Peter Turchin
Autor de War and Peace and War: The Rise and Fall of Empires
Sobre El Autor
Peter Turchin is professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and adjunct professor in the Department of Mathematics at the University of Connecticut
Obras de Peter Turchin
Etiquetado
Conocimiento común
- Fecha de nacimiento
- 1957
- Género
- male
- Nacionalidad
- Russia
USA - Lugar de nacimiento
- Obninsk, Kaluga Oblast, Soviet Union
- Lugares de residencia
- Obninsk, USSR
New York, New York, USA - Educación
- Moscow State University
New York University (BA | 1980)
Duke University (PhD | 1985) - Ocupaciones
- scientist
- Organizaciones
- University of Connecticut
Miembros
Reseñas
Listas
Big History (2)
Premios
También Puede Gustarte
Autores relacionados
Estadísticas
- Obras
- 11
- Miembros
- 802
- Popularidad
- #31,798
- Valoración
- 3.9
- Reseñas
- 24
- ISBNs
- 36
- Idiomas
- 2
Let's start with the "badly written" part. The author apparently makes his daily bread from building databases with numerical data from different periods in global history and then doing some kind of mathematical modeling on that data. He has used this approach to gain a better understanding of revolutionary times, when the power structures of societies change rapidly. The author notes that theories which don't have grounding in historical data are not likely to be very accurate.
The author deliberate avoids mathematical formalism. At the end of part I he refers interested readers to the appendix if they want to know more about how he constructs and statistically analyzes historical databases. I followed his guidance, but I was very disappointed. The appendix contains no statistics and very little information about how his historical databases are compiled (for what it's worth, it seems like the author relies on the work of ordinary historians in this regard). But I couldn't make much sense of it as he delves into stories about aliens and other uninteresting asides for no clear reason.
So the scientific foundations of the author's arguments are shrouded in mystery. Consequently, it is difficult to see much value in the various case studies he presents throughout the book. He uses quasi-theoretical concepts (such as "elite overproduction" and "wealth pump") which are supposedly equally applicable to all periods in world history. Perhaps there is some degree of truth in everything he writes, but the frequent historical examples are too brief to be informative, and they don't support the credibility of his conclusions. Instead they just divert the reader from the main theme of the book, which is the political situation in the present-day United States.
Which brings me to why I also categorize this book as "insightful". In the main argument of the book the author traces the development of the US economy and politics, starting to some extent from the civil war but focusing especially on the past 80 years. I really liked this analysis since it helped me understand many aspects of recent US history from a new perspective. The author argues that the US is a plutocracy: the top of the power pyramid in America is the corporate community. Economic and administrative power networks are joined at the hip, but the economic one dominates (p.124). He explains how this came to be and how this system went off the rails in the 21st century. He also analyzes the forces that have recently transformed the Republican Party into a true revolutionary party (p.211). All of this is very interesting. The author indicates that the whole thing could spin dangerously out of control, but he also offers some vague suggestions for how the worst outcomes might be avoided. His forebodings about the 2020's (the book was written in 2022) should be read by anyone who wants to gain a better understanding of the implications of the 2024 election (and 2028, should it be held).
In conclusion, this book is recommended reading. It falls very much under the category of "popular science", and I would have preferred a more logical and disciplined mode of presentation. But on the other hand, I certainly appreciate why intellectual rigor was in this case subordinated to popular appeal.… (más)