Page 501 - Essencials of Sociology

474 CHAPTER 15 Social Change and the Environment

The job seemed to go on forever. Two archeologists and their team spent
Learning 25 years mapping Caracol, perhaps the oldest and largest city in the Americas. This city in
Belize, where people had lived from 600 BC to AD 900, when it was mysteriously abandoned,
Objectives
lay under thick jungle cover. The vegetation was so thick that the city had not been discovered
After you have read this chapter,
until 1938, when some loggers stumbled onto it.
you should be able to:
Year after year, the archeologists slaved away. Each year, they were able to map just a
Summarize how social
15.1 small part of the city. They knew that there were roads leading to the city, also hidden by
change transforms
thick jungle. And what else?
society; include the
four social revolutions, “ At the pace they were At the pace they were going, maybe archeologists
Gemeinschaft and would know the answer in 100 years or so.
Gesellschaft, capitalism, going, maybe archeolo- But only if more teams of archeologists joined the
social movements, and gists would know the project.
global politics. (p. 474) And only if they could survive the jungle’s heat,
answer in 100 years or
Summarize theories of insects, animals, and disease.
15.2
social change: social so . . . if they could This is tradition archeology. Dig and document.
evolution, natural cycles, survive the jungle’s heat, What else can there be? Even attempts at using radar
conflict over power and to map the site had failed. The jungle was too thick to
resources, and Ogburn’s insects, animals, and penetrate.
theory. (p. 479)
disease. ” Diane and Arlen Chase, the wife-and-husband
15.3 Use the examples of team who had been slogging away in the jungle for
the automobile and the 25 years, searched for alternatives. “Let’s try LiDAR
microchip to illustrate the (light detection and ranging),” they concluded. “We can try it in the dry spring, when the
sociological significance of
vegetation is somewhat lighter.”
technology; include changes
When the spring came, a little plane flew back and forth a half mile above the area. For
in ideology, norms, human
four days, it sent laser beams onto the ground. The Chases grew anxious. Would the laser
relationships, education,
beams bounced back from the ground show anything besides the vegetation? If so, what?
work, business, war, and
social inequality. (p. 482) The results were astounding: high-quality 3-D images of what lay beneath the jungle.
And not just in the area near the excavated site. LiDAR also revealed intriguing things
Explain how industrialization
15.4
hidden in an 80-square-mile area. You could see crisp images of house mounds, roadways,
is related to environmental
and agricultural terraces.
problems; contrast the
environmental movement In just four days, the new technology revealed more than the archeologists had discovered
and environmental sociology; by slaving away for 25 years.
discuss the goal of harmony.
Based on Chase et al. 2010; Handwerk 2010; Wilford 2010.
(p. 490)
If you want a better understanding of society—and your own life—you need to under-
stand social change, probably the main characteristic of social life today. As we will see
in this chapter, technology, such as the laser imagery that reveals ancient cities hidden
beneath the jungle, is the driving force behind this change.
Let’s begin by reviewing how social change transforms social life.

Summarize how social How Social Change Transforms Social Life
15.1
change transforms society;
include the four social revolutions, Social change, a shift in the characteristics of culture and society, is such a vital part of
Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft, social life that it has been a recurring theme throughout this book. To make this theme
capitalism, social movements, and more explicit, let’s review the main points about social change that we have looked at in
global politics. the preceding chapters.

The Four Social Revolutions
Rapid social change is part of your everyday life. Why? To understand today’s social
social change the alteration of change, we need to go back in history a bit. Let’s start with forces that were set in motion
culture and societies over time
thousands of years ago when humans domesticated plants and animals. This first social