Bøker av Peter Turchin

Peter Turchin, one of the most interesting thinkers today, has infused the study of history with insights from other fields for over a quarter of a century. End Times is the culmination of his work to understand what causes political communities to cohere and to fall apart.The lessons of 10,000 years of world history are clear, Turchin argues: when the equilibrium between ruling elites and the majority tips too far in favor of the elites, political instability is all but inevitable. Before the industrial era, the imbalance between labour and capital, signaled by growing economic inequality, was usually caused by excessive population growth. For the past 250 or so years, it has been laissez-faire government, technological innovation, globalization and immigration that have tended to disrupt the balance. Whatever the cause, when income inequality surges the common people suffer, and prosperity flows disproportionately into the hands of the elites.This vicious cycle is the wealth pump - the mechanism that causes both the relative impoverishment of most people and the increasingly desperate competition among elites. The wealth pump has been operating full blast for two generations in America and in many Western countries. In historical terms, our current cycle of elite overproduction and popular immiseration is already far along the path to violent political rupture. Time will tell whether Peter Turchin's warning is heeded.

Taking up the problem of territorial dynamics - why some polities at certain times expand and at other times contract - this book shows that a similar research program can advance our understanding of dynamical processes in history. It investigates the dynamics predicted by the models, and contrasts model predictions with empirical patterns.

Why do organisms become extremely abundant one year and then seem to disappear a few years later? Why do population outbreaks in particular species happen more or less regularly in certain locations, but only irregularly (or never at all) in other locations? Complex population dynamics have fascinated biologists for decades. By bringing together mathematical models, statistical analyses, and field experiments, this book offers a comprehensive new synthesis of the theory of population oscillations. Peter Turchin first reviews the conceptual tools that ecologists use to investigate population oscillations, introducing population modeling and the statistical analysis of time series data. He then provides an in-depth discussion of several case studies--including the larch budmoth, southern pine beetle, red grouse, voles and lemmings, snowshoe hare, and ungulates--to develop a new analysis of the mechanisms that drive population oscillations in nature. Through such work, the author argues, ecologists can develop general laws of population dynamics that will help turn ecology into a truly quantitative and predictive science. Complex Population Dynamics integrates theoretical and empirical studies into a major new synthesis of current knowledge about population dynamics. It is also a pioneering work that sets the course for ecology's future as a predictive science.

Many historical processes exhibit recurrent patterns of change. Century-long periods of population expansion come before long periods of stagnation and decline; the dynamics of prices mirror population oscillations; and states go through strong expansionist phases followed by periods of state failure, endemic sociopolitical instability, and territorial loss. Peter Turchin and Sergey Nefedov explore the dynamics and causal connections between such demographic, economic, and political variables in agrarian societies and offer detailed explanations for these long-term oscillations--what the authors call secular cycles. Secular Cycles elaborates and expands upon the demographic-structural theory first advanced by Jack Goldstone, which provides an explanation of long-term oscillations. This book tests that theory's specific and quantitative predictions by tracing the dynamics of population numbers, prices and real wages, elite numbers and incomes, state finances, and sociopolitical instability. Turchin and Nefedov study societies in England, France, and Russia during the medieval and early modern periods, and look back at the Roman Republic and Empire. Incorporating theoretical and quantitative history, the authors examine a specific model of historical change and, more generally, investigate the utility of the dynamical systems approach in historical applications. An indispensable and groundbreaking resource for a wide variety of social scientists, Secular Cycles will interest practitioners of economic history, historical sociology, complexity studies, and demography.