Citation: Turchin, Peter, et al. "War, space, and the evolution of Old World complex societies." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2013): 201308825.
A few weeks ago, Peter Turchin, who runs the excellent Social Evolution Forum, published a paper in PNAS, War, space, and the evolution of Old World complex societies. It is open access, so you can read it yourself. And Turchin himself has respondedto questionsat length. You might also check out my reviewsof two of his books, as well as my interview with him. From all that
it should be clear that broadly speaking I am enthusiastic about Turchin's project, Cliodynamics.
Historical details matter, but Turchin's aim is to establish a broad brush framework of the coarse dynamics which shape the scaffold for specific aspects of historical process. Without this background all we have are cluttered details. The big top line finding is that 2/3 of the ...
