Were Bentley's "Large, Complex Societies" Truly Complex?

David G. Terrell
November 20, 2011

Bentley strives to avoid the word "civilization" in his 1997 Shapes of World History in

Twentieth-century Scholarship because of its "Western elitist connotations." Instead, he labels

societal groups of supra-national scope as "complex societies."1 Since the mid-1980s,

"complexity" has become a prominent concept in efforts to describe system interactions in the

social sciences, philosophy, chaos theory, ecology, computational methods, and organizational

psychology.2 Although Bentley does not explicitly tie his references to "complexity" to the

multidisciplinary literature on the subject, by comparing four principal characteristics of

complexity, discussed in a standard text, to the usage in his essay and its focus on civilizations

(or, rather, large-scale complex societies), Bentley indicates that he possessed a valid

understanding of complexity and properly applied the term in this essay.

The first criteria of complexity is the presence of many elements, agents or, in the case of

societies, people associated in a large, relationship-based network. The number of people in a

complex group must be large enough that the actions of most individuals rarely influence an

outsider's understanding of the group. There must, in a sense be a "heartland" relatively free from

contact with other groups.3 Bentley, while discussing Toynbee, focuses attention on that

historian's "pessimistic attitude towards cross-cultural encounters" that contributes to a society's

disintegration by undermining its traditions. He also acknowledges, while discussing world-

1
Bentley.
2
Cilliers, 13.
3
Cilliers, 14.
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Terrell DG - Were Bentley's "Large, Complex Societies" Truly Complex?

systems theory, the inability of simple, bi-modal models proposed by modernization theorists to

adequately describe world history. Finally, Bentley speaks approvingly of Abu-Lughod's

expansive applications of world-systems theory to pre-modern civilizations; and, of modern

historians' efforts to integrate the effects of technological diffusion with economic, ecological

and ecological processes.4

Second, the members of a complex group must also interact in sophisticated, difficult-to-

approximate, non-linear combinations. This characteristic sets the stage for occasional tipping-

point events, occurring when small causes generate great results, and, conversely, for the

occasional and unexpected resistance to the influence to large causes.5 Bentley acknowledges

that world historians, especially in the philosophical phases characterized by Spengler and

Toynbee, sought to find predictable patterns of causality whose linearity might provide a basis

for canonical principles one could apply to projections of future behaviors. He also takes pains to

discuss the criticism directed at these efforts, including dogmatism, superficiality,

pretentiousness and silliness. Nevertheless, Bentley praises the philosophers' efforts for

identifying the "political, social, economic, and cultural" networks that together, constitute

identifiable civilizations.6

Third, the sophistication of truly complex societies produces social networks whose members

receive most of their information from immediate acquaintances. This characteristic does not

preclude longer-range information sharing but, a rich network often includes links that span large

4
Bentley.
5
Cilliers, 14.
6
Bentley.
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Terrell DG - Were Bentley's "Large, Complex Societies" Truly Complex?

sections of the group, making the social distance between any two people relatively short.7

Complexity in a social group requires that its members dynamically interact with each other over

time, exchanging information across well interconnected networks in which there are few

indispensible persons; making the society adaptable to death or other instability.8 Bentley, in his

discussion of Black and Bendix, two "social scientists" of world history, highlights those

historians' efforts to identify processes that turn traditional societies into modern ones, including

the social effects of industrialization, urbanization, democratic revolutions, the psychological

effects of an emphasis on individualism and competition.9 These processes are among those most

capable of spawning rich networks in a society, as more individuals are thrown into social

networks beyond those based on kinship ties.

Last, complex groups evolve as time passes and past events carry meaning and context for

present behaviors (e.g., "complex" societies will possess a history).10 At the beginning of his

essay, Bentley asserts the existence of historical writing from the earliest days of society. He

presents an expansive definition of history that includes the focused histories of Herodotus, Sima

Qian and Ban Gu and the quasi-historical texts associated with religious texts, creation myths

and ancient legends. These texts, he says, account for the experiences of particular human

groupings within the global human context.11

Bentley described the abandonment of efforts to identify historical templates or philosophical

maxims that might reduce the complexity of human history to predictable patterns; and the

7
Cilliers, 15.
8
Cilliers, 14.
9
Bentley.
10
Cilliers, 15.
11
Bentley.
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Terrell DG - Were Bentley's "Large, Complex Societies" Truly Complex?

redirecting their efforts to analyzing historical processes as they existed in a particular time and

place. He extols the multidisciplinary applications of anthropological, ethnohistorical and

gendered historical tools to understanding the development of civilizations and their evolution

though cross-cultural interactions. Though Bentley does not explicitly define his usage of

"complex" with relation to large-scale societies, the examples presented clearly demonstrate that

when Bentley speaks of "the complex and interdependent world," his use of the word is in

keeping with its interdisciplinary sense.

David G Terrell
Herndon, Virginia

Bibliography

Bentley, Jerry H. "Shapes of World History in Twentieth-Century Scholarship." American

Historical Association. August 7, 2001. http://www.historians.org/pubs/free/BENTLEY.HTM
(accessed November 10, 2010).

Cilliers, Paul. Complexity and Postmodernism: Understanding Complex Systems. London:

Routledge, 2002.

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