Darwin, neo-Darwinism and the urban revolution

Juval Portugali

Chapter 2 in The Second Urban Revolution, 2025, pp 51-78 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: The classical theories on the first urban revolution were strongly influenced by Marx and Spencer. Both worked during the mid-19th century in the same place – London, England. A third influential figure who lived and worked at the same time and place was Charles Darwin, who, while his theories were initially focused on animals, at a later stage his theory was applied to society, to the issue of social evolution. This occurred in two steps: first by researchers who were influenced by Darwin's theory; then, by integrating Darwin's ideas on species’ origin with Mendelian genetic theory, which emerged from the neo-Darwinian paradigm. This chapter extends the various Darwinian and neo-Darwinian views on social evolution to the question of the first urban revolution, complexity, and self-organization.

Keywords: Darwin's theory of evolution; Cultural evolution; Self-organization; Memes; Artifacts (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781035350117
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