Peter Turchin
Peter Turchin | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1957 |
| Nationality |  Russia |
| Alma mater | New York University |
| Known for | contributions to population biology and historical dynamics |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Population dynamics, historical dynamics |
| Institutions | University of Connecticut |
Peter Turchin (1957) is a Russian scientist, specialized in population dynamics and a type of mathematical modeling of historical development, called "cliodynamics".
Biography
Turchin was born in Moscow in 1957. In 1975 he entered the School of Biology of the Moscow State University and studied there till 1977, when his father, the Soviet dissident scientist Valentin Turchin, was extradited from the USSR. He got his B.A. in biology from the New York University (cum laude) in 1980. He got his Ph.D. in zoology in 1985 from Duke University.
Peter Turchin is a professor at the University of Connecticut in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology as well as in the Department of Mathematics.
Work
Peter Turchin has made contributions to population biology and historical dynamics. He is one of the founders of the theory of cliodynamics, the new scientific discipline related to cliometrics. It investigates dynamic processes in history. His ideas contributed to social cycle theory through the development of the mathematical models of long-term ("secular") sociodemographic cycles. He has also suggested a novel mathematical expression of the sociological theory of Ibn Khaldun.
Publications
Turchin published several works. A selection:
- 1998. Quantitative Analysis of Movement: measuring and modeling population redistribution in plants and animals. Sunderland, MA: Sinauer Associates.
- 2003. Historical Dynamics: Why States Rise and Fall. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
- 2003. Complex Population Dynamics: a Theoretical/Empirical Synthesis. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
- 2006. War and Peace and War: The Life Cycles of Imperial Nations. New York: Pi Press.
- 2006. Population Density and Warfare: A Reconsideration. Social Evolution & History 5(2): 121–158 (with Andrey Korotayev).
- 2007. History & Mathematics: Historical Dynamics and Development of Complex Societies. (ed.) Moscow: KomKniga. ISBN 5484010020
- 2007. Modeling Periodic Waves of Integration in the Afroeurasian World System. Globalization as an Evolutionary Process: Modeling Global Change. Ed. by George Modelski, Tessaleno Devezas, and William R. Thompson. London: Routledge. ISBN 9780415773614