ABSTRACT
TH E R E C A N B E N O civilizations without the societies that support themand inspire their tensions and their progress. Hence the first inevitable question: was it necessary to invent the word ‘civilization’ and encourage its academic use, if it remains merely a synonym for ‘society’? Arnold Toynbee continually used the word ‘society’ in place of ‘civilization’. And Marcel Mauss believed that ‘the idea of civilization is certainly less clear than that of society, which it presupposes’.
