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Joseph A. Tainter (born December 8, 1949) is an American anthropologist and historian. ==Biography== Tainter studied anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley and Northwestern University, where he received his Ph.D. in 1975.〔(Tainter's curriculum vitae at Sustainability International website ); (Utah State University: Dr Tainter's homepage ): accessed 30 August 2010.〕 he holds a professorship in the Department of Environment and Society at Utah State University. His previous positions include Project Leader of Cultural Heritage Research, Rocky Mountain Forest and Range Experiment Station, Albuquerque, New Mexico and Professor of Anthropology at the University of New Mexico. Tainter has written or edited many articles and monographs. His arguably best-known work, ''The Collapse of Complex Societies'' (1988), examines the collapse of Maya and Chacoan civilizations,〔 He brought together a multidisciplinary group to examine the Chaco culture in (''Evolving Complexity and Environmental Risk in the Prehistoric Southwest'' ) (Santa Fe Institute Proceedings 24), edited with Bonnie Bagley Tainter, 1998.〕 and of the Western Roman Empire, in terms of network theory, energy economics and complexity theory. Tainter argues that sustainability or collapse of societies follow from the success or failure of problem-solving institutions〔 〕 and that societies collapse when their investments in social complexity and their "energy subsidies" reach a point of diminishing marginal returns. He recognizes collapse when a society involuntarily sheds a significant portion of its complexity. Joseph Tainter was born on December 8, 1949. He is married to Bonnie Bagley and they have one child, Emmet Bagley Tainter. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Joseph Tainter」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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