The Evolution of Leadership

others. They have the ability to influence events and impact the evolutionary trajectories of societies. Indeed, the “Great Man” theory suggests that these individuals essentially “make” history (Carlyle 1888). Leaders exist in all societies, ranging from smaller-scale heads of households to larger-scale elected governing bodies to dictators with vast coercive powers at their disposal. As typically conceived, “leaders” are individuals who have decisionmaking authority that extends beyond the household to include non-kin. Today all of us are familiar with and see (and feel) the influence of leaders. However, ethnographic research in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries showed that many small-scale societies lack permanent institutionalized leaders with extensive decision-making power. Hunters and gatherers are especially well represented among such groups, but some small-scale pastoralists and horticulturalists also fall into this category. Given that leaders and leadership are so influential on human social behavior yet are variably represented among different societies in the past and present, generations of scholars have examined these social phenomena from a variety of humanistic and scientific perspectives. This book, the product of an advanced seminar at the School for Advanced Research 1