William M. Bowen and Robert E. Gleeson, The Evolution of Human Settlements: From Pleistocene Origins to Anthropocene Prospects (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019, 309 pp.). $89.99 (Hard Cover), ISBN 978‐3‐319‐95033‐4

• Published date: 01 May 2021
• Author: David Oliver Kasdan
• Date: 01 May 2021
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13384

576 Public Administration Review • May | June 202 1

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 81, Iss. 3, pp. 576–578. © 2021 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI:10.1111/puar.13384.

Reviewed by: David Oliver Kasdan

Sungkyunkwan University

William M. Bowen and Robert E. Gleeson, The Evolution of

Human Settlements: From Pleistocene Origins to Anthropocene

Prospects (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019, 309

pp.). $89.99 (Hard Cover), ISBN 978-3-319-95033-4

An attempt to trace the development of human

society in a few hundred pages is no mean

task. Nevertheless, Bowen and Gleeson make

a convincing case by employing general systems

theory in their dense volume, The Evolution of Human

Settlements: From Pleistocene Origins to Anthropocene

Prospects. Their intended contribution, “developing a

scientific understanding of human settlements so that

we can improve the policy and management of urban

affairs in the early years of the Anthropocene,” (7) calls

upon a range of perspectives. This positions the book

squarely in the interests of several modern trends: the

trans-/multi-/inter-disciplinary approach in academia;

reflections on unchecked development; resource

management in a rapidly urbanizing world; as well as

touching on issues of climate change, social justice,

and even existential questions of purpose. Again, this

is a grand effort that attempts an explanation for so

much of how we have come to be where we are today.

It is a worthwhile study that offers a solid model for

approaching the complex interconnectedness of the

world and how to contextually situate such a model to

inform better governance. Bowen and Gleeson argue

that more scientific rigor in the study of urbanism can

help ameliorate the gap between the proliferation of

Anthropocentric problems and the scientific reticence

in taking decisive action to solve them (12).

The key for opening this study is general systems

theory (GST), presented here in the “organismic

conception” characterized by probabilistic outcomes

(23) that better serves to encompass the variety of

development trajectories for human settlements (as

opposed to the “mechanistic conception” that works

in the more traditional, rational, and empirical

paradigm). GST has “an evolutionary view of system

effectiveness. That living system which best adapts

to its environment prospers and survives” (Kast

and Rosenzweig1972, p. 456). GST is decidedly

Darwinian in tenor; Bowen and Gleeson dedicate

considerable passages relating how human settlements

follow that evolutionary paradigm. The Evolution

of Human Settlements reflects GST’s early roots in

public administration as evidenced from Chester

Barnard(1938), who analyzed cooperative systems

as “a complex of physical, biological, personal, and

social components which are in a specific systematic

relationship” (65). Considering that the thesis of

this book confronts things like social equity and

institutional systems, it is an appropriate choice

of theory: flexible, broad-reaching, and coherent

for a phenomenon that is anything but simple to

summarize in a single text.

Bowen and Gleeson fill out their analytic framework

by diagraming three subsystem processes of human

settlements (30): an environment resulting from the

intertwining feedback loops of settlements as living

process, material process, and social process. These

subsystems scale up into networks of regional human

settlements that are further advanced by deliberative

human agency to influence the factors that shape the

global environment of the Anthropocene era. This

concludes the Part I of the text, providing insight to

the authors’ perspective before turning their attention

to applying the theoretical model.

Part II conducts an analysis of human natural

history, from our primordial ancestors (Chapter3)

to the first agricultural societies (Chapter4) and

on the transition from settlements to civilizations

(Chapter5). Chapter5 provides an especially

compelling portrayal of the development of

civilizations through three successive development

strategies: subsistence intensification, integration, and

social stratification. The argument here, supported

by further explication of GST, is that the strategies

are responses to the feedback between technological

innovations and population growth cycles with their

accompanying complexities and attempts to solve

problems of scarcity. This cyclical process hit a wall

of population growth constraints that resulted in

the somewhat static evolution of settlements about

2000 years ago, according to Bowen and Gleeson,

only to be overcome by revolutionary advances in

society.

David Oliver Kasdan is Associate

Professor of Public Administration in

the Graduate School of Governance

at Sungkyunkwan University, Korea.

His research interests include disaster

management, behavioral administration,

and the philosophy of social science.

Email: dokasdan@gmail.com