ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a theoretical framework, based on historical evidence, which may be put to use in analyzing social change. The concepts of culture and civilization are examined and the transition from tribalism to urbanism is set up as a paradigm for the process of social change. The concept of society is taken for granted, but the differentiation between society and culture is not pursued. Our departure from the concept of culture is provoked by the fact that the unanimity regarding this concept is among the most remarkable convergences in modern sociological and anthropological theory. The unqualified concept of culture is an inadequate tool for the understanding of social change because it fails to account for the difference between a unified simple culture and that complex interpenetration of cultures that is called a civilization. Civilization has been considered as a synonym of culture, as a selected part of culture, and as a kind or phase of culture.
