I very much enjoyed recently reading Marie Favereau's "The Horde: How the Mongols Changed the World" from 2021. It does start with Genghis Khan to provide the sociopolitical structural basis for the Mongol expansion, but then goes at great depth into the western-most Golden Horde's influence on Eastern European and particularly Russian political state development. That was a previously unknown area of history for me, so I greatly appreciated leaning about it.
Thanks for the update and the fascinating insights of the authors. One feels there are so many books to read and one already has unread ones accumulating on one’s bookshelves. I am currently reading and enjoying the just released book by Bijan Omrani “God is an Englishman” and recommend it for those interested in English history and the role of the church. Not having gone to church as a child and accordingly pretty ignorant of the church it would have been a massive boon when I read English history at university.
Razib: Your daughter is a very talented artist. This is at least the third time you have featured one of your children's drawings in the RKUL posts. I think they were from different children. Who is teaching them?
It's my understanding that most academic historians are very skeptical both of any sort of quantitative "macro-historical" trends, and of any attempts to forecasting, both of which are made possible by Turchin's framework.
After studying macroeconomics, I kind of understand the historians:
We can't expect analysis of "macro" trends to be as scientific as that of "micro" trends because we just don't have the ability to conduct experiments at the level of entire countries and civilizations. Also, compared to data on individuals, our data at the macro-level is both more scarce and of more varying quality. Therefore, by trying to make history closer to "hard" sciences, such as ecology, it kind of *feels* as if we're falling into the "golden hammer" bias.
However, it does seems to be as if historians are too skeptical:
- Even if our data might be scarce and of dubious quality, we can use statistical techniques to test quantitative hypothesis.
- It's only through the process of making quantitative predictions and contrasting them to reality, that we can get a sense of whether our ideas are on the right path, or if instead the entire field needs a change of paradigm.
Therefore, I strongly appreciate that Turchin's work has been getting more diffusion. Thank you for another incredibly knowledge-rich post!
Anxiously waiting for Razib's essay-length take on the paper about Punic origins
Ditto. Fascinating how genetics turns commonly held beliefs upside down and then confirms other long held beliefs believed to be cultural
Myths.
I very much enjoyed recently reading Marie Favereau's "The Horde: How the Mongols Changed the World" from 2021. It does start with Genghis Khan to provide the sociopolitical structural basis for the Mongol expansion, but then goes at great depth into the western-most Golden Horde's influence on Eastern European and particularly Russian political state development. That was a previously unknown area of history for me, so I greatly appreciated leaning about it.
Thanks for the update and the fascinating insights of the authors. One feels there are so many books to read and one already has unread ones accumulating on one’s bookshelves. I am currently reading and enjoying the just released book by Bijan Omrani “God is an Englishman” and recommend it for those interested in English history and the role of the church. Not having gone to church as a child and accordingly pretty ignorant of the church it would have been a massive boon when I read English history at university.
Such talented children Razib. Mashallah.
Razib: Your daughter is a very talented artist. This is at least the third time you have featured one of your children's drawings in the RKUL posts. I think they were from different children. Who is teaching them?
It's my understanding that most academic historians are very skeptical both of any sort of quantitative "macro-historical" trends, and of any attempts to forecasting, both of which are made possible by Turchin's framework.
After studying macroeconomics, I kind of understand the historians:
We can't expect analysis of "macro" trends to be as scientific as that of "micro" trends because we just don't have the ability to conduct experiments at the level of entire countries and civilizations. Also, compared to data on individuals, our data at the macro-level is both more scarce and of more varying quality. Therefore, by trying to make history closer to "hard" sciences, such as ecology, it kind of *feels* as if we're falling into the "golden hammer" bias.
However, it does seems to be as if historians are too skeptical:
- Even if our data might be scarce and of dubious quality, we can use statistical techniques to test quantitative hypothesis.
- It's only through the process of making quantitative predictions and contrasting them to reality, that we can get a sense of whether our ideas are on the right path, or if instead the entire field needs a change of paradigm.
Therefore, I strongly appreciate that Turchin's work has been getting more diffusion. Thank you for another incredibly knowledge-rich post!