Take a photo of a barcode or cover
tweep 's review for:
Impressive book. I love long term history, as practised by William McNeill and Jared Diamond. Only, Turchin is better, because he bases his analyses on actual science and mathematics, allowing for testable hypotheses. Turchin is a biologist, by the way, not a historian.
There is quite a lot in this book, but the main talking point is that cooperation, as a cultural trait, finds it origin in competition between groups, which for most of human history has taken the form of war. Quite an interesting idea. He calls it destructive creation, a pun on creative destruction.
An other interesting idea is that inequality corrodes society, as opposed to the greed is good idea originating in the eighties, or even earlier (Ayn Rand, whom I have never read and probably never will). More inequality leads to lesser trust and lesser cooperation. This explains the long term development towards greater equality in the world. Turchin mentions the Roman army that actually went on strike a couple of times, because they didn't want to fight for the 1%. Obviously this is a very long term development, currently inequality is increasing, thanks to neoliberalism.
A slightly less appealing idea is that religion has been an important factor in creating trust in big societies. The idea is that a shared religion causes people to trust each other, even if they are total strangers. It breeds cooperation in multi ethnic societies. In the long run it becomes costly to be atheistic or adhere to another belief, because people won't do business with you.
The book is full of similar insights. What distinguishes it from established history is that it is much more empirical. Traditional historians don't even understand high school math or stats, let alone computer modeling of theories, so I don't expect them to be very open to Turchin's approach. Bad luck for them.
There is quite a lot in this book, but the main talking point is that cooperation, as a cultural trait, finds it origin in competition between groups, which for most of human history has taken the form of war. Quite an interesting idea. He calls it destructive creation, a pun on creative destruction.
An other interesting idea is that inequality corrodes society, as opposed to the greed is good idea originating in the eighties, or even earlier (Ayn Rand, whom I have never read and probably never will). More inequality leads to lesser trust and lesser cooperation. This explains the long term development towards greater equality in the world. Turchin mentions the Roman army that actually went on strike a couple of times, because they didn't want to fight for the 1%. Obviously this is a very long term development, currently inequality is increasing, thanks to neoliberalism.
A slightly less appealing idea is that religion has been an important factor in creating trust in big societies. The idea is that a shared religion causes people to trust each other, even if they are total strangers. It breeds cooperation in multi ethnic societies. In the long run it becomes costly to be atheistic or adhere to another belief, because people won't do business with you.
The book is full of similar insights. What distinguishes it from established history is that it is much more empirical. Traditional historians don't even understand high school math or stats, let alone computer modeling of theories, so I don't expect them to be very open to Turchin's approach. Bad luck for them.