I heartily recommend an in-depth reading of Giambattista Vico's New Science as an original evolutionary approach to cultures and their institutions. One mut be warned that his Art of Rhetoric (Institutiones Oratoriae) is not set at that level of insightful poetic thinking, but in case you're curious here's an audio review of the same, by a friendly machine, I'm told.
_____. Review of Giambattista Vico's The Art of Rhetoric, ed. Giuliano Crifò; ed. and trans. Giorgio A. Pinton and Arthur W. Shippee. (Value Inquiry Book Series 37). Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1996. AI podcast on José Angel García Landa's review. Academia 16 April 2009.*
https://www.academia.edu/178163/
2026
