Recent cliodynamics items

Beyond Circumstances: A Structural-Demographic Analysis of France (1950–2023)

Sun, 19 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Structural-Demographic Theory (SDT) offers a systemic and long-term perspective that moves beyond circumstantial interpretations of political events. Rather than focusing on discrete episodes such as protests, reforms, or crises, it seeks to identify the underlying dynamics that shape how societies evolve over time. This approach enables a deeper understanding of political instability and how certain historical configurations repeatedly produce tensions between populations and institutions. This paper introduces a Political Stress Index (Ψ) designed as a retrospective and prospective tool. This index aim to identify periods during which structural stress accumulates and aligns across three dimensions: elite overproduction and factionalism, fiscal fragility of the state, and the potential of the population to mobilize. When these variables rise together, the likelihood of significant institutional change increases. Applying this framework to post-war France, we argue that recent...

Battling Conceptual Inertia: Decoupling Pathways from Process across the Holocene

Sun, 19 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This review assesses Peter Turchin’s The Great Holocene Transformation (2025), a synthetic account of long‑term human history grounded in cultural evolution, complexity science, and the Seshat Global History Databank. While recognizing the landmark nature of Turchin’s project and its significant empirical advances, the essay critically evaluates key assumptions that shape the book’s central narrative linking demographic scale, political hierarchy, military technology, and cooperation. Attention is given to limitations in Seshat’s proxies for governance and inequality, which may obscure important temporal and regional variability in power distributions, institutional diversity, and economic inequality. The review highlights areas where recent archaeological, historical, and biomolecular research complicates linear or global models of Holocene change, emphasizing instead the heterogeneous, contingent, and often non‑uniform pathways societies followed. Despite these critiques,...

Toward a New Universal History?

Sun, 19 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This essay relates Peter Turchin’s The Great Holocene Transformation (2025) (GHT) to the development of “universal history” as a genre of scholarship. It identifies a paradox: while unprecedented datasets and computational methods now make systematic planetary history possible, academic historians remain disengaged from complexity science approaches. Citation analysis documents detachment rooted in methodological divides. This mutual isolation deprives historians of much-needed theoretical frameworks and limits complexity science’s influence on historical scholarship. Meanwhile, it may finally have become possible to develop a new form of “universal history” that draws on standardized datasets and computational analysis. In order to succeed, this would require the lowering of barriers to engagement across fields, a process in which AI may have an important role to play

Cultural Adaptation and the Uneven Emergence of Large-Scale Cooperation

Sun, 19 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This essay suggests that the evolution of human cooperation should be viewed as a two-layer process. A foundational layer, rooted in subsistence and ecological pressures, shaped cooperative dispositions unevenly, whereas a reinforcing layer, rooted in conflict and stratification, facilitated large-scale cooperation in societies in which the seeds of cooperation had already formed while intensifying fragmentation elsewhere. The foundational layer unfolded over the grand arc of human evolution, reinforcing the capacity for small-scale cooperation in hunter-gatherer societies and favoring traits complementary to cooperation in some sedentary societies but not in others, as selective pressures diverged following the Neolithic Revolution. The reinforcing layer emerged as rising population density increased the returns to public infrastructure, heightened the risk of conflict, and increased the demand for social coordination. In environments where cooperation-enhancing traits were...

Cliodynamics and State Origins Theory

Sun, 19 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This article critically examines Peter Turchin’s cliodynamic approach to state origins as presented in The Great Holocene Transformation (2025). It analyzes key factors of state formation—warfare, demographic pressure, technological innovation, and moralizing religion—and compares Turchin’s conclusions with alternative databases, notably the University of Pittsburgh’s Chiefdom Datasets Project. Special attention is given to military revolutions, including the emergence of nomadic empires, the development of cavalry, and the introduction of the decimal system among steppe nomads. The article also discusses the ambivalent nature of the state as both a constructive and coercive institution, and critically examines the bureaucratic criterion of statehood, which has provoked debates about the classification of ancient and medieval polities. To resolve these terminological difficulties, the author proposes viewing civilization as a process—an approach that accommodates the multi-linear...

Mathematical Modelling of the Variation of Population and Towns Growth in the Territory of Kyiv Princes’ State in 9th-11th Centuries

Sun, 19 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

An approach and method for mathematical modelling of the process of population variation in the territory of a given state in a given historical period are proposed. The modelling is based on the use of historical and geographical data from individual parts of the analysed territory. The problem is formulated as a boundary-initial value problem, in which the main variable, normalized population, depends not only on time, but also on the spatial coordinates in a given area. The formulated problem is solved using the Finite Element Method in combination with the finite difference method of integration over time. Dedicated software was developed to perform numerical modelling. As an example, the dynamics of population variation in the territory of the state of the Kyiv princes in the period 700-1015 AD is considered. According to the results of the calculations, the locations of town origins are determined. A comparison of the coordinates of such areas with the real coordinates...

Harṣa vs Pulekeśin II: A Game of Stratagems

Sun, 19 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Wars have played a critical role in shaping the annals of History. However, their analytical provenance is primarily limited to the examination of their causes and consequences. Elucidation of the course of action only enters the analytical narrative intermittently, especially as an abridgement between the two general core components of the discussion. It must be diligently realized that wars have deeply influenced the structuration of our hoary antiquity, and therein lies the centrality of their historical significance. Recent developments in Game theory, Economics, Military Science and Geopolitics provision us with much-needed skillset to make informed forays in specific events of bygone eras, glean out formative details of conflicts with precision, and comprehend the complex interactions amongst myriad variables involved and of relevant interest. This paper shall attempt to utilize the data and diction provided by these varied disciplines in throwing a flood of light on...

Peter Turchin’s The Great Holocene Transformation: A Review Symposium

Sun, 19 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Peter Turchin’s The Great Holocene Transformation: A Review Symposium

A Compartmental Model of Political Dissent: Application to the French Revolution

Sun, 19 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

We describe a compartmental model that captures the spread of political dissent between a civilian population and security forces. Both groups are subdivided into "accessories" and "dissenters" with a "dissent bug" spreading from the latter group to the former in the same way a virus spreads from infectives to susceptibles. We provide conditions under which the corresponding system of two non-linear ordinary differential equations has either the origin or a non-trivial value as its unique asymptotically stable equilibrium. The model is illustrated with data from the French Revolution and shows that the unraveling of the old regime is consistent with Chenoweth's rule, which postulates that no revolution has failed if more than 3.5% of the population is involved in "mass non-cooperation". We complement this metric with a dissension ratio equal to the civilian dissenting population divided by the security forces accessories —a ratio with a threshold value approximately equal...

On the Trend and Variability of 18th Century British Transatlantic Slave Prices

Sun, 19 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The purpose of this paper is to estimate the trend of 18th century British slave prices. We apply robust econometric procedures on slave price data constructed by Whatley (2018) over the period 1699 to 1807 and find evidence of a structural break in 1740, thereby advocating a broken trend. We estimate the trend over two regimes demarcated by the structural break, concluding there is no significant trend in the first regime prior to 1740. However, in the second regime, slave prices show a significant positive trend increasing annually at around 2.4%. Since 1740, the slave prices are close to constant variance, lending support to the tighter confidence intervals that we obtain in the second regime. We document various accounts by historians that can help explain this steady increase, focusing on supply and demand side arguments.

The Polaris2025 Seshat Data Release

Thu, 2 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This report describes the current canonical dataset named Polaris2025, a subset of Seshat: Global History Databank data. This dataset focuses on a well curated list of polities and variables that have been already used in publications or will be used in forthcoming ones. The report provides an introduction to the methods and procedures of the Seshat project relating to the curation and release of the Polaris2025 dataset. The Polaris2025 dataset builds upon an earlier release, the Equinox2020 dataset, and is now the most current and complete set of publicly available Seshat data. The Equinox2020 dataset remains valuable as a replication dataset. This report also describes important changes in the Seshat Databank itself, notably the new SQL database, the community tools, and the GIS portal.

Growth of human capital in the regions of the Russian Empire in 1897-1913: the role of local self-government bodies (zemstva) financing

Thu, 26 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The previous research with incomplete data revealed that zemstva expenditure on education per capita were higher in regions with low level of education, but these spending did not make much of a difference – human capital in these regions remained relatively low (Popov, Konchakov, Didenko, 2024). The results reported in this paper provide additional and more rigorous proof that zemstva activities and the increase in their spending for education in 1897-1913 contributed to the spread of primary education and to the decline in the inequality of the distribution of human capital not only between the regions< but also within the regions (ratio of secondary to primary education enrollment).

But we also show that there were more powerful forces at play – education for tuition fees, central government and city/town administration financing – that were pushing the development in an opposite direction, increasing the secondary education enrollment in most regions faster...

Quantifying History Across Eras: Benchmarking the Battle of Granicus from Troy to WWII through DEA Analysis

Wed, 25 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The paper aims to suggest Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), as a preliminary tool of military efficiency. This approach examines battles as a decision-making unit (DMU) characterized by multiple inputs and outputs. Data: Data are measurable indicators such as battles won, territorial expansion, casualties, and historical impact. By assigning quantitative values, the study facilitates cross-temporal comparisons of military effectiveness. Analysis: The strategic performance of Alexander the Great at the Battle of Granicus River (334 BCE) serves as a primary case study of DEA employment. The scope of analysis extends to a range of historically significant conflicts, from the Trojan War to World War II to compare with and be used as benchmarks. Results: The study demonstrates the practical utility of quantifying historical events into a single comparable metric, facilitating clearer comparisons across diverse battles ranked from highest to lowest values.

On the Life Cycle of Empires

Tue, 24 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

We provide empirical evidence that the distribution of empires' lifetime is exponential with a typical time-scale of 300 years. After introducing and computing a proxy measure for the dimension of a large polity we interpret the data by means of a simple dynamical model for the empires' evolution. The resulting theory suggests that the behavior of a long-lived empire is qualitatively different from a short-lived one. They all experience an initial expansion phase but while the former goes through a contraction period over the last $20\%$ of its life, the latter stays essentially unchanged after reaching its maximum size. In both cases, a sudden collapse occurs when the empire's size is still close to its own historical average.

A Mathematical Model of Civilizational Dynamics: Quantifying Toynbee’s Challenge–Response Theory with Newtonian Mechanics

Tue, 24 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This study presents a civilizational dynamics model that applies Newtonian mechanics to Toynbee's challenge-response theory. By defining quantifiable indicators of societal response (α) and challenge (β), the model constructs a civilizational sustainability index S(t)=lnα(t)−lnβ(t). The first, second, and third differences of S(t) are interpreted as civilizational velocity, acceleration, and jerk, respectively, offering dynamic insights into the non-linear changes of civilizational states. Simulations applied to Roman civilization (BC 100 – AD 100) identify critical transitions within this historical period, providing empirical support for Toynbee’s hypothesis that civilizations collapse when challenges are either too weak or overwhelming. The model offers a novel quantitative method to analyze civilizational resilience and decay by capturing structural transformations through mathematical dynamics. While acknowledging the limitations of quantitative modeling in the humanities,...

The Integration Of Two Disparate Processes: Punctuated Equilibria Characterize Urbanization Over Time, While Kondratieff Long Waves Characterize Long Term Economic Change

Fri, 27 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

In 1972 Eldridge and Gould proposed a model of episodic change characterizing the process of speciation. Since that initial publication, significant evidence has accumulated in support of their proposal. It is the position of this paper that a similar pattern, although with very different underlying mechanisms, exists for the process of world system urbanization, and it will be shown that periods of rapid change in the rates of world-system urbanization punctuate periods of stasis. Further, it will be inferred that these periods of punctuation are the result of tipping points being exceeded during the previous periods of stasis. A preliminary math model of this process is presented which shows that the interaction of world system population, carrying capacity, and level of technology are capable of producing such punctuated patterns. These results suggest that this macropattern of urbanization in which stasis alternates with punctuation provides a...

CRISES AVERTED. How A Few Past Societies Found Adaptive Reforms in the Face of Structural-Demographic Crises

Tue, 24 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Historians and social scientists have long been preoccupied with understanding and documenting periods of crisis. Such emphasis is only growing, and becoming more pressing, as the world continues to face a number of interrelated stressors in the form of irreversible climate change, major ecological shocks and disease outbreaks, eruptions of military violence, economic disruptions and deepening inequalities, political polarization and unrest, the rise of authoritarian and nationalist regimes. Crises in these domains are not new, but have been recurrent features of past societies. Although these periods have typically led to massive loss of life, the failure of critical institutions, and even complete societal collapse, there are instances in the historical record of societies managing to turn the tide of crisis even as violence and social turmoil grow. Here, we focus on four such cases of crises mitigated with structural reforms revealed from our previous historical analyses:...

The State as a Socio-Evolutionary Response to the Challenges of the Scale of Control and the Continuity Gap

Sun, 1 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The article is an experience of theoretical reconstruction of the origin of the state as a natural phenomenon of evolution in general and social evolution in particular, under the formation of necessary and sufficient conditions. The analysis of R. Carneiro's criticism of M. Weber's classical definition, as well as the discussion of M. Berent's original concept of the non-state status of the ancient Greek polis, allow to formulate a new synthetic definition of the state. We add a new feature to the known characteristics: a formal structure of managerial positions reproduced across generations and independent of kinship relations. The conceptual scheme of the general evolutionary mechanism of the emergence of new structures combines classical ideas (from C. Darwin to A. Toynbee), as well as models of such anthropologists and sociologists (R. Carneiro, A. Stinchcombe, R. Collins, etc.). The scheme includes the following concepts: concerns, challenges-threats and challenges-opportunities,...

Grain Yields and the Causes of the Russian Revolution

Sun, 1 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

In the study of the causes of the Russian Revolution, the problem of the standard of living of the population plays an important role. This problem, in turn, is linked to the question of agricultural productivity. In modern historiography, both domestic and foreign, the thesis of the growing productivity of Russian agriculture in the post-reform period is considered proven - and in particular the increase in grain yields. This thesis is based on the well-known works of V.G. Mikhailovsky, V.M. Obukhov and A.S. Nifontov, in which time series of grain yields in European Russia were constructed on the basis of official statistics. Meanwhile, the opinion of the experts of the 1901 Commission is well known, who believed that the increase in yields recorded in official statistics was explained by the improvement in the system of collecting harvest data. Reforms to improve the survey system were carried out in 1870, 1883 and 1893. The author examines the dynamics of 4-year averages...

The Computational Power of a Human Society: a New Model of Social Evolution

Sun, 1 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Social evolutionary theory seeks to explain increases in the scale and complexity of human societies, from origins to present. Over the course of the twentieth century, social evolutionary theory largely fell out of favor as a way of investigating human history, just when advances in complex systems science and computer science saw the emergence of powerful new conceptions of complex systems, and in particular new methods of measuring complexity. We propose that these advances in our understanding of complex systems and computer science should be brought to bear on our investigations into human history. To that end, we present a new framework for modeling how human societies co-evolve with their biotic environments, recognizing that both a society and its environment are computers. This leads us to model the dynamics of each of those two systems using the same, new kind of computational machine, which we define here. For simplicity, we construe a society as a set of interacting...

Quantifying Trade from Renaissance Merchant Letters

Sat, 31 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Medieval and Early-Modern business correspondence between European companies constitutes a rich source of economic, business, and trade information in that the writ- ing of letters was the very instrument through which merchants ordered and organized the shipments of goods, and performed financial operations. While a comprehensive analysis of such material enables scholars to re-construct the supply chains and sales of various goods, as well as identify the trading networks in the Europe, much of the archival sources have not undergone any systematic and quantitative analysis. In this paper we develop a new holistic and quantitative approach for analysing the entire outgoing, and so far unexploited, correspondence of a major Renaissance merchant- bank - the Saminiati & Guasconi company of Florence - for the first years of its activity. After digitization of the letters, we employ an AI-based HTR model on the Transkribus platform and perform an automated-text analysis over...

Political Stress Index of Poland

Sat, 31 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

We apply the political stress index as introduced by Boldstone (1991) and implemented by Turchin (2013), to the case study of Poland. The approach quantifies political and social unrest as a single quantity based on a multitude of economic and demographic variables. The present-day data allow us to directly apply index without the need of simulating the elite component, as was done previously. Neither model version shows appreciable unrest levels for the present, while the simulated model applied to partial historical data yields the index in remarkable agreement with the fall of communism in Poland.We next analyze the model's sensitive dependence on its parameters (the hallmark of chaos), which limits its utility and application to other countries. The original equations cannot, by construction, describe the elite fraction for longer time-periods; and we propose a modification to remedy this problem. The model still holds some predictive power, but we argue that some...

Never Ending Revolutions

Fri, 23 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This essay will review two books that describe and explain modern revolutions. First one is Handbook of Revolutions in the 21st Century. The New Waves of Revolutions, and the Causes and Effects of Disruptive Political Change edited by Jack A. Goldstone, Leonid Grinin and Andrey Korotayev. The book is a massive collection of 41 diverse chapters from numerous contributors. The book takes on almost every aspect of revolutionary theory and addresses quite a few of very recent revolutionary events, as well as many older ones. Second book is New Wave of Revolutions in the MENA Region. A Comparative Perspective edited by Leonid Issaev and Andrey Korotayev. The book contains 12 chapters from various contributors, each dedicated to a revolutionary episode in a country from the Middle East and Northern Africa region. The book provides an overview of the revolutionary processes in the region that shook the world several years ago with its rapid and unexpected domino-like revolutions. The...

A Bayesian Approach to Survivorship Bias in Historical Data Analysis

Mon, 22 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Datasets such as Seshat have allowed researchers to quantitatively test hypotheses about premodern societies and states with great success. Nevertheless, one has to take into account potential sources of bias in the data such as a survivorship bias favouring the inclusion of long-lived over short-lived states. Bayesian methods can be used to complement standard modelling procedures to take this issue into account as is demonstrated by analysing the longevity distribution of premodern states.

State Crisis Theory: A Unification of Institutional, Socio-ecological, Demographic-structural, World-systems, and Revolutions Research

Mon, 18 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Increasing ecological and political instability has stimulated interest in how similar problems have arisen in the past – and how they have been resolved. But this research has long been divided along different research traditions. This paper draws together five broad research strands: institutionalism, socio-ecological systems, demographic-structural theories, world-systems approaches, and revolutions research. It begins by establishing that each of these five traditions proposes to explain state crisis, in the sense of a decisive turning point from which the state might not emerge in its current form. But each of the five strands proposes a slightly different set of central hypotheses, and draws on a slightly different set of cases in support. Systematizing these hypotheses draws attention to a neglected distinction between crises that take place in different ecological-economic conditions. This is because crises that occur in conditions of worsening scarcity are hypothesized...

Ritual Theories, the Sacred, and Social Control. A commentary on Three Wishes for the World by Harvey Whitehouse

Fri, 12 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Ritual Theories, the Sacred, and Social Control. A commentary on Three Wishes for the World by Harvey Whitehouse

More On Social Glue: A Response to Commentaries

Fri, 12 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

More On Social Glue: A Response to Commentaries

Modes of Interaction and Social Glue. A commentary on Three Wishes for the World by Harvey Whitehouse

Fri, 12 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Modes of Interaction and Social Glue. A commentary on Three Wishes for the World by Harvey Whitehouse

On the Application Methods for Various Types of Social Glue. A commentary on Three Wishes for the World by Harvey Whitehouse

Fri, 12 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

On the Application Methods for Various Types of Social Glue. A commentary on Three Wishes for the World by Harvey Whitehouse

Identity (con)fusion: Social Groups and the Stickiness of Social Glue. A commentary on Three Wishes for the World by Harvey Whitehouse

Fri, 12 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Identity (con)fusion: Social Groups and the Stickiness of Social Glue. A commentary on Three Wishes for the World by Harvey Whitehouse

Two Stars and a (Fourth) Wish: Ritual Theory and the Challenges of Fusing Humanity. A commentary on Three Wishes for the World by Harvey Whitehouse

Wed, 10 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Two Stars and a (Fourth) Wish: Ritual Theory and the Challenges of Fusing Humanity. A commentary on Three Wishes for the World by Harvey Whitehouse

The Notion of “Identity Fusion” Raises More Questions Than It Answers. A commentary on Three Wishes for the World by Harvey Whitehouse

Wed, 10 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The Notion of “Identity Fusion” Raises More Questions Than It Answers. A commentary on Three Wishes for the World by Harvey Whitehouse

How Can Social Glue Foster Cooperation Rather than Competition? A commentary on Three Wishes for the World by Harvey Whitehouse

Wed, 10 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

How Can Social Glue Foster Cooperation Rather than Competition? A commentary on Three Wishes for the World by Harvey Whitehouse

International Systems and Cognitive Dissonances: beyond rational agents

Mon, 1 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Understanding decision-making and strategy in international relations is enriched by an approach that takes into account different historical scales. Big History, which delves into the interplay of cultural, evolutionary, and cosmological processes, serves as a valuable tool in elucidating the strategic behavior of political actors. In a systemic setting where anticipatory capability stands as a paramount asset, this approach aids in pinpointing potential sources of disorder within the international arena. When policymakers seek to understand an interconnected web of actors, make informed decisions, and anticipate the actions of others, they draw on a complex set of mental tools. These tools combine cultural information with ethological cognitive archetypes, shaped by millions of years of natural selection in primate species and hardwired into the human collective unconscious. Cultural information, stemming from these archetypes, has the capacity to either augment...

A review essay on End Times: Elites, Counter-Elites, and the Path of Political Disintegration by Peter Turchin (Penguin Random House 2023)

Sun, 31 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

In End Times, Peter Turchin takes us on three journeys: One is his personal history of the discovery of patterns in history, which form the basis for his development of cliodyamics; a second is his tracing of the primary pattern, namely how elite overproduction and popular immiseration have repeatedly led to state breakdowns across history; and third is the history of the United States, reprising and updating his findings in Age of Discord (Turchin 2017). The journeys converge on a rather distressing endpoint, however: Turchin has found that the pattern of state breakdown that recurs across history is now unfolding in the United States; and in 75% of the times this pattern has been seen in past societies, it led to some form of convulsive state breakdown, including revolution or civil war.

Editors’ Note: New Publication Policies at Cliodynamics

Sun, 31 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Editors’ Note: New Publication Policies at Cliodynamics

Exploring Phenomenological Models for Societal and Technological Transitions of the Neolithic Revolution and Early Civilization Formation.

Wed, 13 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Several qualitative models have been proposed to explain significant historical shifts in both societal and technological domains. Despite advancements in modeling, certain transitions remain enigmatic, such as the early shift from hunter-gatherer to agriculture-dependent societies, marked by a substantial increase in effort. Another perplexity involves the coordination of agricultural activities into cities and civilizations, despite the larger overhead effort and loss of independence. The exploration of simplified models featuring aggregate, dynamic, and nonlinear processes holds the potential to uncover distinctive facets of each transition. The transitions under consideration span from hunter-gatherer societies to agricultural societies and then to early civilizations. Other analogies are suggested for further exploration for transitions to market systems, capitalism, industrialization, and sustainable societies, incorporating factors like land pressures, economies...

The Benefits and Challenges of Linked Datasets for Cliodynamics and Comparative Anthropology

Mon, 6 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The past few decades have witnessed a proliferation of large comparative cultural databases, primarily consisting of contemporary data (e.g., ethnographic writings), but increasingly historical data as well (including archaeological materials). Individually, these databases already serve as valuable resources as evidenced by the growing number of papers utilizing them. However, further benefits could result from merging or linking these data in ways that surpass their original intentions and ambitions. One avenue is the integration of ethnographic and historical data to help remedy the weaknesses of each (e.g., by addressing lacunae, imprecision, bias, subjectivity, and unreliability) and draw on their reciprocal strengths (e.g., by combining longitudinal depth and primary source material) of these different forms of evidence. The work presented here is a further step in that direction. This article shows how efforts to quantitatively examine historical variation in features...

A Textbook of Heterodox Economics

Sun, 22 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This is a review of Foundations of Real-World Economics, 3rd edition, by John Komlos (Routledge, 2023)

Jewish Networks in the Spread of Early Christianity: A Mathematical Model of Marcionite and Lukan Christianities

Sun, 1 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The authors reconsider the dynamics of Jewish and non-Jewish networks in the spread of early Christianity. For mathematical modeling of complex processes like these, they apply Lukan and Marcionite Christianities as strictly coded test cases. Despite weak historical evidence, it is obvious that these two movements, which are newly assumed to be contemporaneous, maintained different attitudes to the Jewish background of Christianity and so they probably used Jewish and non-Jewish networks in a different way. While Lukan Christianity, which remained open to the Jewish tradition, may still have utilized Jewish Mediterranean networks, Marcionite Christianity, which rejected the Jewish heritage, probably ignored them. On this reduced historical basis, the authors constructed a mathematical model of temporal spreading on the network which was common for both of the hypothesized types of Christianity. The nodes of this network, representing big cities of the ancient Mediterranean,...

Evolutionary radiation of mid-Holocene lanceolate points from the highlands of the South Central Andes

Sun, 1 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Through phylogenetic reconstruction this work analyzes the diversification of lanceolate points of the South Central Andes which began in the early Holocene and spanned the entire mid- Holocene. Based on a regional-scale data, we discuss the links between the increasing mid-Holocene risk conditions, the patterns of diversification of point lineages, demographic change and animal resources consumption. We distinguish a first instance of greater diversity of points, a higher rate of innovation and less class longevity. These trends progressively stabilized, giving rise to a pattern of less innovation, decreasing taxa diversity and greater class longevity as well as an age-related extinction pattern. We show that as projectile points diversified,hunting efficiency increased along the mid-Holocene by the increased representation of high-return fauna in the regional zooarchaeological record. We suggest that this diversification...

Resetting History’s Dial? A Critique of David Graeber and David Wengrow, The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity

Thu, 28 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Commentary on David Graeber and David Wengrow 2021. The Dawn of Everything . New York: Penguin.

Stop making sense

Thu, 28 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Commentary on David Graeber and David Wengrow 2021. The Dawn of Everything . New York: Penguin.

Reframing Historical Rhymes from the Dawn of Everything

Thu, 28 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Commentary on David Graeber and David Wengrow 2021. The Dawn of Everything . New York: Penguin.

Early Cities in The Dawn of Everything: Shoddy Scholarship in Support of Pedestrian Conclusions

Thu, 28 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Commentary on David Graeber and David Wengrow 2021. The Dawn of Everything . New York: Penguin.

Introduction to Special Issue: Leading Scholars of the Past Comment on Dawn of Everything

Thu, 28 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction to Special Issue: Leading Scholars of the Past Comment on Dawn of Everything

Hunter-gatherers: Perspectives from the starting point

Thu, 28 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Commentary on David Graeber and David Wengrow 2021. The Dawn of Everything . New York: Penguin.

Taxation: A Vantage on the Reframing of the Economic Past

Fri, 25 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000

A Review of Fiscal Regimes and the Political Economy of Premodern States , edited by Andrew Monson and Walter Scheidel (Cambridge University Press, 2015), and Ancient Taxation: The Mechanics of Extraction in Comparative Perspective , edited by Jonathan Valk and Irene Soto Marín (New York University Press, 2021)

Factors of Deconsolidation of the Liberal Democracy Regime. The Case of the United States of America

Sat, 1 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000

This article analyzes the hierarchy of factors in the development of crisis trends in a consolidated democracy using the example of the United States of America. The authors assess the surge of political instability in the United States, which led to the deconsolidation of the liberal democracy regime, through the prism of centrifugal processes within the American elite and the erosion of democratic institutions over the past 30 years. The main problem of the study is the contradiction between the crisis of democratic regimes in the countries of the Euro-Atlantic region and the high indicators of the factors of the consolidation of democracy, according to classical political science theories. The authors use the path analysis method to determine the main path and hierarchy of factors of erosion of the liberal democracy regime in the United States, which is an example of the "old" democracy and, according to traditional political science, is the most protected from destructive...

Technical and Methodological Comments on McLaughlin et. al. (2018)

Sat, 1 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000

While McLaughlin et. al. (2018) argue for similar trends in the medieval Irish historical record and the archaeological radiocarbon record, part of their results are due to an ad-hoc bandwidth being used to calculate the kernel density estimates (KDEs). This contribution looks at using a data-driven bandwidth to re-calculate the KDEs and also look at the first derivative of the KDEs. The results here indicate the radiocarbon record declines much sooner than the early 9th Century and not recovering again until the late 11th Century. Comments are also noted on the Irish annals and the approach, for at least one region, on the use of radiocarbon dating.

Editors’ Note: New Publication Policies at Cliodynamics

Thu, 16 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Editors’ Note: New Publication Policies at Cliodynamics

Human social complexity was significantly lower during climate cooling events of the past 10 millennia

Thu, 29 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Human civilizations depend on the climate. Changes in climate affect the production of food and other resources that support populations and their economies. We asked whether the millennium-scale climate cooling events identified by Gerard Bond predicted social complexity in the Seshat cross-cultural database. The results show that social complexity was significantly lower during the coldest two centuries of Bond cooling events. Reductions in complexity are evident in regions north of the tropics adjacent to the Atlantic or Arctic, particularly in North Africa, Europe, and Central Eurasia.

Reframing Comparative Perspectives on Long-Term Change: A Review of Social Complexity and Complex Systems in Archaeology by Dries Daems (Routledge, 2021)

Fri, 7 May 2021 00:00:00 +0000

A review of Social Complexity and Complex Systems in Archaeology by Dries Daems (Routledge, 2021)

The Great Escape: A Review Essay on Escape from Rome: The Failure of Empire and the Road to Prosperity by Walter Scheidel (Princeton University Press, 2019)

Tue, 12 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

A review of Escape from Rome: The Failure of Empire and the Road to Prosperity by Walter Scheidel (Princeton University Press, 2019)

Rediscovering Democracy: A Review of The Decline and Rise of Democracy: A Global History from Antiquity to Today by David Stasavage (Princeton University Press, 2020)

Sun, 1 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

A Review of The Decline and Rise of Democracy: A Global History from Antiquity to Today by David Stasavage (Princeton University Press, 2020)

The Equinox2020 Seshat Data Release

Mon, 8 Jun 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This report describes the current canonical time-series dataset named “Equinox2020,” a subset of Seshat: Global History Databank data for a well-curated list of polities and variables available on the Seshat Data Browser . The report provides an introduction to the methods and procedures of the Seshat project relating to the curation and release of the Equinox2020 dataset.

Rome as a Hegemon: A Portrayal and Database of its Power Projection over Seven Hundred Years

Mon, 18 May 2020 00:00:00 +0000

We wished to validate a very general agent-based model we had built concerning the rise of hegemony in different domains of international relations ( https://doi.org/10.1155/2018/9306128 ). Our model focussed on the new domain of cyberspace, where the data are thin and the time series short. But with parameter changes it also spoke to the land, sea, air and space domains. So we sought validation in a time series from the land domain where the data are richer and the time series longer. We wished to compare the model’s results – the emergence, power accumulation, and behaviour of hegemons vis-à-vis the power accumulation and behaviour of the remainder of the international order – to empirically observed historical hegemonic behaviour. To this end, we built an exhaustive and novel database of the Roman Empire’s accumulation and application of power – represented by the proxy of military power in terms...

Complexities of Collapse: A Review of "Understanding Collapse: Ancient History and Modern Myths" by Guy D. Middleton (Cambridge University Press, 2017)

Mon, 11 May 2020 00:00:00 +0000

A Review of "Understanding Collapse: Ancient History and Modern Myths" by Guy D. Middleton (Cambridge University Press, 2017)

New Technology, Same Culture: A Review of “Cultural Evolution in the Digital Age” by Alberto Acerbi (Oxford University Press, 2019)

Sun, 26 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

A Review of “Cultural Evolution in the Digital Age” by Alberto Acerbi (Oxford University Press, 2019)

The Causes and Mechanisms of the Ukrainian Crisis of 2014: A Structural–Demographic Approach

Wed, 1 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This article tests the hypothesis that Ukraine experienced a state breakdown in 2014. The methodology employed to test this statement is based on achievements of structural-demographic theory, created by Jack Goldstone and developed by Peter Turchin. The reasons for a fiscal crisis, intra-elite conflict and mass mobilization (the three criteria for a state breakdown) are discussed. It is demonstrated that budget management in Ukraine was ineffective, and, coupled with an unbalanced political system, led to the fiscal crisis. The intra-elite conflict was caused by Yanukovych’s politics and by lack of resources as a consequence of elite overproduction, which led to fewer opportunities among the traditional elites. To demonstrate the mass discontent that was the main factor for the protests and rallies, evidence is presented that the population of Ukraine experienced immiseration in 2010–13. The final factor determining the future of the Ukrainian system was the delegitimization...

Anvil Age Economy: A Map of the Spread of Iron Metallurgy across Afro-Eurasia

Wed, 1 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

A large dataset is used to map the historical spread of iron use across Afro-Eurasia using a number of different methodologies. Traditional dates for the beginning of what archaeologists call the “Iron Age” in each region are unacceptable because they are imprecise and the dates themselves are reached on the basis of different methodologies. The author maps the spread of iron with a primary focus on its acceleration in use across many object classes. Three additional maps are also provided: the first critical use of iron for cutting tool or weapon, the spread of iron helmets and the spread of high-quality steel swords. While many of the maps are at the experimental stage, the results give a unique insight into technological change across history and can be used to test predictive models of historical change. As the mapping of the rise and spread of a technology has rarely or never been done before on this scale, the maps, the methodologies used, and the problems encountered...

Deconstructing a Discipline. A Review of Taking Back Philosophy: A Multicultural Manifesto by Bryan Van Norden (Columbia University Press, 2017)

Thu, 21 Nov 2019 00:00:00 +0000

A review of Taking Back Philosophy: A Multicultural Manifesto by Bryan Van Norden (Columbia University Press, 2017).

Page numbers for this review were updated on 01/05/2021.

Assessing Simulations of Imperial Dynamics and Conflict in the Ancient World

Fri, 20 Sep 2019 00:00:00 +0000

The development of models to capture large-scale dynamics in human history is one of the core contributions of cliodynamics. Most often, these models are assessed by their predictive capability on some macro-scale and aggregated measure and compared to manually curated historical data. In this report, we consider the model from Turchin et al. (2013), where the evaluation is done on the prediction of “imperial density”: the relative frequency with which a geographical area belonged to large-scale polities over a certain time window. We implement the model and release both code and data for reproducibility. We then assess its behavior against three historical datasets: the relative size of simulated polities versus historical ones; the spatial correlation of simulated imperial density with historical population density; and the spatial correlation of simulated conflict versus historical conflict. At the global level, we show good agreement with population density (R2<0.75),...

A Revolution through Evolution: A Review of The First Farmers of Europe: An Evolutionary Perspective by Stephen Shennan (Cambridge University Press, 2018)

Sun, 23 Jun 2019 00:00:00 +0000

A Review of The First Farmers of Europe: An Evolutionary Perspective by Stephen Shennan (Cambridge University Press, 2018)

The Growth and Decline of the Western Roman Empire: Quantifying the Dynamics of Army Size, Territory, and Coinage

Fri, 10 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000

We model the Western Roman Empire from 500 BCE to 500 CE, aiming to understand the interdependent dynamics of army size, conquered territory and the production and debasement of coins within the empire. The relationships are represented through feedback relationships and modelled mathematically via a dynamical system, specified as a set of ordinary differential equations. We analyze the stability of a subsystem and determine that it is neutrally stable. Based on this, we find that to prevent decline, the optimal policy was to stop debasement and reduce the army size and territory during the rule of Marcus Aurelius. Given the nature of the stability of the system and the kind of policies necessary to prevent decline, we argue that a high degree of centralized control was necessary, in line with basic tenets of structural-demographic theory.

This article was updated on 01/09/2020 to correct an error in equation (3.5). Page numbers were updated on 01/05/2021.

The Joys and Hazards of Synergic Research, or Taking the Sin out of Synergy: Rebuttal of David Lempert’s critique of the Multipath Forecasting Project (MFP)

Tue, 7 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Response to Lempert: A Response to Multipath Forecasting

Response to Lempert: Holism versus Systems Analysis

Tue, 7 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Response to Lempert: A Response to Multipath Forecasting

Social Structure in the Explanation and Prediction of Social Discontinuities: A Response to Lempert's Critique of the Multipath Forecasting Project (MFP)

Tue, 7 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Response to Lempert: A Response to Multipath Forecasting

Futurology Needs to Focus on Measurable Variables, Causality and Social Structural Models and Learn from Past Mistakes: A Response to “A History of Possible Futures: Multipath Forecasting of Social Breakdown, Recovery, and Resilience.”

Tue, 7 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Cliodynamics researchers are now reaching out to social science in a way that opens the door to productive collaboration to advance a predictive, applied and ethical science of social breakdown, social violence and social change. This commentary, from an interdisciplinary social anthropologist working on these questions for some 40 years, reviews the advances in these areas in the social sciences over the past 100+ years, highlights where cliodynamics can learn from these advances to avoid replicating earlier mistakes, and analyzes cliodynamics researchers’ current efforts with suggestions for improvement and collaboration to unify and promote this area of study.

The Neglected Role of Inequality in Explanations of the Collapse of Ancient States

Wed, 30 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Despite recent and past research into the collapse of ancient states and into ancient inequality, the possible role of inequality in collapse has been ignored. Inequality as a potential explanatory factor in civil war and collapse in modern states has been the subject of around 150 flawed regression analyses, from which no consensus has emerged. Data for ancient states is insufficient to enable such quantitative modelling. But case studies of the Egyptian Old Kingdom, the Western Roman Empire and the Classic Maya suggest some role for inequality, although the data is sparse and contentious. Paucity of data probably reflects lack of interest and a recent study (Kohler and Ellyson 2018) shows what can be achieved.

The Pitfalls of Using Ancient Population, Army and Casualty Data without Expert Curation: A Review of Oka et al. 2017

Mon, 14 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0000

The historical turn in the social sciences has been neglected by historians. This has caused social scientists to use much data which has not been curated by experts focused on the relevant time periods and geographic locations. A recent article by Oka et al. investigating the important question of historical trends in violence is a good example. A detailed survey of Oka et al.’s Persian, Greek and Roman population, army size and casualty data reveals several problems. The uncertainty in ancient data, especially casualty figures, has been underappreciated by Oka et al. In population and army size data, some speculative and dependent data points have been treated as independent. There are also inconsistencies in the data and some inflated figures. The situation is worse for the ancient army size and casualty figures for individual battles used by Oka et al., which suffer from systematic biases designed to magnify the achievements of the historian's own culture. This is clearly...

A Cultural Evolution Model for Trend Changes in the American Secular Cycle

Tue, 1 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Rising economic inequality in the United States has become a topic of political interest in recent years. Inequality appears to show cycles corresponding to secular cycles, suggesting the possibility of declining inequality in the future. The most recent episode of declining inequality in America is known as the Great Compression. It occurred in the middle of the 20 ^th century. This paper uses the guided variation cultural evolution model (Boyd and Richerson 1985:95-7) to explain shifting trends in inequality in five nations. According to this analysis, the Great Compression was largely due to a shift in the business environment reflecting tax and other economic policy implemented over the 1914-45 era. The cultural evolutionary response to this environmental change was to replace “shareholder primacy” cultural variants with “stakeholder capitalism” variants which resulted in lower inequality. Half a century later, new policy, implemented...

A History of Possible Futures: Multipath Forecasting of Social Breakdown, Recovery, and Resilience

Sun, 23 Dec 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Recent years have seen major political crises throughout the world, and foreign policy analysts nearly universally expect to see rising tensions within (and between) countries in the next 5–20 years. Being able to predict future crises and to assess the resilience of different countries to various shocks is of foremost importance in averting the potentially huge human costs of state collapse and civil war. The premise of this paper is that a transdisciplinary approach to forecasting social breakdown, recovery, and resilience is entirely feasible, as a result of recent breakthroughs in statistical analysis of large-scale historical data, the qualitative insights of historical and semiotic investigations, and agent-based models that translate between micro-dynamics of interacting individuals and the collective macro-level events emerging from these interactions. Our goal is to construct a series of probabilistic scenarios of social breakdown and recovery...

Fitting Dynamic Regression Models to Seshat Data

Sat, 30 Jun 2018 00:00:00 +0000

This article presents a general statistical approach suitable for the analysis of time-resolved (time-series) cross-cultural data. The goal is to test theories about the evolutionary processes that generate cultural change. This approach allows us to investigate the effects of predictor variables (proxying for theory-suggested mechanisms), while controlling for spatial diffusion and autocorrelations due to shared cultural history (known as Galton’s Problem). It also fits autoregressive terms to account for serial correlations in the data and tests for nonlinear effects. I illustrate these ideas and methods with an analysis of processes that may influence the evolution of one component of social complexity, information systems, using the Seshat: Global History Databank .

Editor's note: the link to the R scripts in the footnote on p.1 of the Supplemental Materials is now broken. Please use the following link instead:...

Frequency Analyses of Historical and Archaeological Datasets Reveal the Same Pattern of Declining Sociocultural Activity in 9th to 10th Century CE Ireland

Sat, 30 Jun 2018 00:00:00 +0000

This paper discusses how the production rate of historical and archaeological data might contain unique information about past societies. The case study is the frequency of entries in the Annals of Ulster , a primary early medieval source from Ireland, which was compared to the frequency of archaeological material from early medieval Ireland. The two datasets were found to contain similar trends, namely a rapid increase in activity in the 7 ^th Century, followed by a decline in the Early 9 ^th Century, low levels of activity in the 10 ^th Century, until recovery in the Late 10 ^th / Early 11 ^th Centuries. This overall pattern of activity had not been noticed before. Turning to the archaeological record of Britain, although there are certain similarities between Ireland and Scotland especially in the early...

Competition between Social Groups, In-group Favoritism and Population-level Cooperation

Sat, 30 Jun 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Humans are social beings; people are predisposed to join groups, categorize the social world into groups, and prefer fellow in-group members over out-group members. Social groups in turn compete for individuals and especially for the resources of individuals to maintain the cultural practices and symbolic markers of the group. We modeled the effect of this competition on population level cooperation. Using game theoretic and network science methods, we found that groups would develop and maintain norms that restrict their members to join other groups. If every group can maintain such norms against every other group (the topology of the group-network is complete), the society is composed of closed communities which do not cooperate with each other. Changing the topology of the group-network can yield larger cooperating components within the population, because, in this case, members of antagonistic groups can join a third group, thereby allowing cooperation between them. The...

Economic Development and Sociopolitical Destabilization: A Re-Analysis

Sat, 30 Jun 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Our empirical tests generally support the hypothesis that up to certain values of the average per capita income its growth tends to lead to increased risks of sociopolitical destabilization, and only in the upper range of this indicator its growth tends to be associated with the decrease of sociopolitical destabilization risks. However, our analysis has shown that for various indices of sociopolitical destabilization this curvilinear relationship can be quite different in some important details. On the other hand, we detect the presence of a very important exception. We show that the relationship between per capita GDP and the intensity of coups and coup attempts is not curvilinear; in this case we are rather dealing with a pronounced negative correlation; a particularly strong negative correlation is observed between this index and the logarithm of GDP per capita. We demonstrate that this fact makes the abovementioned bell-shaped relationship with respect to the integral index...

Pulling a Little Optimism Out of a Very Grim Account of Global Inequality. A Review of The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century by Walter Scheidel (Princeton University Press, 2017)

Sat, 30 Jun 2018 00:00:00 +0000

A Review of The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century by Walter Scheidel (Princeton University Press, 2017)

Translating Knowledge about Past Societies into Seshat Data

Sat, 30 Jun 2018 00:00:00 +0000

The Seshat: Global History Databank was founded in 2011 with the goal of systematically collecting data about social, political, and economic organization of human societies and how they have evolved over time. From the beginning the first guiding principle of the Seshat project was to reflect the current state of knowledge about past societies as accurately as possible within practical constraints (I’ll discuss practical limitations later on). Second, and equally important, our aim for the database was to reflect not only what is known, but what is unknown, or poorly known.

The Governance and Leadership of Prehispanic Mesoamerican Polities: New Perspectives and Comparative Implications

Thu, 21 Jun 2018 00:00:00 +0000

The principal conceptual axes for explaining variation in prehispanic Mesoamerican political organization (states and empires) have shifted over time. Current perspectives build on and extend beyond the important dimensions of scale and hierarchical complexity and have begun to probe the nature of leadership and governance, drawing on collective action theory and incorporating recent findings that challenge long-held statist vantages on preindustrial economies. Recent results from and archaeological correlates for the application of this approach are outlined, offering opportunities for more comparative analyses of variation and change in the practice of governance within prehispanic Mesoamerican world and more globally.

The Exchequer’s Guide to Population Ecology and Resource Exploitation in the Agrarian State

Mon, 21 May 2018 00:00:00 +0000

We adopt an imagined exchequer, the functionary responsible in an early polity for securing resources from its agrarian subjects, and we develop a feature-rich demographic and environmental model to explore the population ecology of agricultural production in the context of population growth, Malthusian constraints and economic exploitation. The model system allows us to (i) identify and characterize a peak of surplus production early in population growth, prior to density-dependent constraints and (ii) characterize the taxation potential of a population at its Malthusian equilibrium. For a fixed total level of taxation the exchequer has two options: a small population taxed at a high rate, unstable to small perturbations, or a larger population taxed at a lower rate, which is stable. In a small and growing population it is more effective to tax goods; as the population approaches its density-dependent equilibrium it becomes more effective to tax labor. ...

Explaining British Political Stability After 1832

Tue, 9 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Though not its main focus, Goldstone's Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World (1991) threw considerable new light on 19 ^th century Europe's revolutions and near-revolutions. While Goldstone stresses the role of an expanding and industrializing economy in absorbing 19 ^th century England's demographic shocks, we accept this analysis but argue alongside it for similar attention to the vector of emigration, settler-colonialism, and imperial state expansion into which at least some of the exhaust fumes of the population explosion were vented. Furthermore, it is important to note the crucial role of a highly interventionist state and 'big' government in the background to these dynamics—a far cry from the light-touch, laissez-faire qualities with which the 19 ^th century British state is often associated.

To make our case, this article...

Demographic Structural Theory: 25 Years On

Wed, 3 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

I am grateful to Cliodynamics for this special issue revisiting the ideas put forth in Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World (Goldstone 1991, 2016) a quarter century ago. The two things that one could hope for in advancing any theory are that it proves capable of being advanced and enriched by other scholars, and that it proves capable of being applied in new ways and to new phenomena that were not anticipated. This issue gives examples of both, and shows how scholars are even now only beginning to tap the possibilities of Demographic Structural Theory (DST) in explaining politics, history, and long-term economic trends.

In this essay, I will tell the story of how demographic structural theory was conceived, relate its early reception among scholars, and comment on the important contributions by other scholars to this special issue.

The Extended Evolutionary Synthesis Facilitates Evolutionary Models of Culture Change

Mon, 1 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

The Extended Evolutionary Synthesis (EES) is beginning to fulfill the whole promise of Darwinian insight through its extension of evolutionary understanding from the biological domain to include cultural information evolution. This constitutes the origins of an evolutionary study of culture change free of the social-darwinism and ecologically-deterministic baggage that characterized earlier such approaches.

Great Divergence of the 18th Century?

Mon, 1 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

The article suggests that the Great Divergence of the 19 ^th century between “the West” and “the East” was preceded by the Great Divergence in the 18 ^th century between the Global North and the Global South. This may be attributed to a new, much higher level of state efficiency in the Global North. The eastern and western regions of the Global North frequently used different methods to make their state apparatuses more efficient, but achieved strikingly similar results during the 18 ^th century. The Great Divergence of the 19 ^th century, remarkably, occurred within the Global North.

Linking “Micro” to “Macro” Models of State Breakdown to Improve Methods for Political Forecasting

Sat, 30 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Three predictive problems bedevil our ability to foresee political crises and state breakdown: (1) how to tell when a previously stable state falls into a situation of hidden but dangerous instability; (2) how to tell, once a certain level of instability has appeared in the form of protests, riots, or regional rebellions, whether chaos will grow and accelerate into revolution or civil war, or if the protests are likely to be contained and dampen out; and (3) how to tell which individuals and groups are likely to be the main source of mobilization for radical movements, and whether opposition networks will link up, grow and spread, or be isolated and contained. Prior work has focused on each of these problems separately. However, all three issues are crucial to understanding and foreseeing conflict dynamics. These issues operate on different time-scales and require separate models. In this article we discuss how better models of each...

Modeling Social Pressures Toward Political Instability in the United Kingdom after 1960: A Demographic Structural Analysis

Sun, 17 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0000

In the current paper, we investigate the predictive ability of Goldstone’s demographic structural model. In particular we seek to apply Turchin’s version of it to modeling the social pressures for political instability in the UK. It is then demonstrated that Turchin’s analysis of ‘demographic structural’ pressures in the US presents similar conditions that developed under neoliberalism during the same time periods in both countries. It is also demonstrated that the modeling of social pressures toward political instability in the UK and the USA performed by Peter Turchin and us can throw some light on the factors and patterns of the global sociopolitical destabilization wave of the 2010s. Thus, Goldstone’s demographic structural model might have some predictive potential not only at the national level, but also global scale.

The Leisure Class Disease. A Self-review of Teoria della classe disagiata (Minimum Fax, 2017)

Mon, 4 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0000

A self-review of Teoria della classe disagiata (Minimum Fax, 2017)

A Dynamic Analysis of American Socio-Political History. A Review of Ages of Discord: A Structural Demographic Analysis of American History by Peter Turchin (Beresta Books, 2016)

Tue, 28 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0000

A Review of Ages of Discord: A Structural Demographic Analysis of American History by Peter Turchin (Beresta Books, 2016)

What Economics Models Really Say. A Review of Economics Rules: The Rights and Wrongs of the Dismal Science by Dani Rodrik (Norton, 2015)

Wed, 5 Jul 2017 00:00:00 +0000

What Economics Models Really Say. A Review of Economics Rules: The Rights and Wrongs of the Dismal Science by Dani Rodrik (Norton, 2015)

Seshat: Global History Databank Publishes First Set of Historical Data

Tue, 20 Jun 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This short report describes the publication of the first batch of historical data produced by Seshat: Global History Databank. The data is available as free, open access material here ; see also our website for more information on the Seshat project as a whole.

Trends in First Names Foreshadowed Hillary Clinton’s Electoral Defeat

Mon, 23 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000

I examine trends in the popularity of first names around the years of USA presidential elections, showing that the names 'Hillary' and 'Hilary' decreased abruptly by more than 90% in popularity following the 1992 election of Hillary Clinton's husband Bill. I show that this outcome is unique to the 1992 election, and argue that it may evidence a "dislike" for Hillary Clinton's public image among both Democratic and Republican voters, which may have eventually contributed to Hillary Clinton's losing the 2016 presidential election.

Developing the Field Site Concept for the Study of Cultural Evolution

Tue, 10 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Social Evolution Forum.

Mapping the Spread of Mounted Warfare

Fri, 6 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Military technology is one of the most important factors affecting the evolution of complex societies. In particular, mounted warfare , the use of horse-riders in military operations, revolutionized war as it spread to different parts of Eurasia and Africa during the Ancient and Medieval eras, and to the Americas during the Early Modern period. Here we use a variety of sources to map this spread.

An Abstract Model of Historical Processes

Sun, 1 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000

A theoretical model is presented which provides a way to simulate, at a very abstract level, power struggles in the social world. In the model, agents can benet or harm each other, to varying degrees and with diering levels of inuence. The agents interact over time, using the power they have to try to get more of it, while being constrained in their strategic choices by social inertia. The outcomes of the model are probabilistic. More research is needed to determine whether the model has any empirical validity.

Cultural Evolution of an Institution: The Sabbath

Sun, 1 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000

According to the biblical account the Sabbath has been commanded at Mount Sinai during the Exodus. Reasonably, there can be no archaeological evidence to confirm that. However, the archaeological evidence points to a rankless society in pre-monarchic Israel. Lack of social layers in settled societies does raise questions about controlling the lawlessness. Livni and Stone mathematically established that the Sabbath could keep unruliness under control and that later, starting with the Second Temple, it did so. This multi-disciplinary report portrays the history of the Sabbath in terms of socio-cultural evolution combining analyses of anthropologists, archaeologists, biblical scholars and computation methods. The report shows that the Sabbath is at least 3000 years old.

Involvement of a Capitalist Crisis in the 1900-30 Inequality Trend Reversal

Sun, 1 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This paper proposes a supplemental secular cycle formulation for a modern capitalist society that employs financial, economic, and political metrics in place of population and sociopolitical violence. It makes use of Thomas Piketty’s (2014) hypothesis that excess investment return relative to economic growth causes inequality. In a capitalist society, the investing class can be considered as a proxy for elites. Inequality as measured by the ratio of financial to wage gains over time agrees with other economic measures. Rising inequality led to a reduction in capital productivity (output per person per unit of capital). This created instability in financial markets that generated the 1929 stock market crash. Application of a simplified version of the demographic structural theory to inequality trends shows political stress peaking in 1929. The depression that began with the stock market crash in that year resulted in a devastating political defeat for the ruling party in 1932...

Fear over Hope: A Review of Dominic Johnson’s God is Watching You

Thu, 15 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Review of Dominic Johnson’s God is Watching You

A Review of Tim Lewens' Cultural Evolution: Conceptual Challenges

Thu, 15 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Review of Tim Lewens' Cultural Evolution: Conceptual Challenges

A Review of Peter Frankopan's The Silk Roads: A New History of the World

Thu, 15 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000

A Review of Peter Frankopan's The Silk Roads: A New History of the World (London: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, 2015)