Sorry – not a fan of Gellner.
I consider societies as logical adaptations to ecological realities; their beliefs/behavior function as developed normative habits within these constraints – and the basic constraints or independent variables are: food production capacities in that ecology and population size capacities in that ecology and within that food production system.
Diamond’s books are better, although he ignores population size but he does consider ecological constraints. There are other ecological references. And I don’t think that our species has a ‘history’ in the sense of a linear development as a species. I think that societies, or more accurately, knowledge bases, have a history, and that history is that with increases in population size as related to food production capacities, societies become more complex in organization – and to enable success, the knowledge bases become more ‘factual’ and real rather than imaginary and essentialist. That is, it is dysfunctional to rely on the gods to produce food; it is more practical to build a water reservoir and irrigate your fields.
