin.” Looklex.com. Retrieved February 17, 2012 ( http://looklex.com/index.htm ).

University of Michigan. n.d. “The Curse of Oil in Ogoniland”. Retrieved January 2, 2015 (http://www.umich.edu/~snre492/cases_03-04/Ogoni/Ogoni_case_study.htm).

Introduction to Sociology 2e. Authored by : OpenStax CNX. Located at : http://cnx.org/contents/02040312-72c8-441e-a685-20e9333f3e1d/Introduction_to_Sociology_2e . License : CC BY: Attribution . License Terms : Download for free at http://cnx.org/contents/[email protected]

school Campus Bookshelves
menu_book Bookshelves
perm_media Learning Objects
login Login
how_to_reg Request Instructor Account
hub Instructor Commons

Margin Size

Download Page (PDF)
Download Full Book (PDF)
Periodic Table
Physics Constants
Scientific Calculator
Reference & Cite
Tools expand_more
Readability

selected template will load here

This action is not available.

2.5: The Development of Modern Society

Last updated
Save as PDF
Page ID 2015

$ \newcommand{\vecs}[1]{\overset { \scriptstyle \rightharpoonup} {\mathbf{#1}} } $

$ \newcommand{\vecd}[1]{\overset{-\!-\!\rightharpoonup}{\vphantom{a}\smash {#1}}} $

$ \newcommand{\id}{\mathrm{id}}$ $ \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}$

( \newcommand{\kernel}{\mathrm{null}\,}\) $ \newcommand{\range}{\mathrm{range}\,}$

$ \newcommand{\RealPart}{\mathrm{Re}}$ $ \newcommand{\ImaginaryPart}{\mathrm{Im}}$

$ \newcommand{\Argument}{\mathrm{Arg}}$ $ \newcommand{\norm}[1]{\| #1 \|}$

$ \newcommand{\inner}[2]{\langle #1, #2 \rangle}$

$ \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}$

$ \newcommand{\id}{\mathrm{id}}$

$ \newcommand{\kernel}{\mathrm{null}\,}$

$ \newcommand{\range}{\mathrm{range}\,}$

$ \newcommand{\RealPart}{\mathrm{Re}}$

$ \newcommand{\ImaginaryPart}{\mathrm{Im}}$

$ \newcommand{\Argument}{\mathrm{Arg}}$

$ \newcommand{\norm}[1]{\| #1 \|}$

$ \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}$ $ \newcommand{\AA}{\unicode[.8,0]{x212B}}$

$ \newcommand{\vectorA}[1]{\vec{#1}} % arrow$

$ \newcommand{\vectorAt}[1]{\vec{\text{#1}}} % arrow$

$ \newcommand{\vectorB}[1]{\overset { \scriptstyle \rightharpoonup} {\mathbf{#1}} } $

$ \newcommand{\vectorC}[1]{\textbf{#1}} $

$ \newcommand{\vectorD}[1]{\overrightarrow{#1}} $

$ \newcommand{\vectorDt}[1]{\overrightarrow{\text{#1}}} $

$ \newcommand{\vectE}[1]{\overset{-\!-\!\rightharpoonup}{\vphantom{a}\smash{\mathbf {#1}}}} $

Learning Objectives

Define Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft .
List the major types of societies that have been distinguished according to their economy and technology.
Explain why social development produced greater gender and wealth inequality.

Since the origins of sociology during the 19th century, sociologists have tried to understand how and why modern society developed. Part of this understanding involves determining the differences between modern societies and nonmodern (or simple) ones. This chapter has already alluded to some of these differences. In this section, we look at the development of modern society more closely.

One of the key differences between simple and modern societies is the emphasis placed on the community versus the emphasis placed on the individual. As we saw earlier, although community and group commitment remain in modern society, and especially in subcultures like the Amish, in simple societies they are usually the cornerstone of social life. In contrast, modern society is more individualistic and impersonal. Whereas the people in simple societies have close daily ties, in modern societies we have many relationships where we barely know the person. Commitment to the group and community become less important in modern societies, and individualism becomes more important.

Sociologist Ferdinand Tönnies (1887/1963) Tönnies, F. (1963). Community and society . New York, NY: Harper and Row (Original work published 1887) long ago characterized these key characteristics of simple and modern societies with the German words Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft . Gemeinschaft means human community, and Tönnies said that a sense of community characterizes simple societies, where family, kin, and community ties are quite strong. As societies grew and industrialized and as people moved to cities, Tönnies said, social ties weakened and became more impersonal. Tönnies called this situation a Gesellschaft and found it dismaying.

Other sociologists have distinguished societies according to their type of economy and technology. One of the most useful schemes distinguishes the following types of societies: hunting and gathering , horticultural , pastoral , agricultural , and industrial (Nolan & Lenski, 2009).Nolan, P., & Lenski, G. (2009). Human societies: An introduction to macrosociology . Boulder, CO: Paradigm. Some scholars add a final type, postindustrial , to the end of this list. We now outline the major features of each type in turn. Table $\PageIndex{1}$ summarizes these features.

Table $\PageIndex{1}$: Summary of Societal Development
Type of society	Key characteristics
Hunting and gathering	These are small, simple societies in which people hunt and gather food. Because all people in these societies have few possessions, the societies are fairly egalitarian, and the degree of inequality is very low.
Horticultural and pastoral	Horticultural and pastoral societies are larger than hunting and gathering societies. Horticultural societies grow crops with simple tools, while pastoral societies raise livestock. Both types of societies are wealthier than hunting and gathering societies, and they also have more inequality and greater conflict than hunting and gathering societies.
Agricultural	These societies grow great numbers of crops, thanks to the use of plows, oxen, and other devices. Compared to horticultural and pastoral societies, they are wealthier and have a higher degree of conflict and of inequality.
Industrial	Industrial societies feature factories and machines. They are wealthier than agricultural societies and have a greater sense of individualism and a lower degree of inequality.
Postindustrial	These societies feature information technology and service jobs. Higher education is especially important in these societies for economic success.

Hunting and Gathering Societies

Beginning about 250,000 years ago, hunting and gathering societies are the oldest ones we know of; few of them remain today, partly because modern societies have encroached on their existence. As the name “hunting and gathering” implies, people in these societies both hunt for food and gather plants and other vegetation. They have few possessions other than some simple hunting and gathering equipment. To ensure their mutual survival, everyone is expected to help find food and also to share the food they find. To seek their food, hunting and gathering peoples often move from place to place. Because they are nomadic, their societies tend to be quite small, often consisting of only a few dozen people.

Beyond this simple summary of the type of life these societies lead, anthropologists have also charted the nature of social relationships in them. One of their most important findings is that hunting and gathering societies are fairly egalitarian. Although men do most of the hunting and women most of the gathering, perhaps reflecting the biological differences between the sexes discussed earlier, women and men in these societies are roughly equal. Because hunting and gathering societies have few possessions, their members are also fairly equal in terms of wealth and power, as virtually no wealth exists.

Horticultural and Pastoral Societies

Horticultural and pastoral societies both developed about 10,000–12,000 years ago. In horticultural societies, people use a hoe and other simple hand tools to raise crops. In pastoral societies, people raise and herd sheep, goats, camels and other domesticated animals and use them as their major source of food and also, depending on the animal, as a means of transportation. Some societies are either primarily horticultural or pastoral, while other societies combine both forms. Pastoral societies tend to be at least somewhat nomadic, as they often have to move to find better grazing land for their animals. Horticultural societies, on the other hand, tend to be less nomadic, as they are able to keep growing their crops in the same location for some time. Both types of societies often manage to produce a surplus of food from vegetable or animal sources, respectively, and this surplus allows them to trade their extra food with other societies. It also allows them to have a larger population size (often reaching several hundred members) than hunting and gathering societies.

Accompanying the greater complexity and wealth of horticultural and pastoral societies is greater inequality in terms of gender and wealth than is found in hunting and gathering societies. In pastoral societies, wealth stems from the number of animals a family owns, and families with more animals are wealthier and more powerful than families with fewer animals. In horticultural societies, wealth stems from the amount of land a family owns, and families with more land are more wealthy and powerful.

One other side effect of the greater wealth of horticultural and pastoral societies is greater conflict. As just mentioned, sharing of food is a key norm in hunting and gathering societies. In horticultural and pastoral societies, however, their wealth, and more specifically their differences in wealth, leads to disputes and even fighting over land and animals. Whereas hunting and gathering peoples tend to be very peaceful, horticultural and pastoral peoples tend to be more aggressive.

Agricultural Societies

Agricultural societies developed some 5,000 years ago in the Middle East, thanks to the invention of the plow. When pulled by oxen and other large animals, the plow allowed for much more cultivation of crops than the simple tools of horticultural societies permitted. The wheel was also invented about the same time, and written language and numbers began to be used. The development of agricultural societies thus marked a watershed in the development of human society. Ancient Egypt, China, Greece, and Rome were all agricultural societies, and India and many other large nations today remain primarily agricultural.

We have already seen that the greater food production of horticultural and pastoral societies led them to become larger than hunting and gathering societies and to have more trade and greater inequality and conflict. Agricultural societies continue all of these trends. First, because they produce so much more food than horticultural and pastoral societies, they often become quite large, with their numbers sometimes reaching into the millions. Second, their huge food surpluses lead to extensive trade, both within the society itself and with other societies. Third, the surpluses and trade both lead to degrees of wealth unknown in the earlier types of societies and thus to unprecedented inequality, exemplified in the appearance for the first time of peasants, people who work on the land of rich landowners. Finally, agricultural societies’ greater size and inequality also produce more conflict. Some of this conflict is internal, as rich landowners struggle with each other for even greater wealth and power, and peasants sometimes engage in revolts. Other conflict is external, as the governments of these societies seek other markets for trade and greater wealth.

If gender inequality became somewhat greater in horticultural and pastoral societies than in hunting and gathering ones, it became very pronounced in agricultural societies. An important reason for this is the hard, physically taxing work in the fields, much of it using large plow animals, that characterizes these societies. Then, too, women are often pregnant in these societies, because large families provide more bodies to work in the fields and thus more income. Because men do more of the physical labor in agricultural societies—labor on which these societies depend—they have acquired greater power over women (Brettell & Sargent, 2009). Brettell, C. B., & Sargent, C. F. (Eds.). (2009). Gender in cross-cultural perspective . Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. In the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample, agricultural societies are much more likely than hunting and gathering ones to believe men should dominate women (Figure $\PageIndex{2}$).

Industrial Societies

Industrial societies emerged in the 1700s as the development of machines and then factories replaced the plow and other agricultural equipment as the primary mode of production. The first machines were steam- and water-powered, but eventually, of course, electricity became the main source of power. The growth of industrial societies marked such a great transformation in many of the world’s societies that we now call the period from about 1750 to the late 1800s the Industrial Revolution. This revolution has had enormous consequences in almost every aspect of society, some for the better and some for the worse.

On the positive side, industrialization brought about technological advances that improved people’s health and expanded their life spans. As noted earlier, there is also a greater emphasis in industrial societies on individualism, and people in these societies typically enjoy greater political freedom than those in older societies. Compared to agricultural societies, industrial societies also have lower economic and gender inequality. In industrial societies, people do have a greater chance to pull themselves up by their bootstraps than was true in earlier societies, and “rags to riches” stories continue to illustrate the opportunity available under industrialization. That said, we will see in later chapters that economic and gender inequality remains substantial in many industrial societies.

On the negative side, industrialization meant the rise and growth of large cities and concentrated poverty and degrading conditions in these cities, as the novels of Charles Dickens poignantly remind us. This urbanization changed the character of social life by creating a more impersonal and less traditional Gesellschaft society. It also led to riots and other urban violence that, among other things, helped fuel the rise of the modern police force and forced factory owners to improve workplace conditions. Today industrial societies consume most of the world’s resources, pollute the environment to an unprecedented degree, and have compiled nuclear arsenals that could undo thousands of years of human society in an instant.

Postindustrial Societies

We are increasingly living in what has been called the information technology age (or just information age ), as wireless technology vies with machines and factories as the basis for our economy. Compared to industrial economies, we now have many more service jobs, ranging from housecleaning to secretarial work to repairing computers. Societies in which this is happening are moving from an industrial to a postindustrial phase of development. In postindustrial societies, then, information technology and service jobs have replaced machines and manufacturing jobs as the primary dimension of the economy (Bell, 1999).Bell, D. (Ed.). (1999). The coming of post-industrial society: A venture in social forecasting . New York, NY: Basic Books. If the car was the sign of the economic and social times back in the 1920s, then the smartphone or netbook/laptop is the sign of the economic and social future in the early years of the 21st century. If the factory was the dominant workplace at the beginning of the 20th century, with workers standing at their positions by conveyor belts, then cell phone, computer, and software companies are dominant industries at the beginning of the 21st century, with workers, almost all of them much better educated than their earlier factory counterparts, huddled over their wireless technology at home, at work, or on the road. In short, the Industrial Revolution has been replaced by the Information Revolution, and we now have what has been called an information society (Hassan, 2008).Hassan, R. (2008). The information society: Cyber dreams and digital nightmares . Malden, MA: Polity.

As part of postindustrialization in the United States, many manufacturing companies have moved their operations from U.S. cities to overseas sites. Since the 1980s, this process has raised unemployment in cities, many of whose residents lack the college education and other training needed in the information sector. Partly for this reason, some scholars fear that the information age will aggravate the disparities we already have between the “haves” and “have-nots” of society, as people lacking a college education will have even more trouble finding gainful employment than they do now (Wilson, 2009).Wilson, W. J. (2009). The economic plight of inner-city black males. In E. Anderson (Ed.), Against the wall: Poor, young, black, and male (pp. 55–70). Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. In the international arena, postindustrial societies may also have a leg up over industrial or, especially, agricultural societies as we move ever more into the information age.

The major types of societies historically have been hunting and gathering, horticultural, pastoral, agricultural, industrial, and postindustrial.
As societies developed and grew larger, they became more unequal in terms of gender and wealth and also more competitive and even warlike with other societies.
Postindustrial society emphasizes information technology but also increasingly makes it difficult for individuals without college educations to find gainful employment.

For Your Review

Explain why societies became more unequal in terms of gender and wealth as they developed and became larger.
Explain why societies became more individualistic as they developed and became larger.
Describe the benefits and disadvantages of industrial societies as compared to earlier societies.

school Campus Bookshelves
menu_book Bookshelves
perm_media Learning Objects
login Login
how_to_reg Request Instructor Account
hub Instructor Commons

Margin Size

Download Page (PDF)
Download Full Book (PDF)
Periodic Table
Physics Constants
Scientific Calculator
Reference & Cite
Tools expand_more
Readability

selected template will load here

This action is not available.

4.2: Comparison and Contrast Essays

Last updated
Save as PDF
Page ID 107769

Kathryn Crowther et al.
Georgia Perimeter College via GALILEO Open Learning Materials

$ \newcommand{\vecs}[1]{\overset { \scriptstyle \rightharpoonup} {\mathbf{#1}} } $

$ \newcommand{\vecd}[1]{\overset{-\!-\!\rightharpoonup}{\vphantom{a}\smash {#1}}} $

$ \newcommand{\id}{\mathrm{id}}$ $ \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}$

( \newcommand{\kernel}{\mathrm{null}\,}\) $ \newcommand{\range}{\mathrm{range}\,}$

$ \newcommand{\RealPart}{\mathrm{Re}}$ $ \newcommand{\ImaginaryPart}{\mathrm{Im}}$

$ \newcommand{\Argument}{\mathrm{Arg}}$ $ \newcommand{\norm}[1]{\| #1 \|}$

$ \newcommand{\inner}[2]{\langle #1, #2 \rangle}$

$ \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}$

$ \newcommand{\id}{\mathrm{id}}$

$ \newcommand{\kernel}{\mathrm{null}\,}$

$ \newcommand{\range}{\mathrm{range}\,}$

$ \newcommand{\RealPart}{\mathrm{Re}}$

$ \newcommand{\ImaginaryPart}{\mathrm{Im}}$

$ \newcommand{\Argument}{\mathrm{Arg}}$

$ \newcommand{\norm}[1]{\| #1 \|}$

$ \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}$ $ \newcommand{\AA}{\unicode[.8,0]{x212B}}$

$ \newcommand{\vectorA}[1]{\vec{#1}} % arrow$

$ \newcommand{\vectorAt}[1]{\vec{\text{#1}}} % arrow$

$ \newcommand{\vectorB}[1]{\overset { \scriptstyle \rightharpoonup} {\mathbf{#1}} } $

$ \newcommand{\vectorC}[1]{\textbf{#1}} $

$ \newcommand{\vectorD}[1]{\overrightarrow{#1}} $

$ \newcommand{\vectorDt}[1]{\overrightarrow{\text{#1}}} $

$ \newcommand{\vectE}[1]{\overset{-\!-\!\rightharpoonup}{\vphantom{a}\smash{\mathbf {#1}}}} $

Writing a Comparison-and-Contrast Essay

First, choose whether you want to compare seemingly disparate subjects, contrast seemingly similar subjects, or compare and contrast subjects. Once you have decided on a topic, introduce it with an engaging opening paragraph. Your thesis should come at the end of the introduction, and it should establish the subjects you will compare, contrast, or both as well as state what can be learned from doing so. Be sure to make an argument in your thesis; explain to the reader what’s at stake in analyzing the relationship between your stated subjects.

The body of the essay can be organized in one of two ways: by subject or by individual points. The organizing strategy that you choose will depend on, as always, your audience and your purpose. You may also consider your particular approach to the subjects as well as the nature of the subjects themselves; some subjects might better lend themselves to one structure or the other. Make sure to use comparison and contrast phrases to cue the reader to the ways in which you are analyzing the relationship between the subjects.

After you finish analyzing the subjects, write a conclusion that summarizes the main points of the essay and reinforces your thesis. This conclusion is the “and so” statement for your essay, giving you the place to offer a judgment based on the examination you have just offered.

Sample Comparison-and-Contrast Essays

A South African Storm

By Allison Howard – Peace Corps Volunteer: South Africa (2003-2005)

It’s a Saturday afternoon in January in South Africa. When I begin the 45–minute walk to the shops for groceries, I can hear thunder cracking in the distance up the mountain in Mageobaskloof. But at 4 p.m. the sky is still light and bright and I am sure—famous last words—I will be fine without an umbrella.

Just the basics: eggs, bread, Diet Coke in a bag slung into the crook of my elbow. Halfway from town, two black South African women—domestic workers in the homes of white Afrikaner families—stop me with wide smiles. They know me; I’m the only white person in town who walks everywhere, as they do. They chatter quickly in northern Sotho: “Missus, you must go fast. Pula e tla na! The rain, it comes!” They like me, and it feels very important to me that they do.“Yebo, yebo, mma,” I say—Yes, it’s true—and I hurry along in flip-flops, quickening my pace, feeling good about our brief but neighborly conversation. These are Venda women.

My black South African friends tell me it’s easy to tell a Venda from a Shangaan from a Xhosa from a Pedi. “These ones from Venda, they have wide across the nose and high in the cheekbones,” they say. But I don’t see it; I’m years away from being able to distinguish the nuances of ethnicity. Today, I know these women are Vendas simply because of their clothing: bright stripes of green and yellow and black fabric tied at one shoulder and hanging quite like a sack around their bodies. They’ve already extended a kindness to me by speaking in northern Sotho. It’s not their language but they know I don’t speak a word of Afrikaans (though they don’t understand why; Afrikaans is the language of white people). They know I struggle with Sotho and they’re trying to help me learn. So they speak Sotho to me and they’re delighted and amused by my fumbling responses. And I am, quite simply, delighted by their delight.

The Venda ladies are right: the rain, it comes. Lightly at first, and by habit I begin trotting to hurry my way home. Just a little rain at first and there are plenty of us out in it. I can see others up ahead on the street and others still just leaving the shops to get back before the real rain begins.

The people who are walking along this swath of tar road are black. Black people don’t live in this neighborhood—or in my town at all, for the most part. They work and board here as domestic workers, nannies, gardeners. Their families live in black townships and rural villages—some just outside of my town; others far away, in places like Venda.

Today, we’re walking together in the rain, and I’m quickening my pace because—after all, it’s raining. That’s what you do in the rain. And even though it’s coming down noticeably harder, it’s 80 degrees and I’m not cold, I’m just wet. My hair is stuck to my forehead and my T-shirt is soaked … and I’m the only one running for cover. And I think: So what? It’s just water and in the middle of the January summer, it’s warm, refreshing water. Why run? Why do we run from the rain?

In my life back in the United States, I might run because I was carrying a leather handbag, or because I wore an outfit that shouldn’t get wet. I would run because rain dishevels and messes things up. Mostly though, we run because we just do; it’s a habit. I’ve done it a hundred times: running to my car or the subway station with a newspaper sheltering my head. I have never not quickened my pace in the rain until today.

It took all of my 27 years and a move to Africa, where I don’t have a leather handbag to shelter or a pretty outfit to protect. I’m wearing an old cotton skirt and a T-shirt, and I’m drenched, and I love it. I learn things here in the most ordinary circumstances. And I feel like a smarter, better woman today because I got groceries in the rain.

But on the long walk home, positively soaked and smiling like a fool, I notice a car pulling over and a man yelling in Afrikaans to get in, get in. I look in the direction I’ve come from and several meters behind me is a woman with a baby tied to her back and an elderly man carrying bags, leading a young boy by the hand. On the road ahead, a woman about my age carries a parcel wrapped in plastic, balanced precariously on her head. There are maybe 20 people walking with me in my reverie of rain and they are black. And the man in the car is white and he’s gesturing frantically for me to get in. Why me? Why not the others? Because I’m white and it’s about race. Everything is about race here.

This man in the car is trying to do something kind and neighborly. He wants to help me and his gesture is right, but his instincts are so wrong. How do you resent someone who is, for no benefit of his own, trying to help? But I do. I resent him and I resent the world he lives in that taught him such selective kindness. This whole event unravels in a few seconds’ time. He’s leaned over and opened the car door, urging me in … and I get in. And we speed past my fellow walkers and he drops me at my doorstep before I have time to think of anything besides giving him directions.

It feels like a mistake because I’m ashamed to think what the Venda women would have felt if he’d ignored them and they had watched me climb into that car. In some ways, the whole episode seems absurd. I’m not going to atone for 400 years of South African history by walking with black people in the rain. If I’d refused his ride, he wouldn’t have thought anything besides the fact that I was certifiably crazy. That’s the thing about being here: I’m not going to change anything. But I believe it matters in some infinitesimal way that people like the Venda women, and the dozens of people who may walk alongside me on any given day, know that I’m there. In black South African culture it is polite to greet every person you pass. That’s what they do, so I do it, too. On the occasional morning, someone might greet me as “sesi,” sister. I have to believe that matters; I know it matters to me.

I was disappointed in myself for getting into the car because I acted according to the same habit that makes us think rain an inconvenience. Just as we run from the rain, I hopped into that car because I’m supposed to. Conventionally, it makes sense. But convention compels us to do so many things that don’t make any sense at all. Convention misinforms our instincts. And in a larger sense, it is convention that propels Afrikaner culture anachronistically into the future. Ten years after the supposed end of apartheid, I’m living in a world of institutionalized racism. Convention becomes institution—and it’s oppressive and it’s unjust. I know that if I’m going to make it here for two more years, I need to walk in the rain. It’s a small, wasted gesture, but it’s an uncorrupted instinct that makes me feel human.

So much about living here feels like that fraction of a second when the Afrikaner man was appealing to my conventional sensibilities and the people on the street were appealing to my human instincts. It may feel unnatural to reject those sensibilities just as, at first, it feels unnatural to walk in the rain. But if I lose a hold on my instincts here, I’ll fail myself and I’ll fail to achieve those tiny things that matter so much. It’s simple and it’s small; and it’s everything. Gandhi said, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” Indeed. Let it rain.

Comparing and Contrasting London and Washington, DC

Both Washington, DC, and London are capital cities of English-speaking countries, and yet they offer vastly different experiences to their residents and visitors. Comparing and contrasting the two cities based on their history, their culture, and their residents show how different and similar the two are.

Both cities are rich in world and national history, though they developed on very different time lines. London, for example, has a history that dates back over two thousand years. It was part of the Roman Empire and known by the similar name, Londinium. It was not only one of the northernmost points of the Roman Empire but also the epicenter of the British Empire where it held significant global influence from the early sixteenth century on through the early twentieth century. Washington, DC, on the other hand, has only formally existed since the late eighteenth century. Though Native Americans inhabited the land several thousand years earlier, and settlers inhabited the land as early as the sixteenth century, the city did not become the capital of the United States until the 1790s. From that point onward to today, however, Washington, DC, has increasingly maintained significant global influence. Even though both cities have different histories, they have both held, and continue to hold, significant social influence in the economic and cultural global spheres.

Both Washington, DC, and London offer a wide array of museums that harbor many of the world’s most prized treasures. While Washington, DC, has the National Gallery of Art and several other Smithsonian galleries, London’s art scene and galleries have a definite edge in this category. From the Tate Modern to the British National Gallery, London’s art ranks among the world’s best. This difference and advantage has much to do with London and Britain’s historical depth compared to that of the United States. London has a much richer past than Washington, DC, and consequently has a lot more material to pull from when arranging its collections. Both cities have thriving theater districts, but again, London wins this comparison, too, both in quantity and quality of theater choices. With regard to other cultural places like restaurants, pubs, and bars, both cities are very comparable. Both have a wide selection of expensive, elegant restaurants as well as a similar amount of global and national chains. While London may be better known for its pubs and taste in beer, DC offers a different bar-going experience. With clubs and pubs that tend to stay open later than their British counterparts, the DC night life tend to be less reserved overall.

Both cities also share and differ in cultural diversity and cost of living. Both cities share a very expensive cost of living—both in terms of housing and shopping. A downtown one-bedroom apartment in DC can easily cost $1,800 per month, and a similar “flat” in London may double that amount. These high costs create socioeconomic disparity among the residents. Although both cities’ residents are predominantly wealthy, both have a significantly large population of poor and homeless. Perhaps the most significant difference between the resident demographics is the racial makeup. Washington, DC, is a “minority majority” city, which means the majority of its citizens are races other than white. In 2009, according to the US Census, 55 percent of DC residents were classified as “Black or African American” and 35 percent of its residents were classified as “white.” London, by contrast, has very few minorities—in 2006, 70 percent of its population was “white,” while only 10 percent was “black.” The racial demographic differences between the cities is drastic.

Even though Washington, DC, and London are major capital cities of English-speaking countries in the Western world, they have many differences along with their similarities. They have vastly different histories, art cultures, and racial demographics, but they remain similar in their cost of living and socioeconomic disparity.

Sample Student Outline

In “Batman: A Hero for Any Time,” Jacob Gallman-Dreiling compares the traditional portrayal of the superhero Batman with the modern version. As you read, look for the comparison and contrast phrases that the author uses to help the reader understand the argument he is making. What kind of organizational structure does the essay follow?

Jacob Gallman-Dreiling

English 1101

16 March 2013

Thesis : Although the framework of the Batman story always remains the same, the character has been re-imagined over time to suit the changing expectations of a hero through his characterization as well as that of those who surround him, both friends and foes.

Bruce Wayne’s parents are murdered in front of him.
Bruce Wayne grows up to inherit his parents’ fortune.
Batman fights crime with the help of Commissioner Gordon and others.
Batman employs an arsenal of non-lethal weapons to aid him.
Characters could not use concealed weapons.
Stories required “morals.”
Stories could not use kidnapping or excessive violence.
Stories incorporated elements of science fiction.
Stories had limitations on the portrayal of female characters.
Batman’s suits often had ridiculous properties he conveniently prepared for the upcoming mission.
Batman is haunted by the death of his parents.
Batman has become a skilled detective and fighter.
Batman’s suit is more armor than spandex.
Batman is haunted by his mistakes.
Batman and Commissioner Gordon conspire to hide the truth about Harvey Dent from the people of Gotham.
Characters like Ace the Bat-Hound, Bat-Mice, and Batwoman were created to draw in children.
Issues were built around a villain-of-the-week.
Dick Grayson grows up and goes to college.
Batgirl is paralyzed by the Joker.
Joker is given several conflicting backstories explaining his psychosis.
Catwoman has changed from a harmless cat-burglar to a reformed prostitute.

Sample Student Essay

Batman: A Hero for Any Time

Few ideas in this world are as timeless as that of a superhero. The ancient Greeks had Odysseus and Hercules. The British have Sherlock Holmes and Allan Quatermain. The Americans developed the modern concept of the superhero with characters like Superman and Spider-Man and created elaborate stories for the origin of their powers, much like the Greeks used when creating their heroes. While the world of superheroes was originally a white man’s club, the creation of Wonder Woman ushered in a new era of diversity. Now men, women, people of color, even those of differing sexual orientations are represented among the ranks of those who fight against evil. Though teams of superheroes like the Justice League of America and the XMen have enduring popularity, few superheroes have captured the imagination like Batman. Created in 1939 by Bob Kane and Bill Finger, a boy orphaned by violence grows to become the Caped Crusader, avenger of the fictional of Gotham. This comic book hero has spurred film, radio, and television adaptations, has spawned action figures and video games, and has maintained an uninterrupted comic book publication, something few other superhero titles can boast. Although the framework of the Batman story always remains the same, the character has been re-imagined over time to suit the changing expectations of a hero through his characterization as well as through the portrayal of those who surround him, both friends and foes.

The basic framework of the Batman story has stayed the same since his debut in May, 1939. At the age of eight, Bruce Wayne, the son of wealthy socialites, witnesses his parents’ murder at the hands of a desperate mugger and swears to avenge their deaths by waging war on all criminals. He grows up to inherit their fortune and the family company, using the money to fund charitable efforts and to reside in stately Wayne Manor. By night, he becomes Batman, ridding the Gotham City streets of menacing foes like the Joker, the Riddler, and Two-Face. He is aided in his fight by his sidekick Robin, Batgirl, and Commissioner Gordon, as well as his butler Alfred Pennyworth. His most enduring love interest is Selina Kyle, who is also known as the notorious cat-burglar, Catwoman. Batman eschews lethal weaponry such as guns, instead preferring to outwit his foes using his intellect to bring them to justice.

While the key details of Batman’s backstory have remained unchanged for almost seventy-five years, his characterization has changed to suit the ever-evolving expectations of a superhero. When the character debuted in the Silver Age of comics—the decades between 1950 and 1970—he was a sunny, pulpy character: he was billed as the “World’s Greatest Detective” and performed as such, while reflecting what is considered to be a more innocent time. His villains were grand, but he outsmarted them using his intelligence and science. The introduction of the Comics Code Authority in 1954 restricted not only the way that stories were presented but also the types of stories that could be presented. For instance, concealed weapons were forbidden, stories were required to have “morals,” and kidnapping and excessive violence were forbidden. As such, Batman’s stories began incorporating elements of science fiction. As the comics demonstrate, Batman famously repels aliens and an island of animatronic dinosaurs during this period. Also, female characters in the Batman stories of this time are poorly treated. The villain Catwoman had to be shelved due to regulations regarding women and violence, while the original Batwoman was brought on as a potential love interest to quiet the growing assertion of conservative culture warriors that Batman and Robin were, in fact, lovers. When this version of Batwoman was deemed unnecessary, she was written out. This period is also famous for Batman having “batsuits” with heretofore unseen special properties, such as fireproofing and thermal heating.

Modern portrayals of Batman show him as a deeply flawed, psychologically scarred hero. During the 1980s the Comics Code’s influence was waning, and writers like Frank Miller took advantage of this to tell brutal, psychological stories. Haunted by the murder of his parents, a modern Batman is dangerous and calculating. He has returned to his roots as a skilled detective and fighter, which has made him suspicious and paranoid. He is often depicted as having calculated how to defeat his allies, should the need arise, with contingency plans for everyone from Robin to Superman. Modern writers have a young Bruce Wayne train as a ninja before returning to Gotham to become Batman, so greater emphasis is placed on his stealth and fighting skills. The batsuit has reflected this change as well, shifting from a cloth/spandex suit to one that is very clearly body armor, built to withstand bullets and knives.

He is also haunted by his mistakes. After the death of Jason Todd, the second sidekick to go by the codename Robin, Batman spirals into anger and depression over not being able to prevent Jason’s death at the hands of the Joker. For the next decade, Jason’s murder haunts Batman alongside that of his parents as his greatest failure. He puts Jason’s costume on display in the Batcave as motivation. In the 2008 Christopher Nolan film The Dark Knight , Batman and Commissioner Gordon conspire to hide the truth of the popular District Attorney Harvey Dent’s descent into madness so that Gotham City will have a symbol of hope. While that decision is for the good of the city, it leads to Bruce Wayne’s reclusion and an eight year hiatus as Batman. Such dark, psychological stories would never have been allowed during the heyday of the Comics Code Authority.

Just as the portrayal of Batman has shifted to meet the current expectations of a superhero, so too have the depictions of the characters around him, both allies and enemies. During the Silver Age, Batman’s associates are, like Batman himself, light-hearted. Characters like Ace the Bat-Hound and the Bat-Mice were introduced to bring in more young readers, though these characters were rarely seen after 1964. Issues were built around a villain-of-the-week who is purely evil and has no outside motivation. These stories also tend to be episodic with no story arcs or even character arcs. The Joker is originally a calculating murderer, but his character becomes a gleeful trickster to comply with the Code.

As readers matured, the creative forces driving the various Batman outlets were able to tell more complex, meaningful stories. Thus, in modern portrayals, Batman’s associates deal with real, lasting consequences and changes. Beginning with Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight comic series, Batman’s friends begin their trials. Dick Grayson, the original Robin, grows up and goes to college, being replaced by the ill-fated Jason Todd. He becomes a hero in his own right, going by the codename Nightwing and becoming the leader of the Teen Titans. In the seminal 1988 graphic novel The Killing Joke , Batgirl is partially paralyzed by the Joker, who shoots her through her spine as part of an effort to drive her father, Commissioner Gordon, insane. This condition lasts until the DC-Universe-wide reboot in 2011, and she is now able to walk and has resumed the mantle of Batgirl. The Joker himself has been given many different backstories, all of them horrific. Filmmakers give a nod to the Joker’s varied backstories in the film The Dark Knight by having the Joker give conflicting accounts of how he received his trademark scars. Catwoman is originally just a bored housewife who turns to crime, but beginning in the 1980s her story retroactively changes to her being a prostitute who turns to burglary to buy freedom for herself and her sister. Once a staunch villain of Batman, this new version of the character is portrayed more as an antihero; though she is not necessarily an upstanding citizen, the new Catwoman will join forces with Batman to fight evil when it suits her. These stories appeal to an audience craving depth and substance to their characters, far different from the Pre-Vietnam War era Batman stories.

While the key details to the Batman story never change, the way the character has been presented has changed over time, as has the way his associated characters have been presented. It is perhaps this adaptability that has allowed Batman to flourish in popularity for almost seventy-five years, with no signs of that popularity waning. As the demographic for Batman’s stories matures, the power wielded by the Comics Code Authority has diminished, making darker, more meaningful stories possible. Previously one dimensional characters were given subtleties and nuances, much in the way modern film versions depict the heroes of old, from Odysseus to Sherlock Holmes. As society’s norms change, this change is reflected in the way films, stories, and comic books depict superheroes. With all the changes occurring in culture worldwide, who knows what the next generation’s Batman will be like?

External Links

“ Disability ” ( https://tinyurl.com/y99te6e2 ) by Nancy Mairs: In “Disability,” writer Nancy Mairs discusses the experience of being a disabled person in a world focused on the able-bodied. It seems to be titled “Hers” but it is the correct essay.

“ Friending, Ancient or Otherwise ” ( https://tinyurl.com/y85u8ae8 ) by Alex Wright: In “Friending, Ancient or Otherwise,” writer Alex Wright explores the evolution and purpose of friendship in the age of social media.

“ Sex, Lies and Conversation: Why Is It So Hard for Men and Women to Talk to Each Other ? ” ( https://tinyurl.com/y95dpehx ) by Deborah Tannen. In this essay, Tannen compares and contrasts conversation styles. You can view the essay here ( https://tinyurl.com/y9vnjqv8 ) also.

Contributors and Attributions

Adapted from Successful College Composition (Crowther et al.) . Sourced from LibreTexts , licensed under CC BY-NC-SA .

Adapted from Let's Get Writing (Browning, DeVries, Boylan, Kurtz and Burton) . Sourced from LibreTexts , licensed under CC BY-NC-SA .

Go to the Langara College website. Opens in a new window

How to Write a Comparison Essay

Introduction
Essay Outline
Expressions For Comparison Essays
Sample Comparison 1
Sample Comparison 2
Guides & Handouts Home
Writing Centre Home

A comparison essay compares and contrasts two things. That is, it points out the similarities and differences (mostly focusing on the differences) of those two things. The two things usually belong to the same class (ex. two cities, two politicians, two sports, etc.). Relatively equal attention is given to the two subjects being compared. The essay may treat the two things objectively and impartially. Or it may be partial, favoring one thing over the other (ex. "American football is a sissy's game compared to rugby").

The important thing in any comparison essay is that the criteria for comparison should remain the same; that is, the same attributes should be compared . For example, if you are comparing an electric bulb lamp with a gas lamp, compare them both according to their physical characteristics, their history of development, and their operation.

physical characteristics duration of light brightness noise materials that compose it		physical characteristics duration of light brightness noise materials that compose it
inventor dates of invention and development process of development first models acceptance by society		inventor dates of invention and development process of development
type of energy how the energy is used
physical description leaves stem flowers fruit
type of soil needed
	light heat water fertilizer

Narrow Your Focus (in this essay, as in any essay). For example, if you compare two religions, focus on one particular aspect which you can discuss in depth and detail, e.g., sin in Buddhism vs. sin in Christianity, or salvation in two religions. Or if your topic is political, you might compare the Conservative attitude to old growth logging vs. the Green Party's attitude to old growth logging, or the Conservative attitude to the Persian Gulf War vs. the NDP attitude to the same war.

Each paragraph should deal with only one idea and deal with it thoroughly . Give adequate explanation and specific examples to support each idea. The first paragraph introduces the topic, captures the reader's attention, and provides a definite summary of the essay. It may be wise to end the first paragraph with a thesis statement that summarizes the main points of difference (or similarity). For example, "Submarines and warships differ not only in construction, but in their style of weapons and method of attack." This gives the reader a brief outline of your essay, allowing him to anticipate what's to come. Each middle paragraph should begin with a topic sentence that summarizes the main idea of that paragraph (ex. "The musical styles of Van Halen and Steely Dan are as differing in texture as are broken glass and clear water"). An opening sentence like this that uses a metaphor or simile not only summarizes the paragraph but captures the reader's attention, making him want to read on. Avoid a topic sentence that is too dull and too broad (ex. "There are many differences in the musical styles of Van Halen and Steely Dan").

VARY THE STRUCTURE

The structure of the comparison essay may vary. You may use simultaneous comparison structure in which the two things are compared together, feature by feature, point by point. For example, "The electric light bulb lasts 80 hours, while the gas lamp lasts only 20 hours . . . ." Or as in this example (comparing two American presidents):

Consider how perfectly Harding met the requirements for president. Wilson was a visionary who liked to identify himself with "forward-looking men"; Harding was as old-fashioned as those wooden Indians which used to stand in front of cigar stores, "a flower of the period before safety razors." Harding believed that statemanship had come to its apogee in the days of McKinley and Foraker. Wilson was cold. Harding was an affable small-town man, at ease with "folks"; he was an ideal companion to play poker with all Saturday night. Wilson had always been difficult of access; Harding was accessible to the last degree. etc.

Don't use simultaneous structure all the way through the essay, however. It becomes monotonous. Use it sparingly. For most of the essay, use parallel order structure .

In parallel order structure you compare the two things separately but take up the same points in the same order. For example, you may spend half a paragraph on "thing A" and the other half of the paragraph on the corresponding characteristics of "thing B." Or, if you have enough material, devote one paragraph to the physical characteristics of an electric bulb lamp, and the next paragraph to the physical characteristics of the gas lamp.

Or say everything there is to say about the electric bulb lamp (its physical characteristics, history of development and operation), followed by everything there is to say about the gas lamp.

For the sake of variety you may switch to simultaneous comparison at one point in the essay, and then switch back to parallel order structure for the rest of the essay. In fact, there are many ways to structure a comparison essay; use whichever organization works best for your particular paper. Here are a few sample organizational methods. "A" stands for "thing A" (ex. electric lamp) and "B" stands for "thing B" (ex. gas lamp). Each number (1,2,3, etc.) stands for a different aspect of that thing (ex. physical characteristics, operation, history of development).

A1	A1	A1
B1	A2	B1
A2	A3	B2	Each separate line stands
B2	B1	A2	for a separate paragraph
A3	B2	A3
B3	B3	B3

Next: Essay Outline >>
Last Updated: Aug 19, 2019 3:34 PM
URL: https://langara.libguides.com/writing-centre/comparison-essay

Features for Creative Writers
Features for Work
Features for Higher Education
Features for Teachers
Features for Non-Native Speakers
Learn Blog Grammar Guide Community Events FAQ
Grammar Guide

Comparing and Contrasting: A Guide to Improve Your Essays

Walter Akolo

Essays that require you to compare and contrast two or more subjects, ideas, places, or items are common.

They call for you to highlight the key similarities (compare) and differences (contrast) between them.

This guide contains all the information you need to become better at writing comparing and contrasting essays.

This includes: how to structure your essay, how to decide on the content, and some examples of essay questions.

Let’s dive in.

What Is Comparing and Contrasting?

Is compare and contrast the same as similarities and differences, what is the purpose of comparing and contrasting, can you compare and contrast any two items, how do you compare and contrast in writing, what are some comparing and contrasting techniques, how do you compare and contrast in college level writing, the four essentials of compare and contrast essays, what can you learn from a compare and contrast essay.

At their most basic, both comparing and contrasting base their evaluation on two or more subjects that share a connection.

The subjects could have similar characteristics, features, or foundations.

But while a comparison discusses the similarities of the two subjects, e.g. a banana and a watermelon are both fruit, contrasting highlights how the subjects or items differ from each other, e.g. a watermelon is around 10 times larger than a banana.

Any question that you are asked in education will have a variety of interesting comparisons and deductions that you can make.

Compare is the same as similarities.

Contrast is the same as differences.

This is because comparing identifies the likeness between two subjects, items, or categories, while contrasting recognizes disparities between them.

When you compare things, you represent them regarding their similarity, but when you contrast things, you define them in reference to their differences.

As a result, if you are asked to discuss the similarities and differences between two subjects, you can take an identical approach to if you are writing a compare and contrast essay.

In writing, the purpose of comparing and contrasting is to highlight subtle but important differences or similarities that might not be immediately obvious.

By illustrating the differences between elements in a similar category, you help heighten readers’ understanding of the subject or topic of discussion.

For instance, you might choose to compare and contrast red wine and white wine by pointing out the subtle differences. One of these differences is that red wine is best served at room temperature while white is best served chilled.

Also, comparing and contrasting helps to make abstract ideas more definite and minimizes the confusion that might exist between two related concepts.

Can Comparing and Contrasting Be Useful Outside of Academia?

Comparing enables you to see the pros and cons, allowing you to have a better understanding of the things under discussion. In an essay, this helps you demonstrate that you understand the nuances of your topic enough to draw meaningful conclusions from them.

Let's use a real-word example to see the benefits. Imagine you're contrasting two dresses you could buy. You might think:

Dress A is purple, my favorite color, but it has a difficult zip and is practically impossible to match a jacket to.
Dress B is more expensive but I already have a suitable pair of shoes and jacket and it is easier to move in.

You're linking the qualities of each dress to the context of the decision you're making. This is the same for your essay. Your comparison and contrast points will be in relation to the question you need to answer.

Comparing and contrasting is only a useful technique when applied to two related concepts.

To effectively compare two or more things, they must feature characteristics similar enough to warrant comparison.

In addition to this they must also feature a similarity that generates an interesting discussion. But what do I mean by “interesting” here?

Let’s look at two concepts, the Magna Carta and my third grade poetry competition entry.

They are both text, written on paper by a person so they fulfil the first requirement, they have a similarity. But this comparison clearly would not fulfil the second requirement, you would not be able to draw any interesting conclusions.

However, if we compare the Magna Carta to the Bill of Rights, you would be able to come to some very interesting conclusions concerning the history of world politics.

To write a good compare and contrast essay, it’s best to pick two or more topics that share a meaningful connection .

The aim of the essay would be to show the subtle differences or unforeseen similarities.

By highlighting the distinctions between elements in a similar category you can increase your readers’ understanding.

Alternatively, you could choose to focus on a comparison between two subjects that initially appear unrelated.

The more dissimilar they seem, the more interesting the comparison essay will turn out.

For instance, you could compare and contrast professional rugby players with marathon runners.

Can You Compare and Contrast in an Essay That Does Not Specifically Require It?

As a writer, you can employ comparing and contrasting techniques in your writing, particularly when looking for ideas you can later apply in your argument.

You can do this even when the comparison or contrast is not a requirement for the topic or argument you are presenting. Doing so could enable you to build your evaluation and develop a stronger argument.

Note that the similarities and differences you come up with might not even show up in the final draft.

While the use of compare and contrast can be neutral, you can also use it to highlight one option under discussion. When used this way, you can influence the perceived advantages of your preferred option.

As a writing style, comparing and contrasting can encompass an entire essay. However, it could also appear in some select paragraphs within the essay, where making some comparisons serves to better illustrate a point.

What Should You Do First?

Before you compare two things, always start by deciding on the reason for your comparison, then outline the criteria you will use to compare them.

Words and phrases commonly used for comparison include:

In writing, these words and phrases are called transitions . They help readers to understand or make the connection between sentences, paragraphs, and ideas.

Without transition words writing can feel clumsy and disjointed making it difficult to read. ProWritingAid’s transition report highlights all of a documents transitions and suggests that 25% of any sentences in a piece include a transition.

So, how do you form all of this into a coherent essay? It's a good idea to plan first, then decide what your paragraph layout will look like.

Venn diagrams are useful tool to start generating ideas. The, for your essay, you need to choose between going idea by idea and going point by point.

Using a Venn Diagram

A Venn diagram helps you to clearly see the similarities and differences between multiple objects, things, or subjects.

The writing tool comprises two, or more, simple, overlapping circles in which you list down the things that are alike (within the overlapping area) and those that differ (outside the overlapping area).

It’s great for brainstorming ideas and for creating your essay’s outline. You could even use it in an exam setting because it is quick and simple.

Going Subject by Subject

Going subject by subject is a structural choice for your essay.

Start by saying all you have to say on the first subject, then proceed to do the same about the second subject.

Depending on the length of your essay, you can fit the points about each subject into one paragraph or have several sections per each subject, ending with a conclusion.

This method is best for short essays on simple topics. Most university-level essays will go point by point instead.

Going Point by Point

Going point by point, or alternating, is the opposite essay structure from going subject by subject. This is ideal when you want to do more direct comparing and contrasting. It entails discussing one comparison point at a time. It allows you to use a paragraph to talk about how a certain comparing/contrasting point relates to the subjects or items you are discussing.

Alternatively, if you have lots of details about the subject, you might decide to use a paragraph for each point.

An academic compare and contrast essay looks at two or more subjects, ideas, people, or objects, compares their likeness, and contrasts their differences.

It’s an informative essay that provides insights on what is similar and different between the two items.

Depending on the essay’s instructions, you can focus solely on comparing or contrasting, or a combination of the two.

Examples of College Level Compare and Contrast Essay Questions

Here are eleven examples of compare and contrast essay questions that you might encounter at university:

Archaeology: Compare and contrast the skulls of homo habilis, homo erectus, and homo sapiens.
Art: Compare and contrast the working styles of any two Neoclassic artists.
Astrophysics: Compare and contrast the chemical composition of Venus and Neptune.
Biology: Compare and contrast the theories of Lamarck and Darwin.
Business: Compare and contrast 2 or more business models within the agricultural industry.
Creative writing: Compare and contrast free indirect discourse with epistolary styles.
English Literature: Compare and contrast William Wordsworth with Robert Browning.
Geography: Compare and contrast the benefit of solar panels with the benefit of wind turbines.
History: Compare and contrast WWI to WWII with specific reference to the causes and outcomes.
Medicine: Compare and contrast England’s health service with America’s health service.
Psychology: Compare and contrast the behaviorist theory with the psychodynamic theory.

So, the key takeaways to keep in mind are:

Have a basis for comparison. The two things need to have enough in common to justify a discussion about their similarities and disparities.

Don’t go back and forth when using the block method. The best way to write your essay is to begin with a paragraph discussing all the facets of the first topic. Then, move on to another paragraph and talk through all the aspects of the second subject.

You can use both alternating and blocking techniques. Combining the two approaches is also an option. You can apply the alternating method in some paragraphs, then switch and use the block method. This method will help you offer a much deeper analysis of the subjects.

Have a reason for comparing the two things. Only select the points of comparison that resonate with your purpose.

Comparing and contrasting are essential analytical skills in academic writing. When your professor issues you with such an essay, their primary goal is to teach you how to:

Engage in critical thinking
See and make connections between words or ideas
Move beyond mere descriptions or summaries to developing interesting analysis
Get a deeper understanding of the subjects or items under comparison, their key features, and their interrelationships with each other.

The benefits of comparing and contrasting

Ultimately, your essay should enlighten readers by providing useful information.

Want to use ProWritingAid with your classroom? Download this free book now:

ProWritingAid Teacher’s Manual

Editing technology like prowritingaid provides immediate, personalized feedback that will help students to better understand grammar and writing techniques., in this guide , we walk you through exactly how to use prowritingaid in your classroom and give you tools and templates for creating a rigorous, effective independent writing practice with your students..

write a short essay comparing the forms of societies

Be confident about grammar

Check every email, essay, or story for grammar mistakes. Fix them before you press send.

Walter Akolo is a freelance writer, internet marketer, trainer, and blogger for hire. He loves helping businesses increase their reach and conversion through excellent and engaging content. He has gotten millions of pageviews on his blog, FreelancerKenya, where he mentors writers. Check out his website walterakolo.com.

Get started with ProWritingAid

Drop us a line or let's stay in touch via :

Want to create or adapt books like this? Learn more about how Pressbooks supports open publishing practices.

Chapter 4. Society and Modern Life

Learning Objectives

4.1. Types of Societies

Compare ways of understanding the evolution of human societies.
Describe the difference between preindustrial, industrial, postindustrial and postnatural societies.
Understand how a society’s relationship to the environment impacts societal development.

4.2. Theoretical Perspectives on the Formation of Modern Society

Describe Durkheim’s functionalist view of modern society.
Understand the critical sociology view of modern society.
Explain the difference between Marx’s concept of alienation and Weber’s concept of rationalization.
Identify how feminists analyze the development of society.

4.3. Living in Capitalist Society

Understand the relationship between capitalism and the incessant change of modern life.

Introduction to Society

In 1900 a young anthropologist, John Swanton, transcribed a series of myths and tales — known as qqaygaang in the Haida language — told by the master Haida storyteller Ghandl. The tales tell stories of animal and human transformations, of heroes who marry birds, of birds who take off their skins and become women, of mussels who manifest the spirit form of whales, and of poles climbed to the sky.

After she’d offered him something to eat, Mouse Woman said to him, “When I was bringing a bit of cranberry back from my berry patch, you helped me. I intend to lend you something I wore for stalking prey when I was younger.” She brought out a box. She pulled out four more boxes within boxes. In the innermost box was the skin of a mouse with small bent claws. She said to him, “Put this on.” Small though it was, he got into it. It was easy. He went up the wall and onto the roof of the house. And Mouse Woman said to him, “You know what to do when you wear it. Be on your way” (Ghandl, quoted in Bringhurst, 2011).

To the ear of contemporary Canadians, these types of tales often seem confusing. They lack the standard inner psychological characterization of protagonists and antagonists, the “realism” of natural settings and chronological time sequences, or the plot devices of man against man, man against himself, and man against nature. However, as Robert Bringhurst (2011) argues, this is not because the tales are not great literature or have not completely “evolved.” In his estimation, Ghandl should be recognized as one of the most brilliant storytellers who has ever lived in Canada. Rather, it is because the stories speak to, and from, a fundamentally different experience of the world: the experience of nomadic hunting and gathering people as compared to the sedentary people of modern capitalist societies. How does the way we tell stories reflect the organization and social structures of the societies we live in?

Ghandl’s tales are told within an oral tradition rather than a written or literary tradition. They are meant to be listened to, not read, and as such the storytelling skill involves weaving in subtle repetitions and numerical patterns, and plays on Haida words and well-known mythological images rather than creating page-turning dramas of psychological or conflictual suspense. Bringhurst suggests that even compared to the Indo-European oral tradition going back to Homer or the Vedas, the Haida tales do not rely on the auditory conventions of verse. Whereas verse relies on acoustic devices like alliteration and rhyming, Haida mythic storytelling was a form of noetic prosody , relying on patterns of ideas and images. The Haida, as a preagricultural people, did not see a reason to add overt musical qualities to their use of language. “[V]erse in the strictly acoustic sense of the word does not play the same role in preagricultural societies. Humans, as a rule, do not begin to farm their language until they have begun to till the earth and to manipulate the growth of plants and animals.” As Bringhurst puts it, “ myth is that form of language in which poetry and music have not as yet diverged “(Bringhurst, 2011, italics in original).

Perhaps more significantly for sociologists, the hunting and gathering lifestyle of the Haida also produces a very different relationship to the natural world and to the non-human creatures and plants with which they coexisted. This is manifest in the tales of animal-human-spirit transformations and in their moral lessons, which caution against treating the world with disrespect. With regard to understanding Haida storytelling, Bringhurst argues that:

following the poetry they [hunting gathering peoples] make is more like moving through a forest or a canyon, or waiting in a blind, than moving through an orchard or field. The language is often highly ordered, rich, compact — but it is not arranged in neat, symmetrical rows (2011).

In other words, for the hunter who follows animal traces through the woods, or waits patiently for hours in a hunting blind or fishing spot for wild prey to appear, the relationship to the prey is much more akin to “putting on their skins” or spiritually “becoming-animal” than to be a shepherd raising livestock. A successful hunting and gathering people would be inclined to study how animals think from the inside, rather than controlling or manipulating them from the outside. For the Haida, tales of animal transformations would not seem so fantastic or incomprehensible as they do to modern people who spend most of their life indoors. They would be part of their “acutely personal relations with the wild” (Bringhurst, 2011).

Similarly, the Haida ethics, embodied in their tales and myths, acknowledge a complex web of unwritten contracts between humans, animal species, and spirit-beings.

The culture as Ghandl describes it depends — like every hunting culture — not on control of the land as such but on control of the human demands that are placed upon it (Bringhurst, 2011).

In the tales, humans continually confront a world of living beings and forces that are much more powerful and intelligent than they are, and who are quick to take offense at human stupidity and hubris.

What sociologists learn from the detailed studies of the Haida and their literature is how a fundamentally different social relationship to the environment affects the way people think and how they see their place in the world. Nevertheless, although the traditional Haida society of Haida Gwaii in the Pacific Northwest is very different from that of contemporary post-industrial Canada, both can be seen as different ways of expressing the human need to cooperate and live together in order to survive. For the sociologist, this is a lesson in how the type of society one lives in — its scale and social structure — impacts one’s experience of the world at a very fundamental perceptual level.

Haida, Maasai, modern Canadians — each is a society. But what does this mean? Exactly what is a society? In sociological terms, a society refers to a group of people who interact in a definable territory and share the same culture. In practical, everyday terms, societies consist of various types of institutional constraint and coordination exercised over our choices and actions. The type of society we live in determines the nature of these types of constraint and coordination. The nature of our social institutions, the type of work we do, the way we think about ourselves and the structures of power and social inequality that order our life chances are all products of the type of society we live in and thus vary globally and historically.

The founder of sociology, August Comte (1798–1857), provided the first sociological theory of the evolution of human societies. His best known sociological theory was the law of three stages , which held that all human societies and all forms of human knowledge evolve through three distinct stages from primitive to advanced: the theological, the metaphysical, and the positive. The key variable in defining these stages was the way a people conceptualized causation or how they understood their place in the world.

In the theological stage, humans explain causes in terms of the will of anthropocentric gods (the gods cause things to happen). In the metaphysical stage, humans explain causes in terms of abstract, “speculative” ideas like nature, natural rights, social contracts, or “self-evident” truths. This was the basis of Comte’s critique of the Enlightenment philosophers whose ideas about natural rights and freedoms had led to the French Revolution but also to the chaos of its aftermath. In his view, the “negative” or metaphysical knowledge of the philosophers was based on dogmatic ideas that could not be reconciled when they were in contradiction. This lead to inevitable conflict and moral anarchy. Finally, in the positive stage, humans explain causes in terms of positivist, scientific observations and laws (i.e., “positive” knowledge based on propositions limited to what can be empirically observed). Comte believed that this would be the final stage of human social evolution because positivist science could empirically determine how society should be organized. Science could reconcile the division between political factions of order and progress by eliminating the basis for moral and intellectual anarchy. The application of positive philosophy would lead to the unification of society and of the sciences (Comte, 1830/1975).

Karl Marx offered another model for understanding the evolution of types of society. Marx argued that the evolution of societies from primitive to advanced was not a product of the way people thought, as Comte proposed, but of the power struggles in each epoch between different social classes over control of property. The key variable in his analysis was the different modes of production or “material bases” that characterized different forms of society: from hunting and gathering, to agriculture, to industrial production. This historical materialist approach to understanding society explains both social change and the development of human ideas in terms of underlying changes in the mode of production. In other words the type of society and its level of development is determined principally by how a people produces the material goods needed to meet its needs. Their world view, including the concepts of causality described by Comte, followed from the way of thinking involved in the society’s mode of production.

On this basis, Marx categorized the historical types of society into primitive communism, agrarian/slave societies, feudalism, and capitalism. Primitive communists, for example, are hunter gatherers like the Haida whose social institutions and worldview develop in sync with their hunting and gathering relationship to the environment and its resources. They are defined by their hunter-gatherer mode of production.

Marx went on to argue that the historical transformations from one type of society to the next are generated by the society’s capacity to generate economic surpluses and the conflicts and tensions that develop when one class monopolizes economic power or property: land owners over agricultural workers, slave owners over slaves, feudal lords over serfs, or capitalists over labourers. These class dynamics are inherently unstable and eventually lead to revolutionary transformations from one mode of production to the next.

To simplify Comte’s and Marx’s schemas, we might examine the way different types of society are structured around their relationship to nature. Sociologist Gerhard Lenski (1924-2015) defined societies in terms of their technological sophistication. With each advance in technology the relationship between humans and nature is altered. Societies with rudimentary technology are at the mercy of the fluctuations of their environment, while societies with industrial technology have more control over their environment, and thus develop different cultural and social features. On the other hand, societies with rudimentary technology make relatively little impact on their environment, while industrial societies transform it radically. The changes in the relationship between humans and their environment in fact goes beyond technology to encompass all aspects of social life, including its mental life (Comte) and material life (Marx). Distinctions based on the changing nature of this relationship enable sociologists to describe societies along a spectrum: from the foraging societies that characterized the first 90,000 years of human existence to the contemporary postnatural, anthropocene societies in which human activity has made a substantial impact on the global ecosystem.

Preindustrial Societies

Before the Industrial Revolution and the widespread use of machines, societies were small, rural, and dependent largely on local resources. Economic production was limited to the amount of labour a human being could provide, and there were few specialized occupations. Production was (for the most part) for immediate consumption, although evidence of trade between groups also goes back the earliest archaeological records. The very first occupation was that of hunter-gatherer.

Hunter-Gatherer Societies

A Blackfoot tribe gathered in front of teepees.

Of the various types of preindustrial societies, Hunter-gatherer societies demonstrate the strongest dependence on the environment. As the basic structure of all human society until about 10,000–12,000 years ago, these groups were based around kinship or tribal affiliations. Hunter-gatherers relied on their surroundings for survival — they hunted wild animals and foraged for uncultivated plants for food. They survived on what nature provided and immediately consumed what they obtained. They produced no surpluses. When resources became scarce, the group moved to a new area to find sustenance, meaning they were nomadic. The plains Indians of North America, moved frequently to follow their main source of food. Some groups, like the Haida, lived off of abundant, non-depleting resources like fish, which enabled them to establish permanent villages where they could dwell for long periods of the year before dispersing to summer camps. (See “People of the Far Northwest” below).

Most of the caloric intake of hunters and gatherers came from foraging for edible plants, fruits, nuts, berries, and roots. The largely meat-based diet of the Inuit is a notable exception. Richard Lee (1978) estimated that approximately 65% of the hunter-gatherer diet came from plant sources, which had implications for the gender egalitarianism of these societies. With the earliest economic division of labour being between male hunters and women gatherers, the fact that women accounted for the largest portion of the food consumed by the community ensured the importance of their status within the group. On the other hand, early reports of missionaries among the Algonquins of the north shore of Lake Superior observed women with their noses cut off and small parts of their scalp removed as punishment for adultery, suggesting that (at least among some groups) female subordination was common. Male Algonquins often had seven or eight wives (Kenton, 1954).

As a result of their unique relationship and dependence on the environment for sustenance, the ideal type or model that characterized hunter-gatherer societies includes several common features (Diamond, 1974):

The distribution of economic surplus is organized on a communalistic, shared basis in which there is little private property, work is cooperative, and gift giving is extensive. The use of resources was governed by the practice of usufruct , the distribution of resources according to need (Bookchin, 1982).
Power is dispersed either shared equally within the community, or shifting between individual members based on individual skills and talents.
Social control over the members of society is exercised through shared customs and sentiment rather than through the development of formal law or institutions of law enforcement.
Society is organized on the basis of kinship and kinship ties so there are few, if any, social functions or activities separate from family life.
There is little separation between the spheres of intimate private life and public life. Everything is a matter of collective concern.
The life of the community is all “personal” and emotionally charged. There is little division of labour so there is no social isolation.
Art, story telling, ethics, religious ritual and spirituality are all fused together in daily life and experience. They provide a common means of expressing imagination, inspiration, anxiety, need and purpose.

One interesting aspect of hunter-gatherer societies that runs counter to modern prejudices about “primitive” society, is how they developed mechanisms to prevent their evolution into more “advanced” sedentary, agricultural types of society. For example, in the “headman” structure, the authority of the headman or “titular chief” rests entirely on the ongoing support and confidence of community members rather than permanent institutional structures. This is a mechanism that actively wards off the formation of permanent institutionalized power (Clastres, 1987). The headman’s main role is as a diplomatic peacemaker and dispute settler, and he held sway only so long as he maintained the confidence of the tribe. Beyond a headman’s personal prestige, fairness in judgement and verbal ability, there was no social apparatus to enable a permanent institutional power or force to emerge.

Similarly the Northwest Pacific practice of the potlatch, in which goods, food, and other material wealth were regularly given away to neighboring bands, provided a means of redistributing wealth and preventing permanent inequality from developing. Evidence also shows that even when hunter-gatherers lived in close proximity with agriculturalists they were not motivated to adopt the agricultural mode of production because the diet of early agricultural societies was significantly poorer in nutrition (Stavrianos, 1990; Diamond, 1999). Recent evidence from archaeological sites in the British Isles suggests for example that early British hunter-gatherers traded for wheat with continental agriculturalists 2,000 years before agricultural economies were adopted in ancient Britain (Smith et. al., 2015; Larson, 2015). They had close contact with agriculturalists but were not inclined to adopt their sedentary societal forms, presumably because there was nothing appealing about them.

These societies were common until several hundred years ago, but today only a few hundred remain in existence, such as indigenous Australian tribes sometimes referred to as “aborigines,” or the Bambuti, a group of pygmy hunter-gatherers residing in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Still, in 2014, members of the Amazonian Mashco-Piro clan emerged out of their voluntary isolation at the border of Peru and Brasil to make “first contact” with the Brazilian government’s Indigenous people’s authority (Funai) in order to seek protection from suspected drug-traffickers (Collins, 2014). Hunter-gatherer groups largely disappeared under the impact of colonization and European diseases, but it is estimated that another 75 uncontacted tribes still inhabit the Amazonian rainforest.

Making Connections: Big Picture

People of the far northwest.

Vancouver Island and the surrounding mainland coastal area has more than 15 indigenous groups.

The Pacific Northwest region was utterly separate from the Plains and other cultural zones. Its peoples were many and they shared several cultural features that were unique to the region.

By the 1400s there were at least five distinct language groups on the West Coast, including Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, Wakashan, and Salishan, all of which divide into many more dialects. However, these differences (and there are many others) are overshadowed by cultural similarities across the region. An abundance of food from the sea meant that coastal populations enjoyed comparatively high fertility rates and life expectancy. Population densities were, as a consequence, among the highest in the Americas.

The people of the Pacific Northwest do not share the agricultural traditions that existed east of the Rockies, nor did they influence Plains and other cultures. There was, however, a long and important relationship of trade and culture between the coastal and interior peoples. In some respects it is appropriate to consider the mainland cultures as inlet-and-river societies. The Salish-speaking peoples of the Straight of Georgia (Salish Sea) share many features with the Interior Salish (Okanagan, Secwepemc, Nlaka’pamux, Stl’atl’imx), though they are not as closely bound as the peoples of the Skeena and Stikine Valleys (which include the Tsimshian, the Gitxsan, and the Nisga’a). Running north of the Interior Salish nations through the Cariboo Plateau, and flanked on the west by the Coast Mountain Range, are societies associated with the Athabascan language group. Some of these peoples took on cultural habits and practices more typically associated with the Pacific Northwest coastal traditions than with the northern Athabascan peoples who cover a swath of territory from Alaska to northern Manitoba. In what is now British Columbia, the Tsilhqot’in, the Dakelh, Wet’suwet’en, and Sekani were part of an expansive, southward-bound population that sent offshoots into the Nicola Valley and deep into the southwest of what is now the United States.

Most coastal and interior groups lived in large, permanent towns in the winter, and these villages reflected local political structures. Society in Pacific Northwest groups was generally highly stratified and included, in many instances, an elite, a commoner class, and a slave class. The Kwakwaka’wakw, whose domain extended in pre-contact times from the northern tip of Vancouver Island south along its east coast to Quadra Island and possibly farther, assembled kin groups ( numayms ) as part of a system of social rank in which all groups were ranked in relation to others. Additionally, each kin group “owned” names or positions that were also ranked. An individual could hold more than one name; some names were inherited and others were acquired through marriage. In this way, an individual could acquire rank through kin associations, although kin groups themselves had ascribed ranks. Movement in and out of slavery was even possible.

The fact that slavery existed points to the competition that existed between coastal rivals. The Haida, Tsimshian, Haisla, Nuxalk, Heiltsuk, Wuikinuxv (Oowekeeno), Kwakwaka’wakw, Pentlatch/K’ómoks, and Nuu-chah-nulth regularly raided one another and their Stó:lō neighbours. Many of the winter towns were in some way or other fortified and, indeed, small stone defensive sniper blinds can still be discerned in the Fraser Canyon. The large number of oral traditions that arise from this era regularly reference conflict and the severe loss of personnel. Natural disasters are also part of the oral tradition: they tell of massive and apocalyptic floods as well as volcanic explosions and other seismic (and tidal) events that had tremendous impacts on local populations.

The practice of potlatch (a public feast held to mark important community events, deaths, ascensions, etc.) is a further commonality. It involved giving away property and thus redistributing wealth as a means for the host to maintain, reinforce, and even advance through the complex hierarchical structure. In receiving property at a potlatch an attendee was committing to act as a witness to the legitimacy of the event being celebrated. The size of potlatching varied radically and would evolve along new lines in the post-contact period, but the outlines and protocols of this cultural trademark were well-elaborated centuries before the contact moment. Potlatching was universal among the coastal peoples and could also be found among more inland, upriver societies as well.

Horticulture — the domestication of some plants — was another important source of food. West Coast peoples and the nations of the Columbia Plateau (which covers much of southern inland British Columbia), like many eastern groups, applied controlled burning to eliminate underbrush and open up landscape to berry patches and meadows of camas plants that were gathered for their potato-like roots. This required somewhat less labour than farming (although harvesting root plants is never light work), and it functioned within a strategy of seasonal camps. Communities moved from one food crop location to another for preparation and then, later, harvest. A great deal of the land seized upon by early European settlers in the Pacific Northwest included these berry patches and meadows. These were attractive sites because they had been cleared of huge trees and consisted of mostly open and well-drained pasture. Europeans would see these spaces as pastoral, natural, and available rather than anthropogenic (human-made) landscapes — the product of centuries of horticultural experimentation.

“People of the Far Northwest” excerpted from John Belshaw, 2015, Canadian History: Pre-Confederation , (Vancouver: BCCampus). Used under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Horticultural and Pastoral Societies

The ancestors of modern corn. Teocinte is very small with only 11 kernals.

Around 10,200 BCE, another type of society developed in ancient Anatolia, (now part of Turkey), based on the newly developed capacity for people to grow and cultivate plants. Previously, the depletion of a region’s crops or water supply forced hunter-gatherer societies to relocate in search of food sources. Horticultural societies formed in areas where rainfall and other conditions provided fertile soils to grow stable crops with simple hand tools. Their increasing degree of control over nature decreased their dependence on shifting environmental conditions for survival. They no longer had to abandon their location to follow resources and were able to find permanent settlements. The new horticultural technology created more stability and dependability, produced more material goods and provided the basis for the first revolution in human survival: the neolithic revolution .

Changing conditions and adaptations also led some societies to rely on the domestication of animals where circumstances permitted. Roughly 8,000 BCE, human societies began to recognize their ability to tame and breed animals. Pastoral societies rely on the domestication of animals as a resource for survival. Unlike earlier hunter-gatherers who depended entirely on existing resources to stay alive, pastoral groups were able to breed livestock for food, clothing, and transportation, creating a surplus of goods. Herding, or pastoral, societies remained nomadic because they were forced to follow their animals to fresh feeding grounds.

With the emergence of horticultural and pastoral societies during the neolithic revolution, stable agricultural surpluses began to be generated, population densities increased, specialized occupations developed, and societies commenced sustained trading with other local groups. Feuding and warfare also grew with the accumulation of wealth. One of the key inventions of the neolithic revolution therefore was structured, social inequality: the development of a class structure based on the appropriation of surpluses. A social class can be defined as a group that has a distinct relationship to the means of production. In neolithic societies, based on horticulture or animal husbandry as their means of production, control of land or livestock became the first form of private property that enabled one relatively small group to take the surpluses while another much larger group produced them. For the first time in history, societies were divided between producing classes and owning classes. Moreover, as control of land was the source of power in neolithic societies, ways of organizing and defending it became a more central preoccupation. The development of permanent administrative and military structures, taxation, as well as the formation of specialized priestly classes to spiritually unite society originated on the basis of the horticultural and pastoral relationship to nature.

Agricultural Societies

A soldier leading two men with a rope tied around their necks.

While pastoral and horticultural societies used small, temporary tools such as digging sticks or hoes, agricultural societies relied on permanent tools for survival. Around 3,000 BCE, an explosion of new technology known as the Agricultural Revolution made farming possible — and profitable. Farmers learned to rotate the types of crops grown on their fields and to reuse waste products such as fertilizer, which led to better harvests and bigger surpluses of food. New tools for digging and harvesting were made of metal, making them more effective and longer lasting. Human settlements grew into towns and cities, and particularly bountiful regions became centres of trade and commerce.

This era in which some classes of people had the time and comfort to engage in more contemplative and thoughtful activities, such as music, poetry, and philosophy, became referred to as the “dawn of civilization” by some because of the development of leisure and arts. Craftspeople were able to support themselves through the production of creative, decorative, or thought-provoking aesthetic objects and writings.

As agricultural techniques made the production of surpluses possible, social classes and power structures became further entrenched. Kinship ties became secondary to other forms of social allegiance and power. Those with the power to appropriate the surpluses were able to dominate the society on a wider scale than ever before. Classes of nobility and religious elites developed. As cities expanded, ownership and protection of resources became an ever pressing concern and the militarization of society became more prominent. Difference in social standing between men and women, already initiated in neolithic societies, became more pronounced and institutionalized. Slavery — the ownership and control of humans as property — was also institutionalized as a large scale source of labour. In the agricultural empires of Greece and Rome, slavery was the dominant form of class exploitation. However, as slaves were largely acquired through military acquisition, ancient slavery as an institution was inherently unstable and inefficient.

Making Connections: Sociological Concepts

The dialectic of culture, the monuments of easter island and the cult of progress.

A group of tall, human-like stone statues.

The mystery of the monuments of moai on Easter Island speaks to a key puzzle in the analysis of society and societal change. This mystery has to do with the way that cultural attitudes and beliefs have an ability to become rigid and inflexible, sometimes to the degree that they become independent of the material reality they are intended to interpret or give meaning to. Cultural beliefs can take on a life of their own whether they have relevance to the survival of a people or not. The idea of a dialectic of culture refers to the way in which the creation of culture — beliefs, practices, ways of life, technologies, and material artifacts, etc. — is both constrained by limits given by the environment and a means to go beyond these natural limits, to adapt and modify the environment to suit human purposes and needs. This dialectic provides a model for understanding how societies evolve and change, but it also reveals the precarious nature of the human/environment relationship.

The anthropologist Ronald Wright (2004) described this phenomenon with regard to the history of the indigenous people of Easter Island in the South Pacific. The archaeological record shows that Easter Island, or Rapa Nui, once had a lush, richly soiled, and densely treed ecosystem that sustained a population of approximately 10,000 people. However, by the time the Dutch arrived in the early 18th century, the ecosystem of the island was barren, and only 2,000 poorly nourished inhabitants were living there. At the same time, approximately 1,000 massive, 30-foot high monuments or “moai”, the height of 3 story buildings, were there — one for every 10 inhabitants at the height of the island’s population. The origins of the moai struck European observers as mysterious because the means of their construction had long vanished. Commentators as late as the 1970s claimed that these must have been the work of some vanished ancient civilization or even visitors from outer space (e.g., von Daniken, 1969).

However, as archeologists discovered, the monuments had been erected through concerted human labour to honour the ancestors of rival island clans when the islands were more populated and forested. As the rivalry between clans became more intense, around the time of the European Middle Ages, the stone images became increasingly extravagant. Each generation built larger and larger moai by using up valuable resources, especially timber. By 1400, the island was treeless. As Wright puts it, the compulsion of the statue cults to build more and larger moai to honour the ancestors was an “ideological pathology” (2004), a fixed cultural idea that so defied practical sense that it undermined the ability of a people to survive.

Wright makes the analogy between the statue cults of Easter Island and the contemporary “cult of progress” in which an increasing exploitation of resources and an accumulation of wealth are valued in themselves. As a modern version of ideological pathology, the cult of progress has no regard for social and environmental sustainability. He cites Bahn and Flenley:

[The islanders] carried out for us the experiment of permitting unrestricted population growth, profligate use of resources, destruction of the environment and boundless confidence in their religion to take care of the future. The result was an ecological disaster leading to a population crash. Do we have to repeat the experiment on a grand scale? Is the human personality always the same as that of the person who felled the last tree? (Wright, 2004, p. 63)

To understand this dynamic, it is important to attend to the dialectic of culture. Culture is the means that a society uses to make sense of the world. It responds to changes in the mode of production or economy of a society. As new types of production are created, the relationship to the world is modified, and new cultural understandings emerge. People begin to see the world in a different way because they are interacting with it in a different way. These understandings are of course influenced by the corresponding relations of power in society, which determine whose perspectives on the world become “truths” and whose do not.

In this dialectical model, it is important to point out that changes in the mode of production do not determine or cause cultural beliefs in some sort of mechanical relationship, just as the invention of the piano did not cause Mozart’s piano concertos to be written. As Marx puts it:

mankind always sets itself only such tasks as it can solve; since, looking at the matter more closely, it will always be found that the task itself arises only when the material conditions for its solution already exist or are at least in the process of formation” (1859/1977).

To this, we might add that the “tasks” or cultural possibilities set by the material conditions of a society can be taken up in many different ways, or not at all. On the other hand, as Wright’s examples show, cultural beliefs, practices, and tasks can become rigid and unresponsive to material reality, unhinged from the ability of the environment or the economy to sustain them. Therefore, it is appropriate to view culture as being in a fluid and dialectical relationship with the mode of production. One does not cause the other in a deterministic manner; rather, both provide the limits or parameters within which the other develops. If a culturally driven process exceeds the capacity of material reality to sustain it, the culture is in danger of no longer being viable.

Feudal Societies

In Europe, the 9th century gave rise to feudal societies . Feudal societies were still agriculturally based but organized according to a strict hierarchical system of power founded on land ownership, military protection, and duties or mutual obligations between the different classes. Feudalism is usually used in a restricted sense by historians to describe the societies of post-Roman Europe, from roughly the 9th to the 15th centuries (the “middle ages”), although these societies bare striking resemblance to the hierarchical, agricultural-based societies of Japan, China, and pre-contact America (e.g., Aztec, Inca) of the same period.

In Europe the class system of feudalism was organized around the parceling out of manors or estates by the aristocracy to vassals and knights in return for their military service. The nobility, known as lords, rewarded knights or vassals by granting them pieces of land. In return for the resources that the land provided, vassals promised to fight for their lords. These individual pieces of land, known as fiefdoms, were cultivated by the lower class of serfs. Serfs were not slaves, in that they were at least nominally free men and women, but they produced agricultural surpluses for lords primarily through forced agricultural service. In return for maintaining and working the land, serfs were guaranteed a place to live and military protection from outside enemies. They were able to produce food and goods for their own consumption on private land allotments, or on common allotments shared by the community. Power in feudal society was handed down through family lines, with serf families serving lords for generations and generations.

In later forms of feudalism, the forced labour of the serfs was gradually replaced by a system of rents and taxation. Serfs worked their own plots of land but gave their lords a portion of what they produced. Gradually payment in the form of goods and agricultural surplus was replaced by payment in the form of money. This prompted the development of markets in which the exchange of goods through bartering was replaced by the exchange of goods for money. This was the origin of the money economy. In bartering, the buyer and the seller have to need each other’s goods. In a market economy, goods are exchanged into a common medium of value — money — which can then be exchanged for goods of any nature. Markets therefore enabled goods and services to be bought and sold on a much larger scale and in a much more systematic and efficient way. Money also enabled land to be bought and sold instead of handed down through hereditary right. Money could be accumulated and financial debts could be incurred.

Ultimately, the social and economic system of feudalism was surpassed by the rise of capitalism and the technological advances of the industrial era, because money allowed economic transactions to be conceived and conducted in an entirely new way. In particular, the demise of feudalism was initiated by the increasing need to intensify labour and improve productivity as markets became more competitive and the economy less dependent on agriculture.

Industrial Societies

A group of women sitting at a long table wrapping soap.

In the 18th century, Europe experienced a dramatic rise in technological invention, ushering in an era known as the Industrial Revolution. What made this period remarkable was the number of new inventions that influenced people’s daily lives. Within a generation, tasks that had until this point required months of labour became achievable in a matter of days. Before the Industrial Revolution, work was largely person- or animal-based, relying on human workers or horses to power mills and drive pumps. In 1782, James Watt and Matthew Boulton created a steam engine that could do the work of 12 horses by itself.

Steam power began appearing everywhere. Instead of paying artisans to painstakingly spin wool and weave it into cloth, people turned to textile mills that produced fabric quickly at a better price, and often with better quality. Rather than planting and harvesting fields by hand, farmers were able to purchase mechanical seeders and threshing machines that caused agricultural productivity to soar. Products such as paper and glass became available to the average person, and the quality and accessibility of education and health care soared. Gas lights allowed increased visibility in the dark, and towns and cities developed a nightlife.

One of the results of increased wealth, productivity, and technology was the rise of urban centres. Serfs and peasants, expelled from their ancestral lands, flocked to the cities in search of factory jobs, and the populations of cities became increasingly diverse. The new generation became less preoccupied with maintaining family land and traditions, and more focused on survival. Some were successful in acquiring wealth and achieving upward mobility for themselves and their family. Others lived in devastating poverty and squalor. Whereas the class system of feudalism had been rigid, and resources for all but the highest nobility and clergy were scarce, under capitalism social mobility (both upward and downward) became possible.

It was during the 18th and 19th centuries of the Industrial Revolution that sociology was born. Life was changing quickly and the long-established traditions of the agricultural eras did not apply to life in the larger cities. Masses of people were moving to new environments and often found themselves faced with horrendous conditions of filth, overcrowding, and poverty. Social science emerged in response to the unprecedented scale of the social problems of modern society.

It was during this time that power moved from the hands of the aristocracy and “old money” to the new class of rising bourgeoisie who were able to amass fortunes in their lifetimes. In Canada, a new cadre of financiers and industrialists like Donald Smith (1st Baron Strathcona and Mount Royal) and George Stephen (1st Baron Mount Stephen) became the new power players, using their influence in business to control aspects of government as well. Eventually, concerns over the exploitation of workers led to the formation of labour unions and laws that set mandatory conditions for employees. Although the introduction of new “postindustrial” technologies (like computers) at the end of the 20th century ended the industrial age, much of our social structure and social ideas — such as the nuclear family, left-right political divisions, and time standardization — have a basis in industrial society.

Postindustrial Societies

A desk with books, coffee, a laptop, and a computer monitor.

Digital technology is the steam engine of information societies, and high tech companies such as Apple, Microsoft and RIM are its version of railroad and steel manufacturing corporations. Since the economy of information societies is driven by knowledge and not material goods, power lies with those in charge of creating, storing, and distributing information. Members of a postindustrial society are likely to be employed as sellers of services — software programmers or business consultants, for example — instead of producers of goods. Social classes are divided by access to education, since without technical and communication skills, people in an information society lack the means for success.

Postnatural Society: The Anthropocene

Red blood cells travelling through blood vessels

Recent scientific and technological developments transform the relationship to nature to a such a degree that it is possible to talk about a new postnatural society . Advances in computing, genetics, nano-technology and quantum mechanics create the conditions for society in which the limits imposed by nature are overcome by technological interventions at the molecular level of life and matter. Donna Haraway (1991) describes the new “cyborg” reality that becomes possible when the capacities of the body and mind are enhanced by various prosthetic devices like artificial organs or body parts. When these artificial prosthetics do not simply replace defective anatomy but improve upon it, one can argue that the conditions of life have become postnatural. In his science fiction novel Holy Fire (1996), Bruce Sterling extrapolates from recent developments in medical knowledge to imagine a future epoch of posthumanity , i.e., a period in which the mortality that defined the human condition for millennia has effectively been eliminated through the technologies of life preservation.

Through genetic engineering, scientists have been able to create new life forms since the early 1970s. This research is fueled by the prospect of using genetic technologies to solve problems, like disease and aging, at the level of the DNA molecule that contains the “blueprint” of life. Food crops can be designed that are pest-resistant, drought-resistant or more productive. These technologies are therefore theoretically capable of solving environmentally imposed restrictions on our collective ability to feed the hungry. Similarly, nanotechnologies, which allow the physical properties of materials to be engineered at the atomic and subatomic level, pose the possibility of an infinitely manipulable universe. The futurologist Ray Kurzweil (2009) suggests that on the basis of nanotechnology “we’ll be able to create just about anything we need in the physical world from information files with very inexpensive input materials.” Others caution that the complexity of risks posed by the introduction of these molecular technologies into the environment makes their use decidedly dangerous and their consequences incalculable. This is a very postnatural dilemma; one that would not have occurred to people in earlier types of society.

What are the effects of postnatural technologies on the structure and forms of social life and society? At present, these technologies are extremely capital-intensive to develop, which suggests that they will have implications for social inequality — both within societies and globally. Wealthy nations and wealthy individuals will be the most likely beneficiaries. Moreover, as the development of postnatural technologies do not impact the basic structures of capitalism, for the forseeable future decisions on which avenues of research are to be pursued will be decided solely on the basis of profitable returns. Many competing questions concerning the global risks of the technologies and the ethics of their implementation are secondary to the profit motives of the corporations that own the knowledge.

In terms of the emergent life technologies like genetic engineering or micro-biochemical research, Nikolas Rose (2007) suggests that we are already experiencing five distinct lines of social transformation:

The “molecularization” of our perspective on the human body, or life in general, implies that we now visualize the body and intervene in its processes at the molecular level. We are “no longer constrained by the normativity of a given order.” From growing skin in a petri dish to the repurposing of viruses, the body can be reconstructed in new, as yet unknown forms because of the pliability of life at the molecular level.
The technologies shift our attention to the optimization of the body’s capacities rather than simply curing illness. It becomes possible to address our risk and susceptibility to future illnesses or aging processes, just as it becomes feasible to enhance the body’s existing capacities (e.g., strength, cognitive ability, beauty, etc.).
The relationship between bodies and political life changes to create new forms of biological citizenship. We increasingly construct our identities according to the specific genetic markers that define us, (e.g., “we are the people with Leber’s Amaurosis”), and on this basis advocate for policy changes, accommodations, resources, and research funding, etc.
The complexity of the knowledge in this field increasingly forces us to submit ourselves to the authority of the new somatic specialists and authorities, from neurologists to genetics counselors.
As the flows of capital investment in biotechnology and biomedicine shift towards the creation of a new “bioeconomy,” the fundamental processes of life are turned into potential sources of profit and “biovalue.”

Some have described the postnatural period that we are currently living in as the Anthropocene . The anthropocene is defined as the geological epoch following the Pleistocene and Holocene in which human activities have significantly impacted the global ecosystem (Crutzen and Stoermer, 2000). Climate change is the primary example of anthropocenic effect, but it includes a number of other well-known examples from soil erosion and species extinction to the acidification of the oceans. Of course this impact began at least as early as the 19th century with the effects on the environment caused by the industrial revolution. Arguably, however, it is the recently established knowledge and scientific evidence of these effects which constitutes the current era as the anthropocene. In the anthropocene we become aware of the global nature of the catastrophic risks that human activities pose to the environment. It is also this knowledge that enables the possibility of institutional, economic, and political change to address these issues. Current developments like the use of cap and trade or carbon pricing to factor in the cost the environmental impact into economic calculations, the shift to “green” technologies like solar and wind power, or even curbside recycling have both global implications and direct repercussions for the organization of daily life.

T. Eaton Co. department store in 1901. Long description available.

While many sociologists have contributed to research on society and social interaction, three thinkers provide the basis of modern-day perspectives. Émile Durkheim, Karl Marx, and Max Weber developed different theoretical approaches to help us understand the development of modern capitalist society. In Chapter 3, we discussed how the members of a society come to share common norms and values: a way of life or culture . In the following discussion of modern society , we examine Durkheim’s, Marx’s and Weber’s analytical focus on another foundational sociological concept: social structure .

As we saw in Chapter 1, social structures can be defined as general patterns of social behaviour and organization that persist through time. Here Durkheim’s analysis focuses on the impacts of the growing division of labour as a uniquely modern social structure, Marx’s on the economic structures of capitalism (private property, class, competition, crisis, etc.), and Weber’s on the rationalized structures of modern organization. While the aspect of modern structure that Durkheim, Marx and Weber emphasize differs, their common approach is to stress the impact of social structure on culture and ways of life rather than the other way around. This remains a key element of sociological explanation today.

Émile Durkheim and Functionalism

Émile Durkheim’s (1858-1917) key focus in studying modern society was to understand the conditions under which social and moral cohesion could be reestablished. He observed that European societies of the 19th century had undergone an unprecedented and fractious period of social change that threatened to dissolve society altogether. In his book The Division of Labour in Society (1893/1960), Durkheim argued that as modern societies grew more populated, more complex, and more difficult to regulate, the underlying basis of solidarity or unity within the social order needed to evolve. His primary concern was that the cultural glue that held society together was failing, and that the divisions between people were becoming more conflictual and unmanageable. Therefore Durkheim developed his school of sociology to explain the principles of cohesiveness of societies (i.e., their forms of social solidarity ) and how they change and survive over time. He thereby addressed one of the fundamental sociological questions: why do societies hold together rather than fall apart?

Two central components of social solidarity in traditional, premodern societies were the common collective conscience — the communal beliefs, morals, and attitudes of a society shared by all — and high levels of social integration — the strength of ties that people have to their social groups. These societies were held together because most people performed similar tasks and shared values, language, and symbols. There was a low division of labour, a common religious system of social beliefs, and a low degree of individual autonomy. Society was held together on the basis of mechanical solidarity : a minimal division of labour and a shared collective consciousness with harsh punishment for deviation from the norms. Such societies permitted a low degree of individual autonomy. Essentially there was no distinction between the individual conscience and the collective conscience.

Societies with mechanical solidarity act in a mechanical fashion; things are done mostly because they have always been done that way. If anyone violated the collective conscience embodied in laws and taboos, punishment was swift and retributive . This type of thinking was common in preindustrial societies where strong bonds of kinship and a low division of labour created shared morals and values among people, such as among the feudal serfs. When people tend to do the same type of work, Durkheim argued, they tend to think and act alike.

Modern societies, according to Durkheim, were more complex. Collective consciousness was increasingly weak in individuals and the ties of social integration that bound them to others were increasingly few. Modern societies were characterized by an increasing diversity of experience and an increasing division of people into different occupations and specializations. They shared less and less commonalities that could bind them together. However, as Durkheim observed, their ability to carry out their specific functions depended upon others being able to carry out theirs. Modern society was increasingly held together on the basis of a division of labour or organic solidarity: a complex system of interrelated parts, working together to maintain stability, i.e., like an organism (Durkheim, 1893/1960).

According to his theory, as the roles individuals in the division of labour become more specialized and unique, and people increasingly have less in common with one another, they also become increasingly interdependent on one another. Even though there is an increased level of individual autonomy — the development of unique personalities and the opportunity to pursue individualized interests — society has a tendency to cohere because everyone depends on everyone else. The academic relies on the mechanic for the specialized skills required to fix their car, the mechanic sends their children to university to learn from the academic, and both rely on the baker to provide them with bread for their morning toast. Each member of society relies on the others. In premodern societies, the structures like religious practice that produce shared consciousness and harsh retribution for transgressions function to maintain the solidarity of society as a whole; whereas in modern societies, the occupational structure and its complex division of labour function to maintain solidarity through the creation of mutual interdependence.

While the transition from mechanical to organic solidarity is, in the long run, advantageous for a society, Durkheim noted that it creates periods of chaos and “normlessness.” One of the outcomes of the transition is social anomie . Anomie — literally, “without norms” — is a situation in which society no longer has the support of a firm collective consciousness. There are no clear norms or values to guide and regulate behaviour. Anomie was associated with the rise of industrial society, which removed ties to the land and shared labour; the rise of individualism, which removed limits on what individuals could desire; and the rise of secularism, which removed ritual or symbolic foci and traditional modes of moral regulation. During times of war or rapid economic development, the normative basis of society was also challenged. People isolated in their specialized tasks tend to become alienated from one another and from a sense of collective conscience. However, Durkheim felt that as societies reach an advanced stage of organic solidarity, they avoid anomie by redeveloping a set of shared norms. According to Durkheim, once a society achieves organic solidarity, it has finished its development.

Karl Marx and Critical Sociology

For Marx, the creation of modern society was tied to the emergence of capitalism as a global economic system. In the mid-19th century, as industrialization was expanding, Karl Marx (1818–1883) observed that the conditions of labour became more and more exploitative. The large manufacturers of steel were particularly ruthless, and their facilities became popularly dubbed “satanic mills” based on a poem by William Blake. Marx’s colleague and friend, Frederick Engels, wrote The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844, which described in detail the horrid conditions.

Such is the Old Town of Manchester, and on re-reading my description, I am forced to admit that instead of being exaggerated, it is far from black enough to convey a true impression of the filth, ruin, and uninhabitableness, the defiance of all considerations of cleanliness, ventilation, and health which characterise the construction of this single district, containing at least twenty to thirty thousand inhabitants. And such a district exists in the heart of the second city of England, the first manufacturing city of the world (1812).

Add to that the long hours, the use of child labour, and exposure to extreme conditions of heat, cold, and toxic chemicals, and it is no wonder that Marx referred to capital as “dead labour, that, vampire-like, only lives by sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks” (Marx, 1867/1995).

As we saw at the beginning of the chapter, Marx’s explanation of the exploitative nature of industrial society draws on a more comprehensive theory of the development of human societies from the earliest hunter-gatherers to the modern era: historical materialism . For Marx, the underlying structure of societies and of the forces of historical change was predicated on the relationship between the “base and superstructure” of societies. In this model, society’s economic structure forms its base , on which the culture and other social institutions rest, forming its superstructure . For Marx, it is the base—the economic mode of production— that determines what a society’s culture, law, political system, family form, and, most importantly, its typical form of struggle or conflict will be like. Each type of society—hunter-gatherer, pastoral, agrarian, feudal, capitalist—could be characterized as the total way of life that forms around different economic bases.

A pyramid: the base is the economy, which supports government, religion, education, and culture

Marx saw economic conflict in society as the primary means of change. The base of each type of society in history — its economic mode of production — had its own characteristic form of economic struggle. This was because a mode of production is essentially two things: the means of production of a society — anything that is used in production to satisfy needs and maintain existence (e.g., land, animals, tools, machinery, factories, etc.) — and the relations of production of a society — the division of society into economic classes (the social roles allotted to individuals in production). Marx observed historically that in each epoch or type of society since the early “primitive communist” foraging societies, only one class of persons has owned or monopolized the means of production. Different epochs are characterized by different forms of ownership and different class structures: hunter-gatherer (classless/common ownership), agricultural (citizens/slaves), feudal (lords/peasants), and capitalism (capitalists/“free” labourers). As a result, the relations of production have been characterized by relations of domination since the emergence of private property in the early Agrarian societies. Throughout history, societies have been divided into classes with opposed or contradictory interests. These “class antagonisms,” as he called them, periodically lead to periods of social revolution in which it becomes possible for one type of society to replace another.

The most recent revolutionary transformation resulted in the end of feudalism. A new revolutionary class emerged from among the freemen, small property owners, and middle-class burghers of the medieval period to challenge and overthrow the privilege and power of the feudal aristocracy. The members of the bourgeoisie or capitalist class were revolutionary in the sense that they represented a radical change and redistribution of power in European society. Their power was based in the private ownership of industrial property, which they sought to protect through the struggle for property rights, notably in the English Civil War (1642–1651) and the French Revolution (1789–1799). The development of capitalism inaugurated a period of world transformation and incessant change through the destruction of the previous class structure, the ruthless competition for markets, the introduction of new technologies, and the globalization of economic activity.

As Marx and Engels put it in The Communist Manifesto:

The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his “natural superiors”, and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous “cash payment.” It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation…. The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society (1848/1977).

However, the rise of the bourgeoisie and the development of capitalism also brought into existence the class of “free” wage labourers, or the proletariat . The proletariat were made up largely of guild workers and serfs who were freed or expelled from their indentured labour in feudal guild and agricultural production and migrated to the emerging cities where industrial production was centred. They were “free” labour in the sense that they were no longer bound to feudal lords or guildmasters. The new labour relationship was based on a contract. However, as Marx pointed out, this meant in effect that workers could sell their labour as a commodity to whomever they wanted, but if they did not sell their labour they would starve. The capitalist had no obligations to provide them with security, livelihood, or a place to live as the feudal lords had done for their serfs. The source of a new class antagonism developed based on the contradiction of fundamental interests between the bourgeois owners and the wage labourers: where the owners sought to reduce the wages of labourers as far as possible to reduce the costs of production and remain competitive, the workers sought to retain a living wage that could provide for a family and secure living conditions. The outcome, in Marx and Engel’s words, was that “society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other — Bourgeoisie and Proletariat” (1848/1977).

Marx and the Theory of Alienation

People working on an assembly line clothed in white suits that only leave the eyes uncovered.

For Marx, what we do defines who we are. What it is to be “human” is defined by the capacity we have as a species to creatively transform the world in which we live to meet our needs for survival. Humanity at its core is Homo faber (“Man the Creator”). In historical terms, in spite of the persistent nature of one class dominating another, the element of humanity as creator existed. There was at least some connection between the worker and the product, augmented by the natural conditions of seasons and the rising and setting of the sun, such as we see in an agricultural society. But with the bourgeois revolution and the rise of industry and capitalism, workers now worked for wages alone. The essential elements of creativity and self-affirmation in the free disposition of their labour was replaced by compulsion. The relationship of workers to their efforts was no longer of a human nature, but based purely on animal needs. As Marx put it, the worker “only feels himself freely active in his animal functions of eating, drinking, and procreating, at most also in his dwelling and dress, and feels himself an animal in his human functions” (1932/1977).

Marx described the economic conditions of production under capitalism in terms of alienation. Alienation refers to the condition in which the individual is isolated and divorced from their society, work, or the sense of self and common humanity. Marx defined four specific types of alienation that arose with the development of wage labour under capitalism.

Alienation from the product of one’s labour. An industrial worker does not have the opportunity to relate to the product they are labouring on. The worker produces commodities, but at the end of the day the commodities not only belong to the capitalist, but serve to enrich the capitalist at the worker’s expense. In Marx’s language, the worker relates to the product of their labour “as an alien object that has power over him [or her]” (1932/1977). Workers do not care if they are making watches or cars; they care only that their jobs exist. In the same way, workers may not even know or care what products they are contributing to. A worker on a Ford assembly line may spend all day installing windows on car doors without ever seeing the rest of the car. A cannery worker can spend a lifetime cleaning fish without ever knowing what product they are used for.

Alienation from the process of one’s labour. Workers do not control the conditions of their jobs because they do not own the means of production. If someone is hired to work in a fast food restaurant, that person is expected to make the food exactly the way they are taught. All ingredients must be combined in a particular order and in a particular quantity; there is no room for creativity or change. An employee at Burger King cannot decide to change the spices used on the fries in the same way that an employee on a Ford assembly line cannot decide to place a car’s headlights in a different position. Everything is decided by the owners who then dictate orders to the workers. The workers relate to their own labour as an activity that does not belong to them.

Alienation from others. Workers compete, rather than cooperate. Employees vie for time slots, bonuses, and job security. Different industries and different geographical regions compete for investment. Even when a worker clocks out at night and goes home, the competition does not end. As Marx commented in The Communist Manifesto , “No sooner is the exploitation of the labourer by the manufacturer, so far at an end, that he receives his wages in cash, than he is set upon by the other portion of the bourgeoisie, the landlord, the shopkeeper, the pawnbroker” (1848/1977).

Alienation from one’s humanity. A final outcome of industrialization is a loss of connectivity between a worker and what makes them truly human. Humanity is defined for Marx by “conscious life-activity,” but under conditions of wage labour this is taken not as an end in itself — only a means of satisfying the most base, animal-like needs. The “species being” (i.e., conscious activity) is only confirmed when individuals can create and produce freely, not simply when they work to reproduce their existence and satisfy immediate needs like animals.

Taken as a whole, then, alienation in modern society means that individuals have no control over their lives. There is nothing that ties workers to their occupations. Instead of being able to take pride in an identity such as being a watchmaker, automobile builder, or chef, a person is simply a cog in the machine. Even in feudal societies, people controlled the manner of their labour as to when and how it was carried out. But why, then, does the modern working class not rise up and rebel?

In response to this problem, Marx developed the concept of false consciousness . False consciousness is a condition in which the beliefs, ideals, or ideology of a person are not in the person’s own best interest. In fact, it is the ideology of the dominant class (here, the bourgeoisie capitalists) that is imposed upon the proletariat. Ideas such as the emphasis of competition over cooperation, of hard work being its own reward, of individuals as being the isolated masters of their own fortunes and ruins, etc. clearly benefit the owners of industry. Therefore, to the degree that workers live in a state of false consciousness, they are less likely to question their place in society and assume individual responsibility for existing conditions.

Like other elements of the superstructure, “consciousness,” is a product of the underlying economic; Marx proposed that the workers’ false consciousness would eventually be replaced with class consciousness — the awareness of their actual material and political interests as members of a unified class. In The Communist Manifesto , Marx and Engels wrote,

The weapons with which the bourgeoisie felled feudalism to the ground are now turned against the bourgeoisie itself. But not only has the bourgeoisie forged the weapons that bring death to itself; it has also called into existence the men who are to wield those weapons — the modern working class — the proletarians (1848/1977).

Capitalism developed the industrial means by which the problems of economic scarcity could be resolved and, at the same time, intensified the conditions of exploitation due to competition for markets and profits. Thus emerged the conditions for a successful working class revolution. Instead of existing as an unconscious “class in itself,” the proletariat would become a “class for itself” and act collectively to produce social change (Marx and Engels, 1848/1977). Instead of just being an inert strata of society, the class could become an advocate for social improvements. Only once society entered this state of political consciousness would it be ready for a social revolution. Indeed, Marx predicted that this would be the ultimate outcome and collapse of capitalism.

To summarise, for Marx, the development of capitalism in the 18th and 19th centuries was utterly revolutionary and unprecedented in the scope and scale of the societal transformation it brought about. In his analysis, capitalism is defined by a unique set of features that distinguish it from previous modes of production like feudalism or agrarianism:

The means of production (i.e., productive property or capital) are privately owned and controlled.
Capitalists purchase labour power from workers for a wage or salary.
The goal of production is to profit from selling commodities in a competitive-free market.
Profit from the sale of commodities is appropriated by the owners of capital. Part of this profit is reinvested as capital in the business enterprise to expand its profitability.
The competitive accumulation of capital and profit leads to capitalism’s dynamic qualities: constant expansion of markets, globalization of investment, growth and centralization of capital, boom and bust cycles, economic crises, class conflict, etc.

These features are structural, meaning that they are built-into, and reinforced by, the institutional organization of the economy. They are structures, or persistent patterns of social relationship that exist, in a sense, prior to individuals’ personal or voluntary choices and motives. As structures, they can be said to define the rules or internal logic that underlie the surface or observable characteristics of a capitalist society: its political, social, economic, and ideological formations. Some isolated cases may exist where some of these features do not apply, but they define the overall system that has come to govern the contemporary global economy.

Marx’s analysis of the transition from feudalism to capitalism is historical and materialist because it focuses on the changes in the economic mode of production to explain the transformation of the social order. The expansion of the use of money, the development of commodity markets, the introduction of rents, the accumulation and investment of capital, the creation of new technologies of production, and the early stages of the manufactory system, etc. led to the formation of a new class structure (the bourgeoisie and the proletariat), a new political structure (the nation state), and a new ideological structure (science, human rights, individualism, rationalization, the belief in progress, etc.). The unprecedented transformations that created the modern era — urbanization, colonization, population growth, resource exploitation, social and geographical mobility, etc. — originated in the transformation of the mode of production from feudalism to capitalism. “Only the capitalist production of commodities revolutionizes … the entire economic structure of society in a manner eclipsing all previous epochs” (Marx, 1878). In the space of a couple of hundred years, human life on the planet was irremediably and radically altered. As Marx and Engels put it, capitalism had “create[d] a world after its own image” (1848/1977 ).

Max Weber and Interpretive Sociology

Like the other social thinkers discussed here, Max Weber (1864–1920) was concerned with the important changes taking place in Western society with the advent of capitalism. Arguably, the primary focus of Weber’s entire sociological oeuvre was to determine how and why Western civilization and capitalism developed, and where and when they developed. Why was the West the West? Why did the capitalist system develop in Europe and not elsewhere? Like Marx and Durkheim, he feared that capitalist industrialization would have negative effects on individuals but his analysis differed from theirs in significant respects. Key to the answer to his questions was the concept of rationalization . If other societies had failed to develop modern capitalist enterprise, modern science, and modern, efficient organizational structures, it was because in various ways they had impeded the development of rationalization. Weber’s question was: what are the consequences of rationality for everyday life, for the social order, and for the spiritual fate of humanity?

Unlike Durkheim’s functionalist emphasis on the sources of social solidarity and Marx’s critical emphasis on the materialist basis of class conflict, Weber’s interpretive perspective on modern society emphasizes the development of a rationalized worldview or stance , which he referred to as the disenchantment of the world : “principally there are no mysterious incalculable forces that come into play, but rather one can, in principle, master all things by calculation” (1919/1969). In other words, the processes of rationalization and disenchantment refer principally to the mode in which modern individuals and institutions interpret or analyze the world and the problems that confront them. As we saw in Chapter 3, rationalization refers to the general tendency in modern society for all institutions and most areas of life to be transformed by the application of rational principles of efficiency and calculation. It overcomes forms of magical thinking and replaces them with cold, objective calculations based on principles of technical efficiency. Older styles of social organization, based on traditional principles of religion, morality, or custom, cannot compete with the efficiency of rational styles of organization and are gradually replaced.

To Weber, capitalism itself became possible through the processes of rationalization. The emergence of capitalism in the West required the prior existence of rational, calculable procedures like double-entry bookkeeping, free labour contracts, free market exchange, and predictable application of law so that it could operate as a form of rational enterprise. Unlike Marx who defined capitalism in terms of the ownership of private property, Weber defined it in terms of its rational processes. For Weber, capitalism is as a form of continuous, calculated economic action in which every element is examined with respect to the logic of investment and return. As opposed to previous types of economic action in which wealth was acquired by force and spent on luxuries, capitalism rested “on the expectation of profit by the utilization of opportunities for exchange, that is, on (formally) peaceful chances for profit.” This implied a continual rationalization of commercial procedures in terms of the logic of capital accumulation. “Where capitalist acquisition is rationally pursued, the corresponding action is adjusted to calculations in terms of capital” (Weber, 1904/1958).

Weber’s analysis of rationalization did not exclusively focus on the conditions for the rise of capitalism however. Capitalism’s “rational” reorganization of economic activity was only one aspect of the broader process of rationalization and disenchantment. Modern science, law, music, art, bureaucracy, politics, and even spiritual life could only have become possible, according to Weber, through the systematic development of precise calculations and planning, technical procedures, and the dominance of “quantitative reckoning.” He felt that other non-Western societies, however highly sophisticated, had impeded these developments by either missing some crucial element of rationality or by holding to non-rational organizational principles or some element of magical thinking. For example, Babylonian astronomy lacked mathematical foundations, Indian geometry lacked rational proofs, Mandarin bureaucracy remained tied to Confucian traditionalism and the Indian caste system lacked the common “brotherhood” necessary for modern citizenship.

Weber argued however that although the process of rationalization leads to efficiency and effective, calculated decision making, it is in the end an irrational system. The emphasis on rationality and efficiency ultimately has negative effects when taken to its conclusion. In modern societies, this is seen when rigid routines and strict adherence to performance-related goals lead to a mechanized work environment and a focus on efficiency for its own sake. To the degree that rational efficiency begins to undermine the substantial human values it was designed to serve (i.e., the ideals of the good life, ethical values, the integrity of human relationships, the enjoyment of beauty and relaxation) rationalization becomes irrational.

Charlie Chaplin plays a character that struggles to survive in a modern, industrialized world.

An example of the extreme conditions of rationality can be found in Charlie Chaplin’s classic film Modern Times (1936). Chaplin’s character works on an assembly line twisting bolts into place over and over again. The work is paced by the unceasing rotation of the conveyor belt and the technical efficiency of the division of labour. When he has to stop to swat a fly on his nose all the tasks down the line from him are thrown into disarray. He performs his routine task to the point where he cannot stop his jerking motions even after the whistle blows for lunch. Indeed, today we even have a recognized medical condition that results from such tasks, known as “repetitive stress syndrome.”

For Weber, the culmination of industrialization and rationalization results in what he referred to as the iron cage , in which the individual is trapped by the systems of efficiency that were designed to enhance the well-being of humanity. We are trapped in a cage, or literally a “steel housing”( stahlhartes Gehäuse ), of efficiently organized processes because rational forms of organization have become indispensable. We must continuously hurry and be efficient because there is no time to “waste.” Weber argued that even if there was a social revolution of the type that Marx envisioned, the bureaucratic and rational organizational structures would remain. There appears to be no alternative. The modern economic order “is now bound to the technical and economic conditions of machine production which today determine the lives of all individuals who are born into this mechanism, not only those directly concerned with economic acquisition, with irresistible force” (Weber, 1904/1958).

Max Weber and the Protestant Work Ethic

An advertisement that says, "Puritan Soap Flakes, for everything from baby clothes to blankets."

If Marx’s analysis is central to the sociological understanding of the structures that emerged with the rise of capitalism, Max Weber is a central figure in the sociological understanding of the effects of capitalism on modern subjectivity: how our basic sense of who we are and what we might aspire to has been defined by the culture and belief system of capitalism. The key work here is Weber’s Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905/1958) in which he lays out the characteristics of the modern ethos of work. Why do we feel compelled to work so hard?

An ethic or ethos refers to a way of life or a way of conducting oneself in life. For Weber, the Protestant work ethic was at the core of the modern ethos. It prescribes a mode of self-conduct in which discipline, work, accumulation of wealth, self-restraint, postponement of enjoyment, and sobriety are the focus of an individual life.

In Weber’s analysis, the ethic was indebted to the religious beliefs and practices of certain Protestant sects like the Lutherans, Calvinists, and Baptists who emerged with the Protestant Reformation (1517–1648). The Protestant theologian Richard Baxter proclaimed that the individual was “called” to their occupation by God, and therefore, they had a duty to “work hard in their calling.” “He who will not work shall not eat” (Baxter, as cited in Weber, 1958). This ethic subsequently worked its way into many of the famous dictums popularized by the American Benjamin Franklin, like “time is money” and “a penny saved is two pence dear” (i.e., “a penny saved is a penny earned”).

In Weber’s estimation, the Protestant ethic was fundamentally important to the emergence of capitalism, and a basic answer to the question of how and why it could emerge. Throughout the period of feudalism and the domination of the Catholic Church, an ethic of poverty and non-materialist values was central to the subjectivity and worldview of the Christian population. From the earliest desert monks and followers of St. Anthony to the great Vatican orders of the Franciscans and Dominicans, the image of Jesus was of a son of God who renounced wealth, possessions, and the material world. “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God” (Mark 10:25). We are of course well aware of the hypocrisy with which these beliefs were often practiced, but even in these cases, wealth was regarded in a different manner prior to the modern era. One worked only as much as was required. As Thomas Aquinas put it “labour [is] only necessary … for the maintenance of individual and community. Where this end is achieved, the precept ceases to have any meaning” (Aquinas, as cited in Weber, 1958). Wealth was not “put to work” in the form of a gradual return on investments as it is under capitalism. How was this medieval belief system reversed? How did capitalism become possible?

The key for Weber was the Protestant sects’ doctrines of predestination, the idea of the personal calling, and the individual’s direct, unmediated relationship to God. In the practice of the Protestant sects, no intermediary or priest interpreted God’s will or granted absolution. God’s will was essentially unknown. The individual could only be recognized as one of the predestined “elect” — one of the saved — through outward signs of grace: through the continuous display of moral self-discipline and, significantly, through the accumulation of earthly rewards that tangibly demonstrated God’s favour. In the absence of any way to know with certainty whether one was destined for salvation, the accumulation of wealth and material success became a sign of spiritual grace rather than a sign of sinful, earthly concerns. For the individual, material success assuaged the existential anxiety concerning the salvation of their soul. For the community, material success conferred status.

Weber argues that gradually the practice of working hard in one’s calling lost its religious focus, and the ethic of “sober bourgeois capitalism” (Weber, 1905/1958) became grounded in discipline alone: work and self-improvement for their own sake . This discipline of course produces the rational, predictable, and industrious personality type ideally suited for the capitalist economy. For Weber, the consequence of this, however, is that the modern individual feels compelled to work hard and to live a highly methodical, efficient, and disciplined life to demonstrate their self-worth to themselves as much as anyone. The original goal of all this activity — namely religious salvation — no longer exists. It is a highly rational conduct of life in terms of how one lives, but is simultaneously irrational in terms of why one lives. Weber calls this conundrum of modernity the iron cage . Life in modern society is ordered on the basis of efficiency, rationality, and predictability, and other inefficient or traditional modes of organization are eliminated. Once we are locked into the “technical and economic conditions of machine production” it is difficult to get out or to imagine another way of living, despite the fact that one is renouncing all of the qualities that make life worth living: spending time with friends and family, enjoying the pleasures of sensual and aesthetic life, and/or finding a deeper meaning or purpose of existence. We might be obliged to stay in this iron cage “until the last ton of fossilized coal is burnt” (Weber, 1905/1958).

Her-story: The History of Gender Inequality

Missing in the classical theoretical accounts of modernity is an explanation of how the developments of modern society, industrialization, and capitalism have affected women differently from men. Despite the differences in Durkheim’s, Marx’s, and Weber’s main themes of analysis, they are equally androcentric to the degree that they cannot account for why women’s experience of modern society is structured differently from men’s, or why the implications of modernity are different for women than they are for men. They tell his-story but neglect her-story.

Recall from Chapter 3: Androcentricism is a perspective in which male concerns, male attitudes, and male practices are presented as “normal” or define what is significant and valued in a culture. Women’s experiences, activities, and contributions to society and history are ignored, devalued, or marginalized.

For most of human history, men and women held more or less equal status in society. In hunter-gatherer societies gender inequality was minimal as these societies did not sustain institutionalized power differences. They were based on cooperation, sharing, and mutual support. There was often a gendered division of labour in that men are most frequently the hunters and women the gatherers and child care providers (although this division is not necessarily strict), but as women’s gathering accounted for up to 80% of the food, their economic power in the society was assured. Where headmen lead tribal life, their leadership is informal, based on influence rather than institutional power (Endicott, 1999). In prehistoric Europe from 7000 to 3500 BCE, archaeological evidence indicates that religious life was in fact focused on female deities and fertility, while family kinship was traced through matrilineal (female) descent (Lerner, 1986).

An 11.1 centimetre high statuette of a female figure.

It was not until about 6,000 years ago that gender inequality emerged. With the transition to early agrarian and pastoral types of societies, food surpluses created the conditions for class divisions and power structures to develop. Property and resources passed from collective ownership to family ownership with a corresponding shift in the development of the monogamous, patriarchal (rule by the father) family structure. Women and children also became the property of the patriarch of the family. The invasions of old Europe by the Semites to the south, and the Kurgans to the northeast, led to the imposition of male-dominated hierarchical social structures and the worship of male warrior gods. As agricultural societies developed, so did the practice of slavery. Lerner (1986) argues that the first slaves were women and children.

The development of modern, industrial society has been a two-edged sword in terms of the status of women in society. Marx’s collaborator Friedrich Engels (1820–1895) argued in The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State (1884/1972) that the historical development of the male-dominated monogamous family originated with the development of private property. The family became the means through which property was inherited through the male line. This also led to the separation of a private domestic sphere and a public social sphere. “Household management lost its public character. It no longer concerned society. It became a private service; the wife became the head servant, excluded from all participation in social production” (1884/1972). Under the system of capitalist wage labour, women were doubly exploited. When they worked outside the home as wage labourers they were exploited in the workplace, often as cheaper labour than men. When they worked within the home, they were exploited as the unpaid source of labour needed to reproduce the capitalist workforce. The role of the proletarian housewife was tantamount to “open or concealed domestic slavery” as she had no independent source of income herself (Engels, 1884/1972). Early Canadian law, for example, was based on the idea that the wife’s labour belonged to the husband. This was the case even up to the famous divorce case of Irene Murdoch in 1973, who had worked the family farm in the Turner Valley, Alberta, side by side with her husband for 25 years. When she claimed 50% of the farm assets in the divorce, the judge ruled that the farm belonged to her husband, and she was awarded only $200 a month for a lifetime of work (CBC, 2001).

On the other hand, feminists note that gender inequality was more pronounced and permanent in the feudal and agrarian societies that proceeded capitalism. Women were more or less owned as property, and were kept ignorant and isolated within the domestic sphere. These conditions still exist in the world today. The World Economic Forum Global Gender Gap Report (2014) shows that in a significant number of countries women are severely restricted with respect to economic participation, educational attainment, political empowerment, and basic health outcomes. Yemen, Pakistan, Chad, Syria, and Mali were the five worst countries in the world in terms of women’s inequality.

Yemen is the world’s worst country for women in 2014, according to the WEF. In addition to being one of the worst countries in women’s economic participation and opportunity, Yemen received some of the world’s worst scores in relative educational attainment and political participation for females. Just half of women in the country could read, versus 83% of men. Further, women accounted for just 9% of ministerial positions and for none of the positions in parliament. Child marriage is a huge problem in Yemen. According to Human Rights Watch, as of 2006, 52% of Yemeni girls were married before they reached 18, and 14% were married before they reached 15 years of age (Hess, 2014).

With the rise of capitalism, Engels noted that there was also an improvement in women’s condition when they began to work outside the home. Writers like Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797) in her Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792/1997) were also able to see, in the discourses of rights and freedoms of the bourgeois revolutions and the Enlightenment, a general “promise” of universal emancipation that could be extended to include the rights of women. The focus of the Vindication of the Rights of Women was on the right of women to have an education, which would put them on the same footing as men with regard to the knowledge and rationality required for “enlightened” political participation and skilled work outside the home. Whereas property rights, the role of wage labour, and the law of modern society continued to be a source for gender inequality, the principles of universal rights became a powerful resource for women to use in order to press their claims for equality.

As the World Economic Forum (2014) study reports, “good progress has been made over the last years on gender equality, and in some cases, in a relatively short time.” Between 2006 and 2014, the gender gap in the measures of economic participation, education, political power, and health narrowed for 95% of the 111 countries surveyed. In the top five countries in the world for women’s equality — Iceland, Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark — the global gender gap index had closed to 80% or better. (Canada was 19th with a global gender gap index of 75%).

One of the key arguments that sociologists draw from Marx’s analysis is to show that capitalism is not simply an economic system but a social system. The dynamics of capitalism are not a set of obscure economic concerns to be relegated to the business section of the newspaper, but the architecture that underlies the newspaper’s front page headlines; in fact, every headline in the paper. At the time when Marx was developing his analysis, capitalism was still a relatively new economic system, an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of goods and the means to produce them. It was also a system that was inherently unstable and prone to crisis, yet increasingly global in its reach. Today capitalism has left no place on earth and no aspect of daily life untouched.

As a social system, one of the main characteristics of capitalism is incessant change, which is why the culture of capitalism is often referred to as modernity . The cultural life of capitalist society can be described as a series of successive “presents,” each of which defines what is modern, new, or fashionable for a brief time before fading away into obscurity like the 78 rpm record, the 8-track tape, and the CD. As Marx and Engels put it, “Constant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty, and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fast-frozen relations … are swept away, all new ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air…” (1848/1977, p. 224). From the ghost towns that dot the Canadian landscape to the expectation of having a lifetime career, every element of social life under capitalism has a limited duration.

alienation: The condition in which an individual is isolated from their society, work, sense of self and/or common humanity.

anomie : A situation of uncertain norms and regulations in which society no longer has the support of a firm collective consciousness.

anthropocene: The geological epoch defined by the impact of human activitieson the global ecosystem.

bourgeoisie : The owners of the means of production in a society.

class consciousness : Awareness of one’s class position and interests.

collective conscience : The communal beliefs, morals, and attitudes of a society.

dialectic of culture: The way in which the creation of culture is both constrained by limits given by the environment and a means to go beyond these natural limits.

disenchantment of the world : The replacement of magical thinking by technological rationality and calculation.

ethos: A way of life or a way of conducting oneself in life.

false consciousness : When a person’s beliefs and ideology are in conflict with their best interests.

feudal societies : Agricultural societies that operate on a strict hierarchical system of power based around land ownership, protection and mutual obligations.

horticultural societies : Societies based around the cultivation of plants.

hunter-gatherer societies : Societies that depend on hunting wild animals and gathering uncultivated plants for survival.

industrial societies : Societies characterized by a reliance on mechanized labour to create material goods.

information societies : Societies based on the production of nonmaterial goods and services.

iron cage : A situation in which an individual is trapped by the rational and efficient processes of social institutions.

law of three stages: The three stages of evolution that societies develop through: theological, metaphysical, and positive.

mechanical solidarity: Social solidarity or cohesion through a shared collective consciousness with harsh punishment for deviation from the norms.

metaphysical stage: A stage of social evolution in which people explain events in terms of abstract or speculative ideas.

neolithic revolution : The economic transition to sedentary, agriculture based societies beginning approximately 10,200 years.

organic solidarity : Social solidarity or cohesion through a complex division of labour, mutual interdependence and restitutive law.

pastoral societies : Societies based around the domestication of animals.

proletariat : The wage labourers in capitalist society.

Protestant work ethic: The duty to work hard in one’s calling.

rationalization : The general tendency in modern society for all institutions and most areas of life to be transformed by the application of rationality and efficiency.

social class: A group defined by a distinct relationship to the means of production.

social integration : How strongly a person is connected to their social group.

social structure: General patterns of social behaviour and organization that persist through time.

theological stage: A stage of social evolution in which people explain events with respect to the will of God or gods.

Section Summary

4.1. Types of Societies Societies are classified according to their development and use of technology. For most of human history, people lived in preindustrial societies characterized by limited technology and low production of goods. After the Industrial Revolution, many societies based their economies around mechanized labour, leading to greater profits and a trend toward greater social mobility. At the turn of the new millennium, a new type of society emerged. This postindustrial, or information, society is built on digital technology and nonmaterial goods.

4.2. Theoretical Perspectives on the Formation of Modern Society Émile Durkheim believed that as societies advance, they make the transition from mechanical to organic solidarity. For Karl Marx, society exists in terms of class conflict. With the rise of capitalism, workers become alienated from themselves and others in society. Sociologist Max Weber noted that the rationalization of society can be taken to unhealthy extremes. Feminists note that the androcentric point of view of the classical theorists does not provide an adequate account of the difference in the way the genders experience modern society.

Section Quiz

4.1. Types of Societies 1. Which of the following fictional societies is an example of a pastoral society?

The Deswan people, who live in small tribes and base their economy on the production and trade of textiles.
The Rositian Clan, a small community of farmers who have lived on their family’s land for centuries.
The Hunti, a wandering group of nomads who specialize in breeding and training horses.
The Amaganda, an extended family of warriors who serve a single noble family.

2. Which of the following occupations is a person of power most likely to have in an information society?

software engineer
children’s book author
sharecropper

3. Which of the following societies were the first to have permanent residents?

hunter-gatherer
horticultural

4.2. Theoretical Perspectives on Society 4. Organic solidarity is most likely to exist in which of the following types of societies?

agricultural

5. According to Marx, the _____ own the means of production in a society.

proletariat
bourgeoisie

6. Which of the following best depicts Marx’s concept of alienation from the process of one’s labour?

A supermarket cashier always scans store coupons before company coupons because she was taught to do it that way.
A businessman feels that he deserves a raise, but is nervous to ask his manager for one; instead, he comforts himself with the idea that hard work is its own reward.
An associate professor is afraid that she won’t be given tenure and starts spreading rumours about one of her associates to make herself look better.
A construction worker is laid off and takes a job at a fast food restaurant temporarily, although he has never had an interest in preparing food before.

7. The Protestant work ethic is based on the concept of predestination, which states that ________.

performing good deeds in life is the only way to secure a spot in Heaven.
salvation is only achievable through obedience to God.
no person can be saved before they accept Jesus Christ as their saviour.
God has already chosen those who will be saved and those who will be damned.

8. The concept of the iron cage was popularized by which of the following sociological thinkers?

Émile Durkheim
Friedrich Engels

9. Émile Durkheim’s ideas about society can best be described as ________.

functionalist.
conflict theorist.
symbolic interactionist.
rationalist.

[Quiz answers at end of chapter]

Short Answer

How can the difference in the way societies relate to the environment be used to describe the different types of societies that have existed in world history?
Is Gerhard Lenski right in classifying societies based on technological advances? What other criteria might be appropriate, based on what you have read?

4.2. Theoretical Perspectives on Society

How might Durkheim, Marx, and Weber be used to explain a current social event such as the Occupy movement. Do their theories hold up under modern scrutiny? Are their theories necessarily androcentric?
Think of the ways workers are alienated from the product and process of their jobs. How can these concepts be applied to students and their educations?

Further Research

4.1. Types of Societies The Maasai are a modern pastoral society with an economy largely structured around herds of cattle. Read more about the Maasai people and see pictures of their daily lives: http://openstaxcollege.org/l/The-Maasai

4.2. Theoretical Perspectives on Society One of the most influential pieces of writing in modern history was Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels’ The Communist Manifesto . Visit this site to read the original document that spurred revolutions around the world: http://openstaxcollege.org/l/Communist-Party

4. Introduction to Society and Social Interaction Maasai Association. (n.d.). Facing the lion: By Massai warriors. Retrieved January 4, 2012 (http://www.maasai-association.org/lion.html).

Bookchin, Murray. (1982). The ecology of freedom: The emergence and dissolution of hierarchy. (Palo Alto, CA.: Cheshire Books).

Carrington, Damian. (2014, August 1). Amazon tribe makes first contact with outside world. The Guardian . Retrieved September 24, 2015 from http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/01/amazon-tribe-makes-first-contact-with-outside-world.

Clastres, Pierre. (1987). Society against the state: Essays in political anthropology. NY: Zone Books

Comte, August. (1975). The nature and importance of the positive philosophy. In Gertrud Lenzer (Ed.), Auguste Comte and positivism: the essential writings . NY: Harper and Row. (original work published 1830)

Crutzen, Paul and Eugene Stoermer, (2000, May). The Anthropocene. [PDF] Global change newsletter. No. 41: 17-18. Retrieved Oct. 4, 2015 from http://www.igbp.net/download/18.316f18321323470177580001401/NL41.pdf.

Diamond, Jared. (1999, May 1). The worst mistake in the history of the human race. Discover . Retrieved Oct. 1, 2015 from http://discovermagazine.com/1987/may/02-the-worst-mistake-in-the-history-of-the-human-race. (originally published in the May 1987 Issue)

Diamond, Stanley. (1974). In search of the primitive. Chicago: Transaction Books

Haraway, Donna. (1991). A cyborg manifesto: Science, technology and socialist-feminism in the late 20th century. Simians, cyborgs and women: The reinvention of nature (Ch. 8) . London: Free Association

Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada. (2005, July 29). Israel: Treatment of Bedouin, including incidents of harassment, discrimination or attacks; State protection (January 2003–July 2005). Refworld . Retrieved February 10, 2012 (http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/440ed71325.html).

Kenton, Edna. (1954). The Jesuit relations and allied documents. NY: Vanguard Press.

Kjeilen, Tore. (n.d.). Bedouin . Looklex.com . Retrieved February 17, 2012 (http://looklex.com/index.htm).

Kurzweil, Ray. (2009). Ray Kurzweil on the future of nanotechnology . Big think . Retrieved, Oct. 4, 2015, from http://bigthink.com/videos/ray-kurzweil-on-the-future-of-nanotechnology

Larson, Gregor. (2015). How wheat came to Britain. Science, Vol. 347 (6225): 945-946.

Lee, Richard. (1978). Politics, sexual and nonsexual, in an egalitarian society. Social science information, 17.

Marx, Karl. (1977). Preface to a critique of political economy. In D. McLellan (Ed.), Karl Marx: Selected Writings (pp. 388–392). London, UK: Oxford University Press. (original work published 1859)

Rose, N. (2007). The politics of life itself: Biomedicine, power, and subjectivity in the twenty-first century. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Smith, Oliver, Garry Momber , Richard Bates , Paul Garwood , Simon Fitch , Mark Pallen , Vincent Gaffney , Robin G. Allaby. (2015). Sedimentary DNA from a submerged site reveals wheat in the British Isles 8000 years ago. Science, Vol. 347 (6225): 998-1001

Stavrianos, Leften . (1990). Lifelines from our past: A new world history . NY: LB Taurus

Sterling, Bruce. (1996). Holy fire. New York: Bantam Spectra.

von Daniken, E. (1969). Chariots of the Gods? Unsolved mysteries of the past. London: Souvenir.

Wright, Ronald. (2004). A short history of progress. Toronto: House of Anansi Press.

4.2. Theoretical Perspectives on Society CBC. (2001). Equal under the law: Canadian women fight for equality as the country creates a charter of rights. Canada: A people’s history. Retrieved February 21, 2014 (http://www.cbc.ca/history/EPISCONTENTSE1EP17CH2PA4LE.html).

Durkheim, Émile. (1960). The Division of labor in society . (George Simpson, Trans.). New York: Free Press. (original work published 1893).

Durkheim, Émile. (1982). The Rules of the Sociological Method . (W. D. Halls, Trans.). New York: Free Press. (original work published 1895)

Endicott, Karen. (1999). Gender relations in hunter-gatherer societies. In R.B. Lee and R. Daly (Eds.), The Cambridge encyclopedia of hunters and gatherers (pp. 411–418) . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Engels, Friedrich. (1972). The origin of the family, private property and the state. New York: International Publishers. (original work published 1884)

Engels, Friedrich. (1892). The Condition of the working-class in England in 1844. London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co.

Hess, Alexander. (2014, November 29). 10 Worst Countries For Women. Huffpost Business: Huffington Post. Retrieved Oct. 18, 2015 from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/29/worst-countries-for-women_n_6241216.html

Lerner, Gerda. (1986). The creation of patriarchy. New York: Oxford Press.

Marx, Karl. (1995). Capital: A critique of political economy. Marx/Engels Archive [Internet]. Retrieved February 18, 2014 (https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/). (original work published 1867)

Marx, Karl. (1977). Economic and philosophical manuscripts . In David McLellan (Ed.), Karl Marx: Selected writings ( pp. 75–112). Oxford: Oxford University Press. (original work published 1932)

Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels. (1977). The Communist manifesto (Selections) . In David McLellan (Ed.), Karl Marx: Selected writings (pp. 221–247). Oxford: Oxford University Press. (original work published 1848)

Weber, Max. (1958). The protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. (original work published 1904)

Weber, Max. (1969). Science as a Vocation. In H.H. Gerth and C.W. Mills (Eds.), From Max Weber: Essays in sociology (pp. 129-158). NY: Oxford University Press. (original work published 1919)

Wollstonecraft, Mary. (1997). A vindication of the rights of women. In D.L. Macdonald and Kathleen Scherf (Eds.), The vindications: The rights of men and the rights of woman. Toronto: Broadview Literary Texts. (original work published in 1792)

World Economic Forum. (2014). The global gender gap report: 2014. [PDF] Insight Report. Geneva: World economic forum. Retrieved Oct 18, 2015 from http://www3.weforum.org/docs/GGGR14/GGGR_CompleteReport_2014.pdf

Solutions to Section Quiz

1 C, | 2 A, | 3 C, | 4 B, | 5 C, | 6 A, | 7 D, | 8 A, | 9 A | [Return to quiz]

Image Attributions

Figure 4.1. “Effigy of a Shaman from Haida Tribe, late 19th century” from Wellcome Library (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Haida#/media/File:Effigy_of_a_Shaman_from_Haida_Tribe,_late_19th_century._Wellcome_L0007356.jpg) is licensed under CC BY 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

Figure 4.2. “ Ceremonial rattle in the form of the mythical thunder-bird” from the British Museum H andbook to the Ethnographical Collections (1910) by Internet Archive Book Images (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Haida#/media/File:Handbook_to_the_ethnographical_collections_%281910%29_%2814596714720%29.jpg) is licensed under the rule that “no known copyright restrictions” exist (https://www.flickr.com/commons/usage/)

Figure 4.4. “Blackfoot Indians” from Library and Archives Canada (http://collectionscanada.gc.ca/pam_archives/index.php?fuseaction=genitem.displayItem&rec_nbr=3193492&lang=eng) is in the public domain (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain)

Figure 4.5. “The Salish Sea” by Arct (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ab/Carte_populations_salish_de_la_cote.svg) is licenced under CC-BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

Figure 4.6. “Maize-teosinte” by John Doebley (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Maize-teosinte.jpg) is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported licence.

Figure 4.7. “Roman Collared Slaves” from the Collection of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, England (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Slavery_in_ancient_Rome#/media/File:Roman_collared_slaves_-_Ashmolean_Museum.jpg) is licenced under CC BY-SA 2.0 .

Figure 4.8. “Isla de Pascua – 628 .-“ by Alberto Beaudroit (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Isla_de_Pascua_-_628_.-.JPG#/media/File:Isla_de_Pascua_-_628_.-.JPG) is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

Figure 4.9. Bayeux Tapestry – Scene 23 by Myrabella (http://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A4%D0%B0%D0%B9%D0%BB:Bayeux_Tapestry_scene23_Harold_oath_William.jpg) is in the public domain (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/deed.en)

Figure 4.10. “Women wrapping and packing bars of soap in the Colgate-Palmolive Canada plant on the northwest corner of Carlaw and Colgate Avenues in Toronto, Ontario, Canada” by Pringle & Booth, Toronto (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Colgate-Palmolive_Canada_1919.jpg) is in the public domain (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain).

Figure 4.11. George Stephen, 1965 by William Notman (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:George_Stephen_1865.jpg) is in the public domain (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain)

Figure 4.12. “The Desk” by Charlie Styr (https://www.flickr.com/photos/charlies/2169080948/in/photolist-4iF7co-fmDBN8-3pzKHj-e2csN-85Dpd2-4BqJnq-75xCjy-q7KdMT-51QJr6-5sju9H-fCxYb-6hGrSD-42cG24-48EdkK-4efHw-uXGV-fMf6tz-4m2KcX-4qMa6h-69EPSh-a1wJSS-72Tcj-6monK8-65bexe-2DEEG-ESpP9-6K4ZT-bx3waG-4UcxqQ-7qa26u-juiu4o-K43C-9w84j8-7cEtjU-a1cYj4-a8LLoY-Cvhkq-5xWXdu-7bWBVz-9DhQX-3sjha-9kYneT-u8WdY-2cnSAW-8dNu6-b1UmA-4TannF-4xYr78-6549S-238pk) used under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/)

Figure 4.13. “Dengue virus infection” by Sanofi Pasteur (https://www.flickr.com/photos/sanofi-pasteur/7413644166/in/photolist-ci7S89-5Vy3Ut-5Vyx2q-pCYRsM-4vxwP5-ci7S77-9gtqfe-93BsfE-b5g5E-93Bmkb-93Bu23-93yoH8-8r1Hp8-hiRYTp-8ctWbd-qoxb4p-93T2b2-ci7S4h-b6du8n-dPiDp3-9wkUwH-9WSppU-qbhZUY-r3TuCM-aronSf-93ym6K-ci7S5W-bm1us-8rnwZu-dSPMSp-o42Hvu-93BmPh-kxRVpH-rki4V2-6royED-yP2m87-r3qUcs-yQ1Wyk-tbEDj-xFECFi-9gP97o-9ApBzB-xbr3uW-jQvxq9-rEjNRU-2j1bum-8GSyC4-iK5pRZ-ae7RjF-atrmSD) used under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/)

Figure 4.14. Image of the T. Eaton Co. department store in Toronto, Ontario, Canada from the back cover of the 1901 Eaton’s catalogue (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bird%27s_eye_view_of_the_store_and_factories_of_the_T._Eaton_Co._Limited_Toronto_Canada.jpg) is in the public domain (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain)

Figure 4.18. Seagate’s clean room by Robert Scoble (https://www.flickr.com/photos/scobleizer/3010353308/) used under CC BY 2.0 licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/)

Figure 4.19. Charlie Chaplin by Insomnia Cured Here (https://www.flickr.com/photos/tom-margie/1535417993/) used under CC BY SA 2.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/)

Figure 4.20. I Love Cubicles by Tim Patterson (https://www.flickr.com/photos/timpatterson/476098132/) used under CC BY 2.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/)

Figure 4.21. Puritan soap packet by Paul Townsend (https://www.flickr.com/photos/brizzlebornandbred/19609916339) used under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/)

Figure 4.22. Venus of Willendorf by MatthiasKabel (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Venus_of_Willendorf_frontview_retouched_2.jpg) used under CC BY SA 3.0 license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en)

Long Descriptions

Figure 4.14 Long Description: Pencil drawing of a large, multi-floor building and a tall smoke stack to the far right. People fill the surrounding sidewalk and street cars and horses move through the streets. [Return to Figure 4.14.]

Share This Book

6 Types of Societies (With 21 Examples)

The six types of society in sociology are hunter-gatherer, pastoral, horticultural, agricultural, industrial, and post-industrial.

These societies are listed in what appears to be a logical linear order – from least to most advanced. However, this is only in regards to the progress of economies. Indeed, some societies considered pre-industrial may be considered more advanced in regard to spirituality, environmental stewardship, or other metrics.

What is a Society?

A society is a group of individuals that are involved in persistent social interaction , or a large social group sharing the same territory.

Members of a society are usually subject to the same governing body and the same culture. Societies have their own norms about behavior.

Societies, tacitly or in an acknowledged way, deem certain actions and patterns of behavior as acceptable or unacceptable. Some see society as a human product that has the power to change its producers (Berger, 1967, p. 3).

Sociological Classification of Societies

There are different ways to classify societies. Gerhard Lenski differentiated five main types of societies (Lenski, 1974, p. 96), while Morton Fried and Elman Service differentiated six .

Contemporary sociologists tend to differentiate five types that are slightly different from those of Lenski (OpenStax, 2021, p. 99).

These five types fall into three broader categories:

pre-industrial,
industrial, and
post-industrial.

Pre-industrial societies can be further subdivided into four different types:

hunter-gatherer societies,
pastoral societies,
horticultural societies, and
agricultural societies. We can now define each type of society in turn.

Types of Societies with Examples

1. hunter-gatherer societies.

Type: Pre-industrial Society

Hunter-gatherer societies were the norm until about 10,000-12,000 years ago. These societies were based on kinship or tribes and they relied heavily on the environment.

Hunter-gatherers hunted wild animals and gathered uncultivated plants for food. Since these societies were dependent on the environment for their food, they often had to move to new areas. Hunter-gatherer societies were, therefore, nomadic. They didn’t build permanent settlements.

The average size of a hunter-gatherer band is only around 15 to 50 people (Lee & Daly, 1999, p. 3) Only a few hundred hunter-gatherer societies remain in existence today.

These societies tend to be relatively democratic, in the sense that decisions are generally reached through mutual agreement. Leadership is often personal and restricted to special cases in tribal societies.

The chief of a tribe is the most influential person (Lenski, 1974, p. 146). Most members of a given tribe are related by birth or marriage. The average amount of time a member of a hunter-gatherer society spends each day is about 6.5 hours, which is why some people consider hunter-gatherer tribes the “original affluent societies” (Sahlins, 1968, pp. 85-89).

Hunter Gatherer Society Examples

Examples of hunter-gatherer societies include:

Many Aboriginal Australian societies prior to 1788,
Torres Strait Islanders prior to 1788, and
Bambuti in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

2. Pastoral Societies

A pastoral society is a type of preindustrial society whose way of life is based on pastoralism (that is, the domestication of animals).

Since the food supply of pastoral societies is far more reliable, they tend to have much larger populations than a hunter-gatherer culture could support.

Pastoral societies, like hunter-gatherer societies, are typically nomadic: they do not build permanent settlements such as villages. This is because pastoralists must constantly take their herds to new grazing lands.

Cultural artifacts of these societies, therefore, consist of easily transportable items such as tents, woven carpets, jewelry, and so on.

The first pastoral societies appeared when, around 10,000 years ago, humans began taming and breeding animals to grow and cultivate their plants. Pastoral societies found a more sustainable way to live because they could breed livestock for food, clothing, and transportation.

This allowed them to create a surplus of goods. This is also the time when specialized occupations and systematic trading first emerged. Over time, hereditary chieftainships emerged, which is the government structure typical of pastoral societies.

Pastoral Society Examples

Many pastoral societies still exist today, particularly in North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asia.

Examples from Africa include:

The Afar people,
The Bedouin people,
The Beja people, and
The Tigre people

In South Asia, some examples include:

The Ahir people,
The Bhutia people, and
The Kurma people.

3. Horticultural Societies

Around the same time as pastoral societies, there emerged another type of society: horticultural society. It was based on the newly developed capacity to grow and cultivate plants.

Horticulturists use human labor and simple instruments to cultivate the land. When a piece of land becomes barre, these societies move on to new plots.

They might return to the original plot years later and repeat the process.

This type of rotation of plots of land is what allows horticultural societies to stay in one area for a fairly long period. That’s why they could build permanent villages, in contrast to hunter-gatherer and pastoral societies (Lenski, 1974, p. 165).

Horticultural societies have specialized roles for different individuals. These roles include craftspeople, shamans, and traders.

The existence of a hierarchy, as in pastoral societies, creates inequalities in wealth and power within horticultural political systems.

Horticultural societies, because they relied on the environment, usually formed around areas where rainfall and other conditions allowed them to grow crops.

Horticultural Society Examples

Examples of horticultural societies include:

Gururumba Tribe (New Guinea) – Growing sweet potato, yams, sugarcane, and taro.
Maasai people (Kenya) – Growing rice, potatoes, and cabbage.
Pre-historical Peru – About 10,000-6,000 years ago, the Indigenous tribes in Peru, starting with the Ñanchoc people, domesticated squash, peanuts, and cotton.

Many horticultural societies quickly moved into Agricultural era with the development of permanent tools.

4. Agricultural Societies

Agricultural societies were those that relied on permanent tools for survival. They used agricultural technological advances to cultivate crops over a large piece of land.

Lenski (1974, p. 207) writes that the main thing that differentiated agricultural societies from horticultural ones was the use of the plow.

Farmers learned how to rotate the types of crops they grew on their lands. They learned how to use fertilizers.

New and better tools for digging and harvesting appeared. Improved technology led to an increase in the food supply, which in turn led to the formation of towns that became centers of trade.

Agricultural societies were even more socially stratified than horticultural or pastoral ones.

For example, the role of women became increasingly subordinate to that of men. Those who had more resources developed into a separate noble class. A system of rulers with high social status also appeared.

Agricultural Society Examples

Examples of agricultural societies include:

Ancient Egyptians and Sumarians: Plows have been found from Ancient Egypt that date back to 4000BCE.
Northern China: Metal bladed plows in China date back to about 3000BCE.

5. Industrial Societies

Type: Industrial Society

Industrial societies used external energy sources, such as fossil fuels, to increase the rate and scale of production. Human labor gets replaced by machinery, so workers tend to shift towards tertiary sector activities.

In eighteenth-century Europe, the Industrial Revolution made possible the replacement of horses and human workers by machines. Steam power was far more efficient than human or horse power, so societies became more and more reliant on machine power for producing goods.

This led to dramatic increases in efficiency, which, in turn, led to a greater surplus of goods than ever seen before. The population rose to unprecedented heights (as explained by the demographic transition model ). Increased productivity made more goods available to everyone.

Textile mills replaced artisans, farmers started using mechanical seeders and threshing machines, and products such as paper and glass became readily available to the average citizen. More people had access to education and healthcare than ever before.

One of the consequences of increased productivity was the rise of urban centers. Workers preferred living close to factories, and the service industry had to provide labor to the workers, so city populations became larger and larger.

Industrial Society Examples

England is known to be one of the first large-scale industrial societies, enabling it to become a global superpower. As technology rapidly sped up, most of Europe and North America become industrialized.

Today, many developing societies continue to rely on industrial economies; and in those societies, there is often a mix of industrial and post-industrial regions.

6. Post-Industrial Societies

Type: Post-industrial Society

Post-industrial societies are those which are dominated by information, services, and high technology rather than the production of tangible goods.

So, the tertiary (service) sector of a post-industrial society tends to be stronger than its secondary (manufacturing) sector.

This is why they are often referred to as “ information societies ” or “digital societies” (OpenStax, 2021, p. 102).

Post-industrial societies have several characteristics that differentiate them from industrial ones. One is the shift from the production of goods to the provision of services. The second is the value these societies attach to knowledge.

The third characteristic is that in post-industrial societies, blue-collar work tends to decline in importance, whereas professional work tends to be highly valued.

One of the most vital characteristics of a post-industrial society is its high valuation of knowledge.

Since the service sector is of primary importance in such societies, knowledge becomes more and more powerful. Research institutes, think tanks, universities, and schools have a larger role to play. All this results in a general increase in expertise.

Examples of Post-Industrial Societies

Areas of most of the developed world in the 21st Century can be considered post-industrial. This includes, but is not limited to:

The United States of America
The United Kingdom

The study of societies is the central preoccupation of sociologists. It is, therefore, unsurprising that they conduct a lot of research on the classification of the different types of societies.

There are many different ways to do this. In this article, we analyzed and defined the six most commonly cited types of societies. These are (1) hunter-gatherer societies, (2) pastoral societies, (3) horticultural societies, (4) agricultural societies, (5) Industrial societies, and (6) post-industrial societies.

Read Next: Culture vs Society (What’s the Difference?)

Berger, P. L. (1967). The Scared Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion . Doubleday & Company.

Lee, R. B. & Daly, R. (1999). Introduction: Foragers & Others . In The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Hunters & Gatherers . Cambridge University Press.

Lenski, G. E. (1974). Human Societies: An Introduction to Macrosociology . McGraw-Hill.

OpenStax. (2021). Introduction to Sociology, 3rd edition . Rice University.

Sahlins, M. (1968). Notes on the Original Affluent Society . In Lee, R. B. & DeVore, I. Man the Hunter . Aldine Publishing Company.

Tio Gabunia (B.Arch, M.Arch)

Tio Gabunia is an academic writer and architect based in Tbilisi. He has studied architecture, design, and urban planning at the Georgian Technical University and the University of Lisbon. He has worked in these fields in Georgia, Portugal, and France. Most of Tio’s writings concern philosophy. Other writings include architecture, sociology, urban planning, and economics.

Tio Gabunia (B.Arch, M.Arch) #molongui-disabled-link 25 Public Health Policy Examples
Tio Gabunia (B.Arch, M.Arch) #molongui-disabled-link 15 Cultural Differences Examples
Tio Gabunia (B.Arch, M.Arch) #molongui-disabled-link Social Interaction Types & Examples (Sociology)
Tio Gabunia (B.Arch, M.Arch) #molongui-disabled-link 25 Common Good Examples

Chris Drew (PhD)

This article was peer-reviewed and edited by Chris Drew (PhD). The review process on Helpful Professor involves having a PhD level expert fact check, edit, and contribute to articles. Reviewers ensure all content reflects expert academic consensus and is backed up with reference to academic studies. Dr. Drew has published over 20 academic articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education and holds a PhD in Education from ACU.

Chris Drew (PhD) #molongui-disabled-link 15 Theory of Planned Behavior Examples
Chris Drew (PhD) #molongui-disabled-link 18 Adaptive Behavior Examples
Chris Drew (PhD) #molongui-disabled-link 15 Cooperative Play Examples
Chris Drew (PhD) #molongui-disabled-link 15 Parallel Play Examples

Comparing and Contrasting

What this handout is about.

This handout will help you first to determine whether a particular assignment is asking for comparison/contrast and then to generate a list of similarities and differences, decide which similarities and differences to focus on, and organize your paper so that it will be clear and effective. It will also explain how you can (and why you should) develop a thesis that goes beyond “Thing A and Thing B are similar in many ways but different in others.”

Introduction

In your career as a student, you’ll encounter many different kinds of writing assignments, each with its own requirements. One of the most common is the comparison/contrast essay, in which you focus on the ways in which certain things or ideas—usually two of them—are similar to (this is the comparison) and/or different from (this is the contrast) one another. By assigning such essays, your instructors are encouraging you to make connections between texts or ideas, engage in critical thinking, and go beyond mere description or summary to generate interesting analysis: when you reflect on similarities and differences, you gain a deeper understanding of the items you are comparing, their relationship to each other, and what is most important about them.

Recognizing comparison/contrast in assignments

Some assignments use words—like compare, contrast, similarities, and differences—that make it easy for you to see that they are asking you to compare and/or contrast. Here are a few hypothetical examples:

Compare and contrast Frye’s and Bartky’s accounts of oppression.
Compare WWI to WWII, identifying similarities in the causes, development, and outcomes of the wars.
Contrast Wordsworth and Coleridge; what are the major differences in their poetry?

Notice that some topics ask only for comparison, others only for contrast, and others for both.

But it’s not always so easy to tell whether an assignment is asking you to include comparison/contrast. And in some cases, comparison/contrast is only part of the essay—you begin by comparing and/or contrasting two or more things and then use what you’ve learned to construct an argument or evaluation. Consider these examples, noticing the language that is used to ask for the comparison/contrast and whether the comparison/contrast is only one part of a larger assignment:

Choose a particular idea or theme, such as romantic love, death, or nature, and consider how it is treated in two Romantic poems.
How do the different authors we have studied so far define and describe oppression?
Compare Frye’s and Bartky’s accounts of oppression. What does each imply about women’s collusion in their own oppression? Which is more accurate?
In the texts we’ve studied, soldiers who served in different wars offer differing accounts of their experiences and feelings both during and after the fighting. What commonalities are there in these accounts? What factors do you think are responsible for their differences?

You may want to check out our handout on understanding assignments for additional tips.

Using comparison/contrast for all kinds of writing projects

Sometimes you may want to use comparison/contrast techniques in your own pre-writing work to get ideas that you can later use for an argument, even if comparison/contrast isn’t an official requirement for the paper you’re writing. For example, if you wanted to argue that Frye’s account of oppression is better than both de Beauvoir’s and Bartky’s, comparing and contrasting the main arguments of those three authors might help you construct your evaluation—even though the topic may not have asked for comparison/contrast and the lists of similarities and differences you generate may not appear anywhere in the final draft of your paper.

Discovering similarities and differences

Making a Venn diagram or a chart can help you quickly and efficiently compare and contrast two or more things or ideas. To make a Venn diagram, simply draw some overlapping circles, one circle for each item you’re considering. In the central area where they overlap, list the traits the two items have in common. Assign each one of the areas that doesn’t overlap; in those areas, you can list the traits that make the things different. Here’s a very simple example, using two pizza places:

Venn diagram indicating that both Pepper's and Amante serve pizza with unusual ingredients at moderate prices, despite differences in location, wait times, and delivery options

To make a chart, figure out what criteria you want to focus on in comparing the items. Along the left side of the page, list each of the criteria. Across the top, list the names of the items. You should then have a box per item for each criterion; you can fill the boxes in and then survey what you’ve discovered.

Here’s an example, this time using three pizza places:

	Pepper’s	Amante	Papa John’s
Location
Price
Delivery
Ingredients
Service
Seating/eating in
Coupons

As you generate points of comparison, consider the purpose and content of the assignment and the focus of the class. What do you think the professor wants you to learn by doing this comparison/contrast? How does it fit with what you have been studying so far and with the other assignments in the course? Are there any clues about what to focus on in the assignment itself?

Here are some general questions about different types of things you might have to compare. These are by no means complete or definitive lists; they’re just here to give you some ideas—you can generate your own questions for these and other types of comparison. You may want to begin by using the questions reporters traditionally ask: Who? What? Where? When? Why? How? If you’re talking about objects, you might also consider general properties like size, shape, color, sound, weight, taste, texture, smell, number, duration, and location.

Two historical periods or events

When did they occur—do you know the date(s) and duration? What happened or changed during each? Why are they significant?
What kinds of work did people do? What kinds of relationships did they have? What did they value?
What kinds of governments were there? Who were important people involved?
What caused events in these periods, and what consequences did they have later on?

Two ideas or theories

What are they about?
Did they originate at some particular time?
Who created them? Who uses or defends them?
What is the central focus, claim, or goal of each? What conclusions do they offer?
How are they applied to situations/people/things/etc.?
Which seems more plausible to you, and why? How broad is their scope?
What kind of evidence is usually offered for them?

Two pieces of writing or art

What are their titles? What do they describe or depict?
What is their tone or mood? What is their form?
Who created them? When were they created? Why do you think they were created as they were? What themes do they address?
Do you think one is of higher quality or greater merit than the other(s)—and if so, why?
For writing: what plot, characterization, setting, theme, tone, and type of narration are used?
Where are they from? How old are they? What is the gender, race, class, etc. of each?
What, if anything, are they known for? Do they have any relationship to each other?
What are they like? What did/do they do? What do they believe? Why are they interesting?
What stands out most about each of them?

Deciding what to focus on

By now you have probably generated a huge list of similarities and differences—congratulations! Next you must decide which of them are interesting, important, and relevant enough to be included in your paper. Ask yourself these questions:

What’s relevant to the assignment?
What’s relevant to the course?
What’s interesting and informative?
What matters to the argument you are going to make?
What’s basic or central (and needs to be mentioned even if obvious)?
Overall, what’s more important—the similarities or the differences?

Suppose that you are writing a paper comparing two novels. For most literature classes, the fact that they both use Caslon type (a kind of typeface, like the fonts you may use in your writing) is not going to be relevant, nor is the fact that one of them has a few illustrations and the other has none; literature classes are more likely to focus on subjects like characterization, plot, setting, the writer’s style and intentions, language, central themes, and so forth. However, if you were writing a paper for a class on typesetting or on how illustrations are used to enhance novels, the typeface and presence or absence of illustrations might be absolutely critical to include in your final paper.

Sometimes a particular point of comparison or contrast might be relevant but not terribly revealing or interesting. For example, if you are writing a paper about Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey” and Coleridge’s “Frost at Midnight,” pointing out that they both have nature as a central theme is relevant (comparisons of poetry often talk about themes) but not terribly interesting; your class has probably already had many discussions about the Romantic poets’ fondness for nature. Talking about the different ways nature is depicted or the different aspects of nature that are emphasized might be more interesting and show a more sophisticated understanding of the poems.

Your thesis

The thesis of your comparison/contrast paper is very important: it can help you create a focused argument and give your reader a road map so they don’t get lost in the sea of points you are about to make. As in any paper, you will want to replace vague reports of your general topic (for example, “This paper will compare and contrast two pizza places,” or “Pepper’s and Amante are similar in some ways and different in others,” or “Pepper’s and Amante are similar in many ways, but they have one major difference”) with something more detailed and specific. For example, you might say, “Pepper’s and Amante have similar prices and ingredients, but their atmospheres and willingness to deliver set them apart.”

Be careful, though—although this thesis is fairly specific and does propose a simple argument (that atmosphere and delivery make the two pizza places different), your instructor will often be looking for a bit more analysis. In this case, the obvious question is “So what? Why should anyone care that Pepper’s and Amante are different in this way?” One might also wonder why the writer chose those two particular pizza places to compare—why not Papa John’s, Dominos, or Pizza Hut? Again, thinking about the context the class provides may help you answer such questions and make a stronger argument. Here’s a revision of the thesis mentioned earlier:

Pepper’s and Amante both offer a greater variety of ingredients than other Chapel Hill/Carrboro pizza places (and than any of the national chains), but the funky, lively atmosphere at Pepper’s makes it a better place to give visiting friends and family a taste of local culture.

You may find our handout on constructing thesis statements useful at this stage.

Organizing your paper

There are many different ways to organize a comparison/contrast essay. Here are two:

Subject-by-subject

Begin by saying everything you have to say about the first subject you are discussing, then move on and make all the points you want to make about the second subject (and after that, the third, and so on, if you’re comparing/contrasting more than two things). If the paper is short, you might be able to fit all of your points about each item into a single paragraph, but it’s more likely that you’d have several paragraphs per item. Using our pizza place comparison/contrast as an example, after the introduction, you might have a paragraph about the ingredients available at Pepper’s, a paragraph about its location, and a paragraph about its ambience. Then you’d have three similar paragraphs about Amante, followed by your conclusion.

The danger of this subject-by-subject organization is that your paper will simply be a list of points: a certain number of points (in my example, three) about one subject, then a certain number of points about another. This is usually not what college instructors are looking for in a paper—generally they want you to compare or contrast two or more things very directly, rather than just listing the traits the things have and leaving it up to the reader to reflect on how those traits are similar or different and why those similarities or differences matter. Thus, if you use the subject-by-subject form, you will probably want to have a very strong, analytical thesis and at least one body paragraph that ties all of your different points together.

A subject-by-subject structure can be a logical choice if you are writing what is sometimes called a “lens” comparison, in which you use one subject or item (which isn’t really your main topic) to better understand another item (which is). For example, you might be asked to compare a poem you’ve already covered thoroughly in class with one you are reading on your own. It might make sense to give a brief summary of your main ideas about the first poem (this would be your first subject, the “lens”), and then spend most of your paper discussing how those points are similar to or different from your ideas about the second.

Point-by-point

Rather than addressing things one subject at a time, you may wish to talk about one point of comparison at a time. There are two main ways this might play out, depending on how much you have to say about each of the things you are comparing. If you have just a little, you might, in a single paragraph, discuss how a certain point of comparison/contrast relates to all the items you are discussing. For example, I might describe, in one paragraph, what the prices are like at both Pepper’s and Amante; in the next paragraph, I might compare the ingredients available; in a third, I might contrast the atmospheres of the two restaurants.

If I had a bit more to say about the items I was comparing/contrasting, I might devote a whole paragraph to how each point relates to each item. For example, I might have a whole paragraph about the clientele at Pepper’s, followed by a whole paragraph about the clientele at Amante; then I would move on and do two more paragraphs discussing my next point of comparison/contrast—like the ingredients available at each restaurant.

There are no hard and fast rules about organizing a comparison/contrast paper, of course. Just be sure that your reader can easily tell what’s going on! Be aware, too, of the placement of your different points. If you are writing a comparison/contrast in service of an argument, keep in mind that the last point you make is the one you are leaving your reader with. For example, if I am trying to argue that Amante is better than Pepper’s, I should end with a contrast that leaves Amante sounding good, rather than with a point of comparison that I have to admit makes Pepper’s look better. If you’ve decided that the differences between the items you’re comparing/contrasting are most important, you’ll want to end with the differences—and vice versa, if the similarities seem most important to you.

Our handout on organization can help you write good topic sentences and transitions and make sure that you have a good overall structure in place for your paper.

Cue words and other tips

To help your reader keep track of where you are in the comparison/contrast, you’ll want to be sure that your transitions and topic sentences are especially strong. Your thesis should already have given the reader an idea of the points you’ll be making and the organization you’ll be using, but you can help them out with some extra cues. The following words may be helpful to you in signaling your intentions:

like, similar to, also, unlike, similarly, in the same way, likewise, again, compared to, in contrast, in like manner, contrasted with, on the contrary, however, although, yet, even though, still, but, nevertheless, conversely, at the same time, regardless, despite, while, on the one hand … on the other hand.

For example, you might have a topic sentence like one of these:

Compared to Pepper’s, Amante is quiet.
Like Amante, Pepper’s offers fresh garlic as a topping.
Despite their different locations (downtown Chapel Hill and downtown Carrboro), Pepper’s and Amante are both fairly easy to get to.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Make a Gift

Walden University
Faculty Portal

Writing a Paper: Comparing & Contrasting

A compare and contrast paper discusses the similarities and differences between two or more topics. The paper should contain an introduction with a thesis statement, a body where the comparisons and contrasts are discussed, and a conclusion.

Address Both Similarities and Differences

Because this is a compare and contrast paper, both the similarities and differences should be discussed. This will require analysis on your part, as some topics will appear to be quite similar, and you will have to work to find the differing elements.

Make Sure You Have a Clear Thesis Statement

Just like any other essay, a compare and contrast essay needs a thesis statement. The thesis statement should not only tell your reader what you will do, but it should also address the purpose and importance of comparing and contrasting the material.

Use Clear Transitions

Transitions are important in compare and contrast essays, where you will be moving frequently between different topics or perspectives.

Examples of transitions and phrases for comparisons: as well, similar to, consistent with, likewise, too
Examples of transitions and phrases for contrasts: on the other hand, however, although, differs, conversely, rather than.

For more information, check out our transitions page.

Structure Your Paper

Consider how you will present the information. You could present all of the similarities first and then present all of the differences. Or you could go point by point and show the similarity and difference of one point, then the similarity and difference for another point, and so on.

Include Analysis

It is tempting to just provide summary for this type of paper, but analysis will show the importance of the comparisons and contrasts. For instance, if you are comparing two articles on the topic of the nursing shortage, help us understand what this will achieve. Did you find consensus between the articles that will support a certain action step for people in the field? Did you find discrepancies between the two that point to the need for further investigation?

Make Analogous Comparisons

When drawing comparisons or making contrasts, be sure you are dealing with similar aspects of each item. To use an old cliché, are you comparing apples to apples?

Example of poor comparisons: Kubista studied the effects of a later start time on high school students, but Cook used a mixed methods approach. (This example does not compare similar items. It is not a clear contrast because the sentence does not discuss the same element of the articles. It is like comparing apples to oranges.)
Example of analogous comparisons: Cook used a mixed methods approach, whereas Kubista used only quantitative methods. (Here, methods are clearly being compared, allowing the reader to understand the distinction.

Related Webinar

Didn't find what you need? Email us at [email protected] .

Previous Page: Developing Arguments
Next Page: Avoiding Logical Fallacies
Office of Student Disability Services

Walden Resources

Departments.

Academic Residencies
Academic Skills
Career Planning and Development
Customer Care Team
Field Experience
Military Services
Student Success Advising
Writing Skills

Centers and Offices

Center for Social Change
Office of Academic Support and Instructional Services
Office of Degree Acceleration
Office of Research and Doctoral Services
Office of Student Affairs

Student Resources

Doctoral Writing Assessment
Form & Style Review
Quick Answers
ScholarWorks
SKIL Courses and Workshops
Walden Bookstore
Walden Catalog & Student Handbook
Student Safety/Title IX
Legal & Consumer Information
Website Terms and Conditions
Cookie Policy
Accessibility
Accreditation
State Authorization
Net Price Calculator
Contact Walden

Grades 6-12
School Leaders

NEW: Classroom Clean-Up/Set-Up Email Course! 🧽

34 Compelling Compare and Contrast Essay Examples

Topics cover education, technology, pop culture, sports, animals, and more.

Do your writers need some inspiration? If you’re teaching students to write a compare and contrast essay, a strong example is an invaluable tool. This round-up of our favorite compare and contrast essays covers a range of topics and grade levels, so no matter your students’ interests or ages, you’ll always have a helpful example to share. You’ll find links to full essays about education, technology, pop culture, sports, animals, and more. (Need compare-and-contrast essay topic ideas? Check out our big list of compare and contrast essay topics! )

What is a compare and contrast essay?

Education and parenting essays
Technology essays
Pop culture essays
Historical and political essays
Sports essays
Lifestyle essays
Healthcare essays
Animal essays

When choosing a compare and contrast essay example to include on this list, we considered the structure. A strong compare and contrast essay begins with an introductory paragraph that includes background context and a strong thesis. Next, the body includes paragraphs that explore the similarities and differences. Finally, a concluding paragraph restates the thesis, draws any necessary inferences, and asks any remaining questions.

A compare and contrast essay example can be an opinion piece comparing two things and making a conclusion about which is better. For example, “Is Tom Brady really the GOAT?” It can also help consumers decide which product is better suited to them. Should you keep your subscription to Hulu or Netflix? Should you stick with Apple or explore Android? Here’s our list of compare and contrast essay samples categorized by subject.

Education and Parenting Compare and Contrast Essay Examples

Private school vs. public school.

Sample lines: “Deciding whether to send a child to public or private school can be a tough choice for parents. … Data on whether public or private education is better can be challenging to find and difficult to understand, and the cost of private school can be daunting. … According to the most recent data from the National Center for Education Statistics, public schools still attract far more students than private schools, with 50.7 million students attending public school as of 2018. Private school enrollment in the fall of 2017 was 5.7 million students, a number that is down from 6 million in 1999.”

Read the full essay: Private School vs. Public School at U.S. News and World Report

Homeschool vs. Public School: How Home Schooling Will Change Public Education

Sample lines: “Home schooling, not a present threat to public education, is nonetheless one of the forces that will change it. If the high estimates of the number of children in home schools (1.2 million) is correct, then the home-schooling universe is larger than the New York City public school system and roughly the size of the Los Angeles and Chicago public school systems combined. … Critics charge that three things are wrong with home schooling: harm to students academically; harm to society by producing students who are ill-prepared to function as democratic citizens and participants in a modern economy; and harm to public education, making it more difficult for other parents to educate their children. … It is time to ask whether home schooling, charters, and vouchers should be considered parts of a broad repertoire of methods that we as a society use to educate our children.”

Read the full essay: Homeschool vs. Public School: How Home Schooling Will Change Public Education at Brookings

Which parenting style is right for you?

Sample lines: “The three main types of parenting are on a type of ‘sliding scale’ of parenting, with permissive parenting as the least strict type of parenting. Permissive parenting typically has very few rules, while authoritarian parenting is thought of as a very strict, rule-driven type of parenting.”

Read the full essay: What Is Authoritative Parenting? at Healthline

Masked Education? The Benefits and Burdens of Wearing Face Masks in Schools During the Pandemic

Sample lines: “Face masks can prevent the spread of the virus SARS-CoV-2. … However, covering the lower half of the face reduces the ability to communicate. Positive emotions become less recognizable, and negative emotions are amplified. Emotional mimicry, contagion, and emotionality in general are reduced and (thereby) bonding between teachers and learners, group cohesion, and learning—of which emotions are a major driver. The benefits and burdens of face masks in schools should be seriously considered and made obvious and clear to teachers and students.”

Read the full essay: Masked Education? The Benefits and Burdens of Wearing Face Masks in Schools During the Pandemic at National Library of Medicine

To Ban or Not: What Should We Really Make of Book Bans?

Sample lines: “In recent years, book bans have soared in schools, reaching an all-time high in fall 2022. … The challenge of balancing parent concerns about ‘age appropriateness’ against the imperative of preparing students to be informed citizens is still on the minds of many educators today. … Such curricular decision-making should be left to the professionals, argues English/language arts instructional specialist Miriam Plotinsky. ‘Examining texts for their appropriateness is not a job that noneducators are trained to do,’ she wrote last year, as the national debate over censorship resurged with the news that a Tennessee district banned the graphic novel Maus just days before Holocaust Remembrance Day.”

Read the full essay: To Ban or Not: What Should We Really Make of Book Bans? at Education Week

Technology Compare and Contrast Essay Examples

Netflix vs. hulu 2023: which is the best streaming service.

Sample lines: “Netflix fans will point to its high-quality originals, including The Witcher , Stranger Things , Emily in Paris , Ozark , and more, as well as a wide variety of documentaries like Cheer , The Last Dance , My Octopus Teacher , and many others. It also boasts a much larger subscription base, with more than 222 million subscribers compared to Hulu’s 44 million. Hulu, on the other hand, offers a variety of extras such as HBO and Showtime—content that’s unavailable on Netflix. Its price tag is also cheaper than the competition, with its $7/mo. starting price, which is a bit more palatable than Netflix’s $10/mo. starting price.”

Read the full essay: Netflix vs. Hulu 2023: Which is the best streaming service? at TV Guide

Kindle vs. Hardcover: Which is easier on the eyes?

Sample lines: “In the past, we would have to drag around heavy books if we were really into reading. Now, we can have all of those books, and many more, stored in one handy little device that can easily be stuffed into a backpack, purse, etc. … Many of us still prefer to hold an actual book in our hands. … But, whether you use a Kindle or prefer hardcover books or paperbacks, the main thing is that you enjoy reading. A story in a book or on a Kindle device can open up new worlds, take you to fantasy worlds, educate you, entertain you, and so much more.”

Read the full essay: Kindle vs. Hardcover: Which is easier on the eyes? at Books in a Flash

iPhone vs. Android: Which is better for you?

Sample lines: “The iPhone vs. Android comparison is a never-ending debate on which one is best. It will likely never have a real winner, but we’re going to try and help you to find your personal pick all the same. iOS 17 and Android 14—the latest versions of the two operating systems—both offer smooth and user-friendly experiences, and several similar or identical features. But there are still important differences to be aware of. … Owning an iPhone is a simpler, more convenient experience. There’s less to think about. … Android-device ownership is a bit harder. … Yet it’s simultaneously more freeing, because it offers more choice.”

Read the full essay: iPhone vs. Android: Which is better for you? at Tom’s Guide

Cutting the cord: Is streaming or cable better for you?

Sample lines: “Cord-cutting has become a popular trend in recent years, thanks to the rise of streaming services. For those unfamiliar, cord cutting is the process of canceling your cable subscription and instead, relying on streaming platforms such as Netflix and Hulu to watch your favorite shows and movies. The primary difference is that you can select your streaming services à la carte while cable locks you in on a set number of channels through bundles. So, the big question is: should you cut the cord?”

Read the full essay: Cutting the cord: Is streaming or cable better for you? at BroadbandNow

PS5 vs. Nintendo Switch

Sample lines: “The crux of the comparison comes down to portability versus power. Being able to migrate fully fledged Nintendo games from a big screen to a portable device is a huge asset—and one that consumers have taken to, especially given the Nintendo Switch’s meteoric sales figures. … It is worth noting that many of the biggest franchises like Call of Duty, Madden, modern Resident Evil titles, newer Final Fantasy games, Grand Theft Auto, and open-world Ubisoft adventures like Assassin’s Creed will usually skip Nintendo Switch due to its lack of power. The inability to play these popular games practically guarantees that a consumer will pick up a modern system, while using the Switch as a secondary device.”

Read the full essay: PS5 vs. Nintendo Switch at Digital Trends

What is the difference between Facebook and Instagram?

Sample lines: “Have you ever wondered what is the difference between Facebook and Instagram? Instagram and Facebook are by far the most popular social media channels used by digital marketers. Not to mention that they’re also the biggest platforms used by internet users worldwide. So, today we’ll look into the differences and similarities between these two platforms to help you figure out which one is the best fit for your business.”

Read the full essay: What is the difference between Facebook and Instagram? at SocialBee

Digital vs. Analog Watches—What’s the Difference?

Sample lines: “In short, digital watches use an LCD or LED screen to display the time. Whereas, an analog watch features three hands to denote the hour, minutes, and seconds. With the advancement in watch technology and research, both analog and digital watches have received significant improvements over the years. Especially in terms of design, endurance, and accompanying features. … At the end of the day, whether you go analog or digital, it’s a personal preference to make based on your style, needs, functions, and budget.”

Read the full essay: Digital vs. Analog Watches—What’s the Difference? at Watch Ranker

AI Art vs. Human Art: A Side-by-Side Analysis

Sample lines: “Art has always been a reflection of human creativity, emotion, and cultural expression. However, with the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), a new form of artistic creation has emerged, blurring the lines between what is created by human hands and what is generated by algorithms. … Despite the excitement surrounding AI Art, it also raises complex ethical, legal, and artistic questions that have sparked debates about the definition of art, the role of the artist, and the future of art production. … Regardless of whether AI Art is considered ‘true’ art, it is crucial to embrace and explore the vast possibilities and potential it brings to the table. The transformative influence of AI art on the art world is still unfolding, and only time will reveal its true extent.”

Read the full essay: AI Art vs. Human Art: A Side-by-Side Analysis at Raul Lara

Pop Culture Compare and Contrast Essay Examples

Christina aguilera vs. britney spears.

Sample lines: “Britney Spears vs. Christina Aguilera was the Coke vs. Pepsi of 1999 — no, really, Christina repped Coke and Britney shilled for Pepsi. The two teen idols released debut albums seven months apart before the turn of the century, with Britney’s becoming a standard-bearer for bubblegum pop and Aguilera’s taking an R&B bent to show off her range. … It’s clear that Spears and Aguilera took extremely divergent paths following their simultaneous breakout successes.”

Read the full essay: Christina Aguilera vs. Britney Spears at The Ringer

Harry Styles vs. Ed Sheeran

Sample lines: “The world heard our fantasies and delivered us two titans simultaneously—we have been blessed with Ed Sheeran and Harry Styles. Our cup runneth over; our bounty is immeasurable. More remarkable still is the fact that both have released albums almost at the same time: Ed’s third, Divide , was released in March and broke the record for one-day Spotify streams, while Harry’s frenziedly anticipated debut solo, called Harry Styles , was released yesterday.”

Read the full essay: Harry Styles versus Ed Sheeran at Belfast Telegraph

The Grinch: Three Versions Compared

Sample lines: “Based on the original story of the same name, this movie takes a completely different direction by choosing to break away from the cartoony form that Seuss had established by filming the movie in a live-action form. Whoville is preparing for Christmas while the Grinch looks down upon their celebrations in disgust. Like the previous film, The Grinch hatches a plan to ruin Christmas for the Who’s. … Like in the original Grinch, he disguises himself as Santa Claus, and makes his dog, Max, into a reindeer. He then takes all of the presents from the children and households. … Cole’s favorite is the 2000 edition, while Alex has only seen the original. Tell us which one is your favorite.”

Read the full essay: The Grinch: Three Versions Compared at Wooster School

Historical and Political Compare and Contrast Essay Examples

Malcolm x vs. martin luther king jr.: comparison between two great leaders’ ideologies .

Sample lines: “Although they were fighting for civil rights at the same time, their ideology and way of fighting were completely distinctive. This can be for a plethora of reasons: background, upbringing, the system of thought, and vision. But keep in mind, they devoted their whole life to the same prospect. … Through boycotts and marches, [King] hoped to end racial segregation. He felt that the abolition of segregation would improve the likelihood of integration. Malcolm X, on the other hand, spearheaded a movement for black empowerment.”

Read the full essay: Malcolm X vs. Martin Luther King Jr.: Comparison Between Two Great Leaders’ Ideologies at Melaninful

Contrast Between Obama and Trump Has Become Clear

Sample lines: “The contrast is even clearer when we look to the future. Trump promises more tax cuts, more military spending, more deficits and deeper cuts in programs for the vulnerable. He plans to nominate a coal lobbyist to head the Environmental Protection Agency. … Obama says America must move forward, and he praises progressive Democrats for advocating Medicare for all. … With Obama and then Trump, Americans have elected two diametrically opposed leaders leading into two very different directions.”

Read the full essay: Contrast Between Obama and Trump Has Become Clear at Chicago Sun-Times

Sports Compare and Contrast Essay Examples

Lebron james vs. kobe bryant: a complete comparison.

Sample lines: “LeBron James has achieved so much in his career that he is seen by many as the greatest of all time, or at least the only player worthy of being mentioned in the GOAT conversation next to Michael Jordan. Bridging the gap between Jordan and LeBron though was Kobe Bryant, who often gets left out of comparisons and GOAT conversations. … Should his name be mentioned more though? Can he compare to LeBron or is The King too far past The Black Mamba in historical rankings already?”

Read the full essay: LeBron James vs. Kobe Bryant: A Complete Comparison at Sportskeeda

NFL: Tom Brady vs. Peyton Manning Rivalry Comparison

Sample lines: “Tom Brady and Peyton Manning were largely considered the best quarterbacks in the NFL for the majority of the time they spent in the league together, with the icons having many head-to-head clashes in the regular season and on the AFC side of the NFL Playoffs. Manning was the leader of the Indianapolis Colts of the AFC South. … Brady spent his career as the QB of the AFC East’s New England Patriots, before taking his talents to Tampa Bay. … The reality is that winning is the most important aspect of any career, and Brady won more head-to-head matchups than Manning did.”

Read the full essay: NFL: Tom Brady vs. Peyton Manning Rivalry Comparison at Sportskeeda

The Greatest NBA Franchise Ever: Boston Celtics or Los Angeles Lakers?

Sample lines: “The Celtics are universally considered as the greatest franchise in NBA history. But if you take a close look at the numbers, there isn’t really too much separation between them and their arch-rival Los Angeles Lakers. In fact, you can even make a good argument for the Lakers. … In 72 seasons played, the Boston Celtics have won a total of 3,314 games and lost 2,305 or a .590 winning mark. On the other hand, the Los Angeles Lakers have won 3,284 of 5,507 total games played or a slightly better winning record of .596. … But while the Lakers have the better winning percentage, the Celtics have the advantage over them in head-to-head competition.”

Read the full essay: The Greatest NBA Franchise Ever: Boston Celtics or Los Angeles Lakers? at Sport One

Is Soccer Better Than Football?

Sample lines: “Is soccer better than football? Soccer and football lovers have numerous reasons to support their sport of choice. Both keep the players physically fit and help to bring people together for an exciting cause. However, soccer has drawn more numbers globally due to its popularity in more countries.”

Read the full essay: Is Soccer Better Than Football? at Sports Brief

Lifestyle Choices Compare and Contrast Essay Examples

Mobile home vs. tiny house: similarities, differences, pros & cons.

Sample lines: “Choosing the tiny home lifestyle enables you to spend more time with those you love. The small living space ensures quality bonding time rather than hiding away in a room or behind a computer screen. … You’ll be able to connect closer to nature and find yourself able to travel the country at any given moment. On the other hand, we have the mobile home. … They are built on a chassis with transportation in mind. … They are not built to be moved on a constant basis. … While moving the home again *is* possible, it may cost you several thousand dollars.”

Read the full essay: Mobile Home vs. Tiny House: Similarities, Differences, Pros & Cons at US Mobile Home Pros

Whole Foods vs. Walmart: The Story of Two Grocery Stores

Sample lines: “It is clear that both stores have very different stories and aims when it comes to their customers. Whole Foods looks to provide organic, healthy, exotic, and niche products for an audience with a very particular taste. … Walmart, on the other hand, looks to provide the best deals, every possible product, and every big brand for a broader audience. … Moreover, they look to make buying affordable and accessible, and focus on the capitalist nature of buying.”

Read the full essay: Whole Foods vs. Walmart: The Story of Two Grocery Stores at The Archaeology of Us

Artificial Grass vs. Turf: The Real Differences Revealed

Sample lines: “The key difference between artificial grass and turf is their intended use. Artificial turf is largely intended to be used for sports, so it is shorter and tougher. On the other hand, artificial grass is generally longer, softer and more suited to landscaping purposes. Most homeowners would opt for artificial grass as a replacement for a lawn, for example. Some people actually prefer playing sports on artificial grass, too … artificial grass is often softer and more bouncy, giving it a feel similar to playing on a grassy lawn. … At the end of the day, which one you will choose will depend on your specific household and needs.”

Read the full essay: Artificial Grass vs. Turf: The Real Differences Revealed at Almost Grass

Minimalism vs. Maximalism: Differences, Similarities, and Use Cases

Sample lines: “Maximalists love shopping, especially finding unique pieces. They see it as a hobby—even a skill—and a way to express their personality. Minimalists don’t like shopping and see it as a waste of time and money. They’d instead use those resources to create memorable experiences. Maximalists desire one-of-a-kind possessions. Minimalists are happy with duplicates—for example, personal uniforms. … Minimalism and maximalism are about being intentional with your life and belongings. It’s about making choices based on what’s important to you.”

Read the full essay: Minimalism vs. Maximalism: Differences, Similarities, and Use Cases at Minimalist Vegan

Vegetarian vs. Meat Eating: Is It Better To Be a Vegetarian?

Sample lines: “You’ve heard buzz over the years that following a vegetarian diet is better for your health, and you’ve probably read a few magazine articles featuring a celeb or two who swore off meat and animal products and ‘magically’ lost weight. So does ditching meat automatically equal weight loss? Will it really help you live longer and be healthier overall? … Vegetarians appear to have lower low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels, lower blood pressure and lower rates of hypertension and type 2 diabetes than meat eaters. Vegetarians also tend to have a lower body mass index, lower overall cancer rates and lower risk of chronic disease. But if your vegetarian co-worker is noshing greasy veggie burgers and fries every day for lunch, is he likely to be healthier than you, who always orders the grilled salmon? Definitely not!”

Read the full essay: Vegetarian vs. Meat Eating: Is It Better To Be a Vegetarian? at WebMD

Healthcare Compare and Contrast Essay Examples

Similarities and differences between the health systems in australia & usa.

Sample lines: “Australia and the United States are two very different countries. They are far away from each other, have contrasting fauna and flora, differ immensely by population, and have vastly different healthcare systems. The United States has a population of 331 million people, compared to Australia’s population of 25.5 million people.”

Read the full essay: Similarities and Differences Between the Health Systems in Australia & USA at Georgia State University

Universal Healthcare in the United States of America: A Healthy Debate

Sample lines: “Disadvantages of universal healthcare include significant upfront costs and logistical challenges. On the other hand, universal healthcare may lead to a healthier populace, and thus, in the long-term, help to mitigate the economic costs of an unhealthy nation. In particular, substantial health disparities exist in the United States, with low socio-economic status segments of the population subject to decreased access to quality healthcare and increased risk of non-communicable chronic conditions such as obesity and type II diabetes, among other determinants of poor health.”

Read the full essay: Universal Healthcare in the United States of America: A Healthy Debate at National Library of Medicine

Pros and Cons of Physician Aid in Dying

Sample lines: “Physician aid in dying is a controversial subject raising issues central to the role of physicians. … The two most common arguments in favor of legalizing AID are respect for patient autonomy and relief of suffering. A third, related, argument is that AID is a safe medical practice, requiring a health care professional. … Although opponents of AID offer many arguments ranging from pragmatic to philosophical, we focus here on concerns that the expansion of AID might cause additional, unintended harm through suicide contagion, slippery slope, and the deaths of patients suffering from depression.”

Read the full essay: Pros and Cons of Physician Aid in Dying at National Library of Medicine

Animals Compare and Contrast Essay Examples

Compare and contrast paragraph—dogs and cats.

Sample lines: “Researchers have found that dogs have about twice the number of neurons in their cerebral cortexes than what cats have. Specifically, dogs had around 530 million neurons, whereas the domestic cat only had 250 million neurons. Moreover, dogs can be trained to learn and respond to our commands, but although your cat understands your name, and anticipates your every move, he/she may choose to ignore you.”

Read the full essay: Compare and Contrast Paragraph—Dogs and Cats at Proofwriting Guru via YouTube

Giddyup! The Differences Between Horses and Dogs

Sample lines: “Horses are prey animals with a deep herding instinct. They are highly sensitive to their environment, hyper aware, and ready to take flight if needed. Just like dogs, some horses are more confident than others, but just like dogs, all need a confident handler to teach them what to do. Some horses are highly reactive and can be spooked by the smallest things, as are dogs. … Another distinction between horses and dogs … was that while dogs have been domesticated , horses have been tamed. … Both species have influenced our culture more than any other species on the planet.”

Read the full essay: Giddyup! The Differences Between Horses and Dogs at Positively Victoria Stilwell

Exotic, Domesticated, and Wild Pets

Sample lines: “Although the words ‘exotic’ and ‘wild’ are frequently used interchangeably, many people do not fully understand how these categories differ when it comes to pets. ‘A wild animal is an indigenous, non-domesticated animal, meaning that it is native to the country where you are located,’ Blue-McLendon explained. ‘For Texans, white-tailed deer, pronghorn sheep, raccoons, skunks, and bighorn sheep are wild animals … an exotic animal is one that is wild but is from a different continent than where you live.’ For example, a hedgehog in Texas would be considered an exotic animal, but in the hedgehog’s native country, it would be considered wildlife.”

Read the full essay: Exotic, Domesticated, and Wild Pets at Texas A&M University

Should Zoos Be Banned? Pros & Cons of Zoos

Sample lines: “The pros and cons of zoos often come from two very different points of view. From a legal standard, animals are often treated as property. That means they have less rights than humans, so a zoo seems like a positive place to maintain a high quality of life. For others, the forced enclosure of any animal feels like an unethical decision. … Zoos provide a protected environment for endangered animals, and also help in raising awareness and funding for wildlife initiatives and research projects. … Zoos are key for research. Being able to observe and study animals is crucial if we want to contribute to help them and repair the ecosystems. … Zoos are a typical form of family entertainment, but associating leisure and fun with the contemplation of animals in captivity can send the wrong signals to our children.”

Read the full essay: Should Zoos Be Banned? Pros & Cons of Zoos at EcoCation

Do you have a favorite compare and contrast essay example? Come share in the We Are Teachers HELPLINE group on Facebook .

Plus, if you liked these compare and contrast essay examples check out intriguing compare and contrast essay topics for kids and teens ..

A good compare and contrast essay example, like the ones here, explores the similarities and differences between two or more subjects.

First day of school vs. the last day of school.

80 Intriguing Compare and Contrast Essay Topics for Kids and Teens

Android vs. iPhone? Capitalism vs. communism? Hot dog vs. taco? Continue Reading

Link to facebook
Link to linkedin
Link to twitter
Link to youtube
Writing Tips

How to Write a Compare and Contrast Essay

5-minute read
9th March 2021

In a compare and contrast essay , you look at the similarities and differences between two subjects. How do you write one, though? Key steps include:

Pick two things to compare based on the assignment you were given.
Brainstorm the similarities and differences between your chosen subjects.
Choose a structure for your essay and plan how you will write it.
Write up your comparison and use evidence to support your argument.
Revise and proofread your essay to make sure it is perfect.

For more advice on each stage, check out our guide below.

1. Pick Two Subjects to Compare and Contrast

A compare and contrast assignment will ask you, unsurprisingly, to compare and contrast two things. In some cases, the assignment question will make this clear. For instance, if the assignment says “Compare how Mozart and Beethoven use melody,” you will have a very clear sense of what to write about!

Other times, you will have a choice of what to compare. In this case, you will want to pick two things that are similar enough to make a useful comparison.

For example, comparing Mozart and Beethoven makes sense because both are classical composers. This means there will be lots of points of comparison between them. But comparing Mozart to a Ferrari SF90 Stradale would just be confusing: one is a renowned composer and musician, the other is a high-end sports car, so they have very little in common that we could usefully compare.

At the same time, the things you pick should be different enough that you can find points of contrast. Were you asked to compare the calorific content of two types of fast food, for example, it might not make sense to compare hamburgers and cheeseburgers as they are too similar. But you could compare hamburgers and pizzas since both are forms of fast food but they differ in other respects.

As such, if you need to pick the subjects of your essay, read your assignment question carefully and try to find two things that will produce a helpful comparison.

2. Brainstorm Their Similarities and Differences

The next step is to brainstorm similarities and differences between your chosen subjects. You can do this as a simple list, but you could also use a Venn diagram .

This is a set of overlapping circles, each of which represents one subject. You can then add characteristics to each circle, with anything your subjects have in common going in the overlapping bit in the middle.

Find this useful?

Subscribe to our newsletter and get writing tips from our editors straight to your inbox.

Once you’ve listed characteristics, you’ll need to pick out the similarities and differences relevant to your essay. If you were assigned a question, use this to guide your choices. Otherwise, look for features that seem surprising or interesting and plan your essay around these. The key is to pick points of comparison that help us to understand each thing better, or where the similarities and differences show us something that we might not have expected or noticed otherwise.

3. Choose a Structure for Your Essay

As with any essay, you will want to start with a short introduction where you introduce your topic and what you will argue. Beyond this, most compare and contrast essays are structured in one of two ways. Decide which approach to take before you write your essay outline :

Divide by subject – Cover each subject in turn, looking at the key features you’ve identified in the previous step. You can then include a final section where you highlight what comparing the subjects tell us.
Divide by individual points – Break your essay down into a series of sections. Each section will then focus on one of the key features you’ve identified, explaining the similarities and differences between your chosen subjects.

For instance, if you were comparing two novels, you could write about each novel in turn and then compare them at the end. Alternatively, you could structure your essay so that each section covers an individual idea (e.g., one on structure, one on characters, one on language), looking at how each book uses these things.

In either case, you will want to end on a conclusion where you summarize what the comparison has shown us about the two subjects.

4. Use Supporting Evidence for Your Argument

It is important that you also back up your statements with supporting evidence. In some cases, this will simply involve pointing to the features of each subject that you’re discussing (e.g., citing specific parts of the novels you’re comparing).

However, you can also do extra research to back up your arguments. Were you comparing two countries’ economic performance, for example, you could use statistics from other studies or reports to show the similarities and differences.

5. Proofread Your Compare and Contrast Essay

Once you have a first draft of your compare and contrast essay, take a break. If you have time, leave it overnight. The aim is to come back to it with fresh eyes and reread it, looking for any areas you could improve. After this, you can redraft your essay to make sure your argument is clear, concise, and convincing.

It is also a good idea to have your essay proofread before submitting it. This will ensure your work is error free and help you get the marks you deserve.

Share this article:

Post A New Comment

Got content that needs a quick turnaround? Let us polish your work. Explore our editorial business services.

9-minute read

How to Use Infographics to Boost Your Presentation

Is your content getting noticed? Capturing and maintaining an audience’s attention is a challenge when...

8-minute read

Why Interactive PDFs Are Better for Engagement

Are you looking to enhance engagement and captivate your audience through your professional documents? Interactive...

7-minute read

Seven Key Strategies for Voice Search Optimization

Voice search optimization is rapidly shaping the digital landscape, requiring content professionals to adapt their...

4-minute read

Five Creative Ways to Showcase Your Digital Portfolio

Are you a creative freelancer looking to make a lasting impression on potential clients or...

How to Ace Slack Messaging for Contractors and Freelancers

Effective professional communication is an important skill for contractors and freelancers navigating remote work environments....

3-minute read

How to Insert a Text Box in a Google Doc

Google Docs is a powerful collaborative tool, and mastering its features can significantly enhance your...

Make sure your writing is the best it can be with our expert English proofreading and editing.

If you're seeing this message, it means we're having trouble loading external resources on our website.

If you're behind a web filter, please make sure that the domains *.kastatic.org and *.kasandbox.org are unblocked.

To log in and use all the features of Khan Academy, please enable JavaScript in your browser.

World history

Course: world history > unit 1.

The Neolithic Revolution and early agriculture
The dawn of agriculture
The spread of agriculture
Where did agriculture come from?

Early civilizations

Social, political, and environmental characteristics of early civilizations
Why did human societies get more complex?
Neolithic Revolution and the birth of agriculture

The term civilization refers to complex societies, but the specific definition is contested.
The advent of civilization depended on the ability of some agricultural settlements to consistently produce surplus food, which allowed some people to specialize in non-agricultural work, which in turn allowed for increased production, trade, population, and social stratification.
The first civilizations appeared in locations where the geography was favorable to intensive agriculture.
Governments and states emerged as rulers gained control over larger areas and more resources, often using writing and religion to maintain social hierarchies and consolidate power over larger areas and populations.
Writing allowed for the codification of laws, better methods of record-keeping, and the birth of literature, which fostered the spread of shared cultural practices among larger populations.

Degrees of complexity

First civilizations, what do civilizations have in common, what do you think.

When does a complex society become a civilization?
What factors were most important to establishing and maintaining a civilization?
Do you think that social hierarchies are necessary for civilization?
Are state-level political structures necessary for civilization? Or, can independent cities with a shared culture be a civilization?
See Christian, David: Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History (University of California Press, 2011).
See Christian, David: Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History .
See Spodek, Howard: The World's History (New Jersey, Pearson, 2006) 46-47.
See Fernández-Armesto, Felipe: Millennium: A History of the Last Thousand Years (Free Press, 1996) 78.
See Spodek, The World's History , 54-61.
See Bulliet, Richard W. et. al.: The Earth and its Peoples: A Global History (Boston, Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, 2011) 24-29; Spodek, The World's History , 51-54; and Strayer, Robert W. and Eric W. Nelson, Ways of the World: a Global History (New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2016) 71-75.

Want to join the conversation?

Upvote Button navigates to signup page
Downvote Button navigates to signup page
Flag Button navigates to signup page

Have a language expert improve your writing

Run a free plagiarism check in 10 minutes, generate accurate citations for free.

Knowledge Base
The four main types of essay | Quick guide with examples

The Four Main Types of Essay | Quick Guide with Examples

Published on September 4, 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on July 23, 2023.

An essay is a focused piece of writing designed to inform or persuade. There are many different types of essay, but they are often defined in four categories: argumentative, expository, narrative, and descriptive essays.

Argumentative and expository essays are focused on conveying information and making clear points, while narrative and descriptive essays are about exercising creativity and writing in an interesting way. At university level, argumentative essays are the most common type.

Essay type	Skills tested	Example prompt
		Has the rise of the internet had a positive or negative impact on education?
		Explain how the invention of the printing press changed European society in the 15th century.
		Write about an experience where you learned something about yourself.
		Describe an object that has sentimental value for you.

In high school and college, you will also often have to write textual analysis essays, which test your skills in close reading and interpretation.

Instantly correct all language mistakes in your text

Upload your document to correct all your mistakes in minutes

Argumentative essays, expository essays, narrative essays, descriptive essays, textual analysis essays, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about types of essays.

An argumentative essay presents an extended, evidence-based argument. It requires a strong thesis statement —a clearly defined stance on your topic. Your aim is to convince the reader of your thesis using evidence (such as quotations ) and analysis.

Argumentative essays test your ability to research and present your own position on a topic. This is the most common type of essay at college level—most papers you write will involve some kind of argumentation.

The essay is divided into an introduction, body, and conclusion:

The introduction provides your topic and thesis statement
The body presents your evidence and arguments
The conclusion summarizes your argument and emphasizes its importance

The example below is a paragraph from the body of an argumentative essay about the effects of the internet on education. Mouse over it to learn more.

A common frustration for teachers is students’ use of Wikipedia as a source in their writing. Its prevalence among students is not exaggerated; a survey found that the vast majority of the students surveyed used Wikipedia (Head & Eisenberg, 2010). An article in The Guardian stresses a common objection to its use: “a reliance on Wikipedia can discourage students from engaging with genuine academic writing” (Coomer, 2013). Teachers are clearly not mistaken in viewing Wikipedia usage as ubiquitous among their students; but the claim that it discourages engagement with academic sources requires further investigation. This point is treated as self-evident by many teachers, but Wikipedia itself explicitly encourages students to look into other sources. Its articles often provide references to academic publications and include warning notes where citations are missing; the site’s own guidelines for research make clear that it should be used as a starting point, emphasizing that users should always “read the references and check whether they really do support what the article says” (“Wikipedia:Researching with Wikipedia,” 2020). Indeed, for many students, Wikipedia is their first encounter with the concepts of citation and referencing. The use of Wikipedia therefore has a positive side that merits deeper consideration than it often receives.

Here's why students love Scribbr's proofreading services

Discover proofreading & editing

An expository essay provides a clear, focused explanation of a topic. It doesn’t require an original argument, just a balanced and well-organized view of the topic.

Expository essays test your familiarity with a topic and your ability to organize and convey information. They are commonly assigned at high school or in exam questions at college level.

The introduction of an expository essay states your topic and provides some general background, the body presents the details, and the conclusion summarizes the information presented.

A typical body paragraph from an expository essay about the invention of the printing press is shown below. Mouse over it to learn more.

The invention of the printing press in 1440 changed this situation dramatically. Johannes Gutenberg, who had worked as a goldsmith, used his knowledge of metals in the design of the press. He made his type from an alloy of lead, tin, and antimony, whose durability allowed for the reliable production of high-quality books. This new technology allowed texts to be reproduced and disseminated on a much larger scale than was previously possible. The Gutenberg Bible appeared in the 1450s, and a large number of printing presses sprang up across the continent in the following decades. Gutenberg’s invention rapidly transformed cultural production in Europe; among other things, it would lead to the Protestant Reformation.

A narrative essay is one that tells a story. This is usually a story about a personal experience you had, but it may also be an imaginative exploration of something you have not experienced.

Narrative essays test your ability to build up a narrative in an engaging, well-structured way. They are much more personal and creative than other kinds of academic writing . Writing a personal statement for an application requires the same skills as a narrative essay.

A narrative essay isn’t strictly divided into introduction, body, and conclusion, but it should still begin by setting up the narrative and finish by expressing the point of the story—what you learned from your experience, or why it made an impression on you.

Mouse over the example below, a short narrative essay responding to the prompt “Write about an experience where you learned something about yourself,” to explore its structure.

Since elementary school, I have always favored subjects like science and math over the humanities. My instinct was always to think of these subjects as more solid and serious than classes like English. If there was no right answer, I thought, why bother? But recently I had an experience that taught me my academic interests are more flexible than I had thought: I took my first philosophy class.

Before I entered the classroom, I was skeptical. I waited outside with the other students and wondered what exactly philosophy would involve—I really had no idea. I imagined something pretty abstract: long, stilted conversations pondering the meaning of life. But what I got was something quite different.

A young man in jeans, Mr. Jones—“but you can call me Rob”—was far from the white-haired, buttoned-up old man I had half-expected. And rather than pulling us into pedantic arguments about obscure philosophical points, Rob engaged us on our level. To talk free will, we looked at our own choices. To talk ethics, we looked at dilemmas we had faced ourselves. By the end of class, I’d discovered that questions with no right answer can turn out to be the most interesting ones.

The experience has taught me to look at things a little more “philosophically”—and not just because it was a philosophy class! I learned that if I let go of my preconceptions, I can actually get a lot out of subjects I was previously dismissive of. The class taught me—in more ways than one—to look at things with an open mind.

A descriptive essay provides a detailed sensory description of something. Like narrative essays, they allow you to be more creative than most academic writing, but they are more tightly focused than narrative essays. You might describe a specific place or object, rather than telling a whole story.

Descriptive essays test your ability to use language creatively, making striking word choices to convey a memorable picture of what you’re describing.

A descriptive essay can be quite loosely structured, though it should usually begin by introducing the object of your description and end by drawing an overall picture of it. The important thing is to use careful word choices and figurative language to create an original description of your object.

Mouse over the example below, a response to the prompt “Describe a place you love to spend time in,” to learn more about descriptive essays.

On Sunday afternoons I like to spend my time in the garden behind my house. The garden is narrow but long, a corridor of green extending from the back of the house, and I sit on a lawn chair at the far end to read and relax. I am in my small peaceful paradise: the shade of the tree, the feel of the grass on my feet, the gentle activity of the fish in the pond beside me.

My cat crosses the garden nimbly and leaps onto the fence to survey it from above. From his perch he can watch over his little kingdom and keep an eye on the neighbours. He does this until the barking of next door’s dog scares him from his post and he bolts for the cat flap to govern from the safety of the kitchen.

With that, I am left alone with the fish, whose whole world is the pond by my feet. The fish explore the pond every day as if for the first time, prodding and inspecting every stone. I sometimes feel the same about sitting here in the garden; I know the place better than anyone, but whenever I return I still feel compelled to pay attention to all its details and novelties—a new bird perched in the tree, the growth of the grass, and the movement of the insects it shelters…

Sitting out in the garden, I feel serene. I feel at home. And yet I always feel there is more to discover. The bounds of my garden may be small, but there is a whole world contained within it, and it is one I will never get tired of inhabiting.

Though every essay type tests your writing skills, some essays also test your ability to read carefully and critically. In a textual analysis essay, you don’t just present information on a topic, but closely analyze a text to explain how it achieves certain effects.

Rhetorical analysis

A rhetorical analysis looks at a persuasive text (e.g. a speech, an essay, a political cartoon) in terms of the rhetorical devices it uses, and evaluates their effectiveness.

The goal is not to state whether you agree with the author’s argument but to look at how they have constructed it.

The introduction of a rhetorical analysis presents the text, some background information, and your thesis statement; the body comprises the analysis itself; and the conclusion wraps up your analysis of the text, emphasizing its relevance to broader concerns.

The example below is from a rhetorical analysis of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech . Mouse over it to learn more.

King’s speech is infused with prophetic language throughout. Even before the famous “dream” part of the speech, King’s language consistently strikes a prophetic tone. He refers to the Lincoln Memorial as a “hallowed spot” and speaks of rising “from the dark and desolate valley of segregation” to “make justice a reality for all of God’s children.” The assumption of this prophetic voice constitutes the text’s strongest ethical appeal; after linking himself with political figures like Lincoln and the Founding Fathers, King’s ethos adopts a distinctly religious tone, recalling Biblical prophets and preachers of change from across history. This adds significant force to his words; standing before an audience of hundreds of thousands, he states not just what the future should be, but what it will be: “The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.” This warning is almost apocalyptic in tone, though it concludes with the positive image of the “bright day of justice.” The power of King’s rhetoric thus stems not only from the pathos of his vision of a brighter future, but from the ethos of the prophetic voice he adopts in expressing this vision.

Literary analysis

A literary analysis essay presents a close reading of a work of literature—e.g. a poem or novel—to explore the choices made by the author and how they help to convey the text’s theme. It is not simply a book report or a review, but an in-depth interpretation of the text.

Literary analysis looks at things like setting, characters, themes, and figurative language. The goal is to closely analyze what the author conveys and how.

The introduction of a literary analysis essay presents the text and background, and provides your thesis statement; the body consists of close readings of the text with quotations and analysis in support of your argument; and the conclusion emphasizes what your approach tells us about the text.

Mouse over the example below, the introduction to a literary analysis essay on Frankenstein , to learn more.

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is often read as a crude cautionary tale about the dangers of scientific advancement unrestrained by ethical considerations. In this reading, protagonist Victor Frankenstein is a stable representation of the callous ambition of modern science throughout the novel. This essay, however, argues that far from providing a stable image of the character, Shelley uses shifting narrative perspectives to portray Frankenstein in an increasingly negative light as the novel goes on. While he initially appears to be a naive but sympathetic idealist, after the creature’s narrative Frankenstein begins to resemble—even in his own telling—the thoughtlessly cruel figure the creature represents him as. This essay begins by exploring the positive portrayal of Frankenstein in the first volume, then moves on to the creature’s perception of him, and finally discusses the third volume’s narrative shift toward viewing Frankenstein as the creature views him.

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

Ad hominem fallacy
Post hoc fallacy
Appeal to authority fallacy
False cause fallacy
Sunk cost fallacy

College essays

Choosing Essay Topic
Write a College Essay
Write a Diversity Essay
College Essay Format & Structure
Comparing and Contrasting in an Essay

(AI) Tools

Grammar Checker
Paraphrasing Tool
Text Summarizer
AI Detector
Plagiarism Checker
Citation Generator

At high school and in composition classes at university, you’ll often be told to write a specific type of essay , but you might also just be given prompts.

Look for keywords in these prompts that suggest a certain approach: The word “explain” suggests you should write an expository essay , while the word “describe” implies a descriptive essay . An argumentative essay might be prompted with the word “assess” or “argue.”

The vast majority of essays written at university are some sort of argumentative essay . Almost all academic writing involves building up an argument, though other types of essay might be assigned in composition classes.

Essays can present arguments about all kinds of different topics. For example:

In a literary analysis essay, you might make an argument for a specific interpretation of a text
In a history essay, you might present an argument for the importance of a particular event
In a politics essay, you might argue for the validity of a certain political theory

An argumentative essay tends to be a longer essay involving independent research, and aims to make an original argument about a topic. Its thesis statement makes a contentious claim that must be supported in an objective, evidence-based way.

An expository essay also aims to be objective, but it doesn’t have to make an original argument. Rather, it aims to explain something (e.g., a process or idea) in a clear, concise way. Expository essays are often shorter assignments and rely less on research.

The key difference is that a narrative essay is designed to tell a complete story, while a descriptive essay is meant to convey an intense description of a particular place, object, or concept.

Narrative and descriptive essays both allow you to write more personally and creatively than other kinds of essays , and similar writing skills can apply to both.

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.

Caulfield, J. (2023, July 23). The Four Main Types of Essay | Quick Guide with Examples. Scribbr. Retrieved June 7, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/academic-essay/essay-types/

Is this article helpful?

Jack Caulfield

Other students also liked, how to write an argumentative essay | examples & tips, how to write an expository essay, how to write an essay outline | guidelines & examples, what is your plagiarism score.

Traditional Media vs. New Media

To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
As a template for you assignment

Need to write an old media vs. new media essay? Find here an A+ example! It studies the evolution of traditional to new media, explains how Internet has replaced newspapers, and gives examples.

Introduction

Old vs. New Media

The Evolution of Traditional to New Media

Lots of people are now talking about new media as opposed to old or traditional media. However, there is still some uncertainty as regards the distinction between new and old media. Flew (2008) notes that the idea of ‘newness’ is rather subjective and relative as television and the Internet have become accessible almost simultaneously in such countries as India or China.

Other researchers suggest a particular distinction between new and old media based on the use of the Internet and digital technology (Salman et al., 2011). Noteworthy, researchers agree that the distinction between the two types of media is less important than the convergence of these types (Collins, 2013).

It is possible to state that the three standpoints are correct to a certain extent and it is possible to combine them. Thus, the distinction between old and new media is a bit blurred but still meaningful even though the two types of media are likely to converge into the third type.

Despite close connection between the two types of media, it is possible to draw the distinction between them. Logan (2010, p. 4) claims that new media “incorporate two-way communication” and are associated with computing (e.g. the Internet, social networks), while old media do not require computing (radio, print newspapers, TV). This standpoint can be easily illustrated.

Thus, newspapers and television are rather one-way sources of information. Viewers do not often participate in the creation of the programs. Admittedly, there are call-ins but the amount of participation is still irrelevant. When it comes to newspapers, they are not created by the readers.

Each piece of news is told by a journalist. Readers can only write letters or call the newspaper and it is the editor who decides whether to add the commentary to the next issue or not. However, it is necessary to note that at the era of newspapers and television there was no need in such two-way channels. People strived for news and they simply wanted to be aware of the latest events in the world.

Remarkably, people of the twenty-first century seek for networking and they want to feel connected. Boyd and Ellison (2008) stress that networking has become very popular as people feel certain empowerment. Thus, online resources are characterized by the immediate feedback (Ryan, 2010). Users post their commentaries and express their opinions on a variety of issues (Newman, 2011).

Moreover, people affect media’s agendas, so-to-speak. Jenkins (2006) mentions the story of a teenager who unintentionally caused the start of anti-American demonstrations and almost caused legal actions against himself. Internet users also feel their own relevance with the help of blogging. Keen (2010) emphasizes negative effects of such empowerment.

The researcher argues that blogging along with various applications available online makes people distracted from some really important things. Keen (2010, p. 55) articulates the idea that ‘democratized’ media only leads to the future where “everyone is an author, while there is no longer any audience”.

The present distinction is based on the degree of collaboration between producers of content and consumers. Van Dijk (2006) introduces a structural component of the distinction between new media and old media stating that the former are structurally different (i.e. two-way) from the latter (i.e. one-way).

It is also possible to differentiate between the old and new media focusing on their ‘popularity’. As far as old media are concerned, they are seen as somewhat outdated and they are declining. For instance, researchers note that there is certain decrease in newspapers circulations in many countries (Cervenka, 2005). Younger generations prefer searching the net to reading print newspapers.

Television is also losing points steadily. At the same time, the Internet and especially social networks are becoming more and more popular. Popularity of the Internet is due to its accessibility and multi-functionalism (O’Reilly, 2005). Internet users are attracted by the variety of options offered.

Thus, users can communicate, express opinions, share files, create certain communities, find information, etc. It is possible to state that this distinction is also relevant. Hence, it is possible to note that the distinction between old and new media is based on two dimensions, popularity and structure.

Remarkably, some researchers claim that there is a distinction based on the form. Chun (2005) notes that new media require computing and digital technology (unlike old media). Nevertheless, such media as online newspapers and digital TV are becoming increasingly popular. Some call these new media, but it is somewhat inaccurate. It is more appropriate to talk about the third type of media or the convergence of the two types.

Thus, Skoler (2009) states that the two types of media can facilitate each other. For instance, the author argues that social media can help develop such old media as newspapers. The researcher notes that people can continue telling stories and reporting about things they see, but it is journalists’ job to process the information and present the most relevant news only (Skoler, 2009).

This convergence of social networks and newspapers can be beneficial for both as the former get the air of confidence and the latter have access to almost unlimited sources of information.

French (2011) also claims that convergence of different types of media is beneficial for the development of the very concept of media. The researcher stresses that the so-called old media are now becoming digitalized. People have online newspapers and digital TV. They also keep using social networks and other applications. This helps people remain up-to-date and connected.

Thus, it is possible to state that the distinction between old and new media is becoming totally blurred as the third type of media occurs. It is possible to call it global, digital, collaborative and old and new media can be a characteristic of the twentieth century.

To sum up, it is possible to note that the distinction between old and new media can be based on several features. The most relevant distinction is based on the structural component and popularity. Thus, new media are characterized by computing and connectedness while old media do not possess these features.

However, it is also necessary to note that even this distinction is becoming somewhat blurred due to the changes taking place in the society of the twenty-first century.

Newspapers and TV are now digitalized and these media start being more collaborative (i.e. customers are getting involved in the process of creation of the products). This collaboration is beneficial for the media as well as the development of the society. People are now ready to collaborate and interact, which is crucial for the globalized world of the twenty-first century.

Reference List

Boyd, D., & Ellison, N. (2008). Social network sites: Definition, history, and scholarship. Journal of Computer Mediated Communication, 13 (1), 210-230.

Cervenka, A. (2005). Roles of traditional publications and new media. Innovation Journalism, 2 (4), 121-230.

Chun, W. H. K. (2005). Did somebody say new media? In W.H.K. Chun & T. Keenan (Eds.), New media, old media: A history and theory reader (pp. 1-12). New York: Routledge.

Collins, R. (2013). New bad things . Huffington Post . Web.

Flew, T. (2008). Introduction to new media. In T. Flew (Ed.), New media: An introduction (pp. 1-20). South Melbourne: Oxford University Press.

French, K. (2011). Emerging convergence. The Hub . Web.

Jenkins, H. (2006). Convergence culture: Where old and new media collide . New York: New York University Press.

Keen, A. (2010). Why we must resist the temptation of web 2.0. In B. Szoka & A. Marcus (Eds.), The next digital decade: Essays on the future of the internet (pp. 51-56). Washington: Techfreedom.

Logan, R. K. (2010). Understanding new media: Extending Marshall McLuhan . New York: Peter Lang.

Newman, N. (2011). Mainstream media and the distribution of news in the age of social discovery. Reuters Institute . Web.

O’Reilly, T. (2005). What is Web 2.0 . Web.

Ryan, J. (2010). The web! In J. Ryan (Ed.), A history of the internet and the digital future (pp.105-119). London: Reaktion.

Salman, A., Ibrahim, F., Abdullah, M.Y.H., Mustaffa, N., & Mahbob, M.H. (2011). The impact of new media on traditional mainstream mass media. The Innovation Journal: The Public Sector Innovation Journal, 16 (3), 1-11.

Skoler, M. (2009). Why the news media became irrelevant: And how social media can help. Nieman Reports . Web.

Van Dijk, J. (2006). The network society: Social aspects of new media . London: Sage.

Convergence of World Economies
Convergence of Public and Private Security
Consequences of Migration in the Twenty-First Century
Propaganda Movement in Mass Media
Fashion Magazines: Print Media Isn't Dead and Here's Why
The Comparison Between the Two Different International Editions of Vogue Magazine
Media in the society
The Global Media Is All About Money and Profit Making
Chicago (A-D)
Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2019, July 4). Traditional Media vs. New Media. https://ivypanda.com/essays/old-media-and-new-media/

"Traditional Media vs. New Media." IvyPanda , 4 July 2019, ivypanda.com/essays/old-media-and-new-media/.

IvyPanda . (2019) 'Traditional Media vs. New Media'. 4 July.

IvyPanda . 2019. "Traditional Media vs. New Media." July 4, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/old-media-and-new-media/.

1. IvyPanda . "Traditional Media vs. New Media." July 4, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/old-media-and-new-media/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Traditional Media vs. New Media." July 4, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/old-media-and-new-media/.

Reference Examples

More than 100 reference examples and their corresponding in-text citations are presented in the seventh edition Publication Manual . Examples of the most common works that writers cite are provided on this page; additional examples are available in the Publication Manual .

To find the reference example you need, first select a category (e.g., periodicals) and then choose the appropriate type of work (e.g., journal article ) and follow the relevant example.

When selecting a category, use the webpages and websites category only when a work does not fit better within another category. For example, a report from a government website would use the reports category, whereas a page on a government website that is not a report or other work would use the webpages and websites category.

Also note that print and electronic references are largely the same. For example, to cite both print books and ebooks, use the books and reference works category and then choose the appropriate type of work (i.e., book ) and follow the relevant example (e.g., whole authored book ).

Examples on these pages illustrate the details of reference formats. We make every attempt to show examples that are in keeping with APA Style’s guiding principles of inclusivity and bias-free language. These examples are presented out of context only to demonstrate formatting issues (e.g., which elements to italicize, where punctuation is needed, placement of parentheses). References, including these examples, are not inherently endorsements for the ideas or content of the works themselves. An author may cite a work to support a statement or an idea, to critique that work, or for many other reasons. For more examples, see our sample papers .

Reference examples are covered in the seventh edition APA Style manuals in the Publication Manual Chapter 10 and the Concise Guide Chapter 10

Related handouts

Common Reference Examples Guide (PDF, 147KB)
Reference Quick Guide (PDF, 225KB)

Textual Works

Textual works are covered in Sections 10.1–10.8 of the Publication Manual . The most common categories and examples are presented here. For the reviews of other works category, see Section 10.7.

Journal Article References
Magazine Article References
Newspaper Article References
Blog Post and Blog Comment References
UpToDate Article References
Book/Ebook References
Diagnostic Manual References
Children’s Book or Other Illustrated Book References
Classroom Course Pack Material References
Religious Work References
Chapter in an Edited Book/Ebook References
Dictionary Entry References
Wikipedia Entry References
Report by a Government Agency References
Report with Individual Authors References
Brochure References
Ethics Code References
Fact Sheet References
ISO Standard References
Press Release References
White Paper References
Conference Presentation References
Conference Proceeding References
Published Dissertation or Thesis References
Unpublished Dissertation or Thesis References
ERIC Database References
Preprint Article References

Data and Assessments

Data sets are covered in Section 10.9 of the Publication Manual . For the software and tests categories, see Sections 10.10 and 10.11.

Data Set References
Toolbox References

Audiovisual Media

Audiovisual media are covered in Sections 10.12–10.14 of the Publication Manual . The most common examples are presented together here. In the manual, these examples and more are separated into categories for audiovisual, audio, and visual media.

Artwork References
Clip Art or Stock Image References
Film and Television References
Musical Score References
Online Course or MOOC References
Podcast References
PowerPoint Slide or Lecture Note References
Radio Broadcast References
TED Talk References
Transcript of an Audiovisual Work References
YouTube Video References

Online Media

Online media are covered in Sections 10.15 and 10.16 of the Publication Manual . Please note that blog posts are part of the periodicals category.

Facebook References
Instagram References
LinkedIn References
Online Forum (e.g., Reddit) References
TikTok References
X References
Webpage on a Website References
Clinical Practice References
Open Educational Resource References
Whole Website References

A woman links arms with a man on a gray sofa in a living room with a white wall. The couple is flanked by two younger women. A wedding portrait hangs on the wall.

‘Screams Without Words’: How Hamas Weaponized Sexual Violence on Oct. 7

A Times investigation uncovered new details showing a pattern of rape, mutilation and extreme brutality against women in the attacks on Israel.

Gal Abdush’s parents, center, and her sisters. The photograph on the wall shows Gal and her husband, Nagi. The couple had been together since they were teenagers. Credit...

Supported by

Share full article

By Jeffrey Gettleman , Anat Schwartz and Adam Sella

Photographs by Avishag Shaar-Yashuv

Jeffrey Gettleman, Anat Schwartz and Adam Sella reported from across Israel and interviewed more than 150 people.

Published Dec. 28, 2023 Updated March 25, 2024

At first, she was known simply as “the woman in the black dress.”

In a grainy video, you can see her, lying on her back, dress torn, legs spread, vagina exposed. Her face is burned beyond recognition and her right hand covers her eyes.

The video was shot in the early hours of Oct. 8 by a woman searching for a missing friend at the site of the rave in southern Israel where, the day before, Hamas terrorists massacred hundreds of young Israelis .

The video went viral, with thousands of people responding, desperate to know if the woman in the black dress was their missing friend, sister or daughter.

One family knew exactly who she was — Gal Abdush, mother of two from a working-class town in central Israel, who disappeared from the rave that night with her husband.

As the terrorists closed in on her, trapped on a highway in a line of cars of people trying to flee the party, she sent one final WhatsApp message to her family: “You don’t understand.”

Based largely on the video evidence — which was verified by The New York Times — Israeli police officials said they believed that Ms. Abdush was raped, and she has become a symbol of the horrors visited upon Israeli women and girls during the Oct. 7 attacks.

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber? Log in .

Want all of The Times? Subscribe .

IMAGES

Produce a paper comparing the worldview of two societies. Choose Essay
Comparative Essay
How to Write A Comparative Essay
Different Forms OF Societies AND Individuals
How To Write A Comparing And Contrasting Essay
(PDF) Comparing societies with different numbers of individuals: A

VIDEO

What is a Society| Different type of Societies
Different types of Essays.The Essay, Forms of Prose.Forms of English Literature.🇮🇳👍
The Societies and Individualities
Short Essay On Holi Festival
How to write short essay on eid/Eid essay in english#eidspecial
10 Lines Essay On Importance of Parents in Hindi ! Essay On Importance of Parents ! Essay On Parents

COMMENTS

Ancient Greece: Writing a Research-Based Essay to Compare the Societies
For your comparison, be sure to include three of the following: Education Government Beliefs/values Economy The roles of women and children Your essay should be a total of four paragraphs including: an introduction, a paragraph about the similarities between ancient Athens and Sparta, a paragraph about the differences between ancient Athens and ...
4.1 Types of Societies
Agricultural. While pastoral and horticultural societies used small, temporary tools such as digging sticks or hoes, agricultural societies relied on permanent tools for survival. Around 10,000 B.C.E., an explosion of new technology known as the Agricultural Revolution made farming possible—and profitable.
Comparing and Contrasting in an Essay
Making effective comparisons. As the name suggests, comparing and contrasting is about identifying both similarities and differences. You might focus on contrasting quite different subjects or comparing subjects with a lot in common—but there must be some grounds for comparison in the first place. For example, you might contrast French ...
Types of Societies
Feudal. The ninth century gave rise to feudal societies. These societies contained a strict hierarchical system of power based around land ownership and protection. The nobility, known as lords, placed vassals in charge of pieces of land. In return for the resources that the land provided, vassals promised to fight for their lords.
4.1: Introduction to Comparison and Contrast Essay
4.1: Introduction to Comparison and Contrast Essay. The key to a good compare-and-contrast essay is to choose two or more subjects that connect in a meaningful way. Comparison and contrast is simply telling how two things are alike or different. The compare-and-contrast essay starts with a thesis that clearly states the two subjects that are to ...
4.1. Types of Societies
In sociological terms, a society refers to a group of people who interact within a definable territory and share the same culture. In practical, everyday terms, societies consist of various types of institutional constraint and coordination exercised over our choices and actions. The type of society we live in determines the nature of these ...
2.5: The Development of Modern Society
Explain why social development produced greater gender and wealth inequality. Since the origins of sociology during the 19th century, sociologists have tried to understand how and why modern society developed. Part of this understanding involves determining the differences between modern societies and nonmodern (or simple) ones.
Writing Comparative Essays: Making Connections to Illuminate Ideas
Here are some tips, with student examples to illustrate each. 1. Make sure you're focusing on a manageable theme or idea. One of the first ways to get on the wrong track in writing a comparative ...
4.2: Comparison and Contrast Essays
Sample Comparison-and-Contrast Essays. A South African Storm. By Allison Howard - Peace Corps Volunteer: South Africa (2003-2005) It's a Saturday afternoon in January in South Africa. When I begin the 45-minute walk to the shops for groceries, I can hear thunder cracking in the distance up the mountain in Mageobaskloof.
Introduction
A comparison essay compares and contrasts two things. That is, it points out the similarities and differences (mostly focusing on the differences) of those two things. The two things usually belong to the same class (ex. two cities, two politicians, two sports, etc.). Relatively equal attention is given to the two subjects being compared.
Comparing and Contrasting: A Guide to Improve Your Essays
An academic compare and contrast essay looks at two or more subjects, ideas, people, or objects, compares their likeness, and contrasts their differences. It's an informative essay that provides insights on what is similar and different between the two items. Depending on the essay's instructions, you can focus solely on comparing or ...
Chapter 4. Society and Modern Life
Learning Objectives. 4.1. Types of Societies. Compare ways of understanding the evolution of human societies. Describe the difference between preindustrial, industrial, postindustrial and postnatural societies. Understand how a society's relationship to the environment impacts societal development. 4.2.
6 Types of Societies (With 21 Examples)
The six types of society in sociology are hunter-gatherer, pastoral, horticultural, agricultural, industrial, and post-industrial. These societies are listed in what appears to be a logical linear order - from least to most advanced. However, this is only in regards to the progress of economies. Indeed, some societies considered pre ...
Comparing and Contrasting
This handout will help you first to determine whether a particular assignment is asking for comparison/contrast and then to generate a list of similarities and differences, decide which similarities and differences to focus on, and organize your paper so that it will be clear and effective. It will also explain how you can (and why you should ...
Academic Guides: Writing a Paper: Comparing & Contrasting
Use Clear Transitions. Transitions are important in compare and contrast essays, where you will be moving frequently between different topics or perspectives. Examples of transitions and phrases for comparisons: as well, similar to, consistent with, likewise, too. Examples of transitions and phrases for contrasts: on the other hand, however ...
Social, political, and environmental characteristics of early
Complex societies took the forms of larger agricultural villages, cities, city-states, and states, which shared many features. Specialized labor gave rise to distinct social classes and enabled creative and innovative developments. Systems of record-keeping and symbolic expression grew more complex, and many societies had systems of writing.
PDF Strategies for Essay Writing
with a strong analytical question that you will try to answer in your essay. Your answer to that question will be your essay's thesis. You may have many questions as you consider a source or set of sources, but not all of your questions will form the basis of a strong essay. For example, your initial questions
34 Compelling Compare and Contrast Essay Examples
A good compare and contrast essay example, like the ones here, explores the similarities and differences between two or more subjects. ... If you're teaching students to write a compare and contrast essay, a strong example is an invaluable tool. This round-up of our favorite compare and contrast essays covers a range of topics and grade ...
How to Write a Compare and Contrast Essay
1. Pick Two Subjects to Compare and Contrast. A compare and contrast assignment will ask you, unsurprisingly, to compare and contrast two things. In some cases, the assignment question will make this clear. For instance, if the assignment says "Compare how Mozart and Beethoven use melody," you will have a very clear sense of what to write ...
Early civilizations (article)
In all the places where writing developed—no matter its form or purpose—literacy, or the ability to read and write, was limited to small groups of highly educated elites, such as scribes and priests. ... and more people to do jobs that the society requires. In short, more people means more brains and hands to do any type of work. Comment ...
Expert Tips on How To Write a Compare and Contrast Essay Successfully
A compare and contrast essay requires deep thought. The considerations you make can deliver great insight about your subject of choice. ... Reading & Writing; Types of Writing; Essays; ... unwieldy paragraphs). However, if you're focusing on a single comparison point or writing a timed essay, this can be an easy, effective, and succinct ...
The Four Main Types of Essay
An essay is a focused piece of writing designed to inform or persuade. There are many different types of essay, but they are often defined in four categories: argumentative, expository, narrative, and descriptive essays. Argumentative and expository essays are focused on conveying information and making clear points, while narrative and ...
Compare Different forms of Societies and Individualities ...
Different Forms of Societies and Individualities ( Agrarian, Industrial and Virtual) A society is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social group sharing the same geographical or social territory, typically subject to the same political
Traditional Media vs. New Media Essay: Evolution of Old to New Media
4) claims that new media "incorporate two-way communication" and are associated with computing (e.g. the Internet, social networks), while old media do not require computing (radio, print newspapers, TV). This standpoint can be easily illustrated. Thus, newspapers and television are rather one-way sources of information.
Reference examples
More than 100 reference examples and their corresponding in-text citations are presented in the seventh edition Publication Manual.Examples of the most common works that writers cite are provided on this page; additional examples are available in the Publication Manual.. To find the reference example you need, first select a category (e.g., periodicals) and then choose the appropriate type of ...
NIGER DELTA TODAY #adbn #adbntv
NIGER DELTA TODAY #adbn #adbntv
How Hamas Weaponized Sexual Violence on Oct. 7
In an Israeli prison infirmary, a Jewish dentist came to the aid of a desperately ill Hamas inmate. Years later, the prisoner became a mastermind of the Oct. 7 attack. A Times investigation ...

Ancient Greece: Writing a Research-Based Essay to Compare the Societies of Athens and Sparta

Students also viewed

4.1 Types of Societies

Preindustrial Societies

Hunter-Gatherer

Sociology in the Real World

Horticultural

Agricultural

Industrial Society

Postindustrial Society

4. Society and Social Interaction

Preindustrial Societies

Hunter-Gatherer

Where Societies Meet—The Worst and the Best

Horticultural

Agricultural

Industrial Society

Postindustrial Society

Short Answer

Further Research

Margin Size

2.5: The Development of Modern Society

Learning Objectives

Hunting and Gathering Societies

Horticultural and Pastoral Societies

Agricultural Societies

Industrial Societies

Postindustrial Societies

For Your Review

Margin Size

4.2: Comparison and Contrast Essays

Writing a Comparison-and-Contrast Essay

Sample Comparison-and-Contrast Essays

Sample Student Outline

Sample Student Essay

External Links

Contributors and Attributions

How to Write a Comparison Essay

Comparing and Contrasting: A Guide to Improve Your Essays

Walter Akolo

What Is Comparing and Contrasting?

Can Comparing and Contrasting Be Useful Outside of Academia?

Can You Compare and Contrast in an Essay That Does Not Specifically Require It?

What Should You Do First?

Using a Venn Diagram

Going Subject by Subject

Going Point by Point

Examples of College Level Compare and Contrast Essay Questions

Want to use ProWritingAid with your classroom? Download this free book now:

ProWritingAid Teacher’s Manual

Be confident about grammar

Get started with ProWritingAid

Chapter 4. Society and Modern Life

Learning Objectives

4.2. Theoretical Perspectives on the Formation of Modern Society

4.3. Living in Capitalist Society

Introduction to Society

Preindustrial Societies

Hunter-Gatherer Societies

Making Connections: Big Picture

Horticultural and Pastoral Societies

Agricultural Societies

Making Connections: Sociological Concepts

Feudal Societies

Industrial Societies

Postindustrial Societies

Postnatural Society: The Anthropocene

Émile Durkheim and Functionalism

Karl Marx and Critical Sociology

Marx and the Theory of Alienation

Max Weber and Interpretive Sociology

Max Weber and the Protestant Work Ethic

Her-story: The History of Gender Inequality

Section Summary

Section Quiz

Short Answer

Further Research

Solutions to Section Quiz

Image Attributions

Long Descriptions