On Historical Dynamics by P. Turchin

Alessandro Maini ()

Biophysical Economics and Resource Quality, 2020, vol. 5, issue 1, 1-21

Abstract: Abstract The book Historical Dynamics: Why States Rise and Fall by P. Turchin contains one of the first efforts to apply basic system dynamics (SD) to the analysis of the past human history. The present review paper focuses on the consistency and solidity of the mathematical modelling advanced in the book. It is found that all the models used in the book are based on human-centred drivers only, and lack any connection with the physical world. Moreover, all of the models are flawed, some by omission (i.e. the discussion presented in the book omits relevant trends that can be tested against historical data) and some by structure (i.e. they are mathematically wrong). These findings imply that the mathematical conclusions of the book do not support the interpretation of historical events, and this paper wants to alert the researchers about the pitfalls that must be faced when dealing with the application of SD to human history modelling.

Keywords: Turchin’s theory; System dynamics; Human history modelling; Societal collapse; Complexity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: Track citations by RSS feed

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s41247-019-0063-x Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:bioerq:v:5:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1007_s41247-019-0063-x

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/journal/41247

DOI: 10.1007/s41247-019-0063-x

Access Statistics for this article

Biophysical Economics and Resource Quality is currently edited by C.A.S. Hall and U. Bardi

More articles in Biophysical Economics and Resource Quality from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().