About
Cliodynamics is a transdisciplinary area of research integrating historical macrosociology, cultural and social evolution, economic history/cliometrics, mathematical modeling of long-term social processes, and the construction and analysis of historical databases. Cliodynamics: The Journal of Quantitative History and Cultural Evolution is an international, peer-reviewed, open-access journal that publishes original articles advancing the state of theoretical knowledge in this transdisciplinary area. In the broadest sense, this theoretical knowledge includes general principles that explain the functioning, dynamics, and evolution of historical societies and specific models, usually formulated as mathematical equations or computer algorithms. Cliodynamics also has empirical content that deals with discovering general historical patterns, determining empirical adequacy of key assumptions made by models, and testing theoretical predictions with data from actual historical societies. A mature, or ‘developed theory’ thus integrates models with data; the main goal of Cliodynamics is to facilitate progress towards such theory in history and cultural evolution.
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Volume 11, Issue 2, 2020
Reports
Rome as a Hegemon: A Portrayal and Database of its Power Projection over Seven Hundred Years
We wished to validate a very general agent-based model we had built concerning the rise of hegemony in different domains of international relations (https://doi.org/10.1155/2018/9306128). Our model focussed on the new domain of cyberspace, where the data are thin and the time series short. But with parameter changes it also spoke to the land, sea, air and space domains. So we sought validation in a time series from the land domain where the data are richer and the time series longer. We wished to compare the model’s results – the emergence, power accumulation, and behaviour of hegemons vis-à-vis the power accumulation and behaviour of the remainder of the international order – to empirically observed historical hegemonic behaviour. To this end, we built an exhaustive and novel database of the Roman Empire’s accumulation and application of power – represented by the proxy of military power in terms of force size and deployment – over the seven centuries of Rome’s undoubted hegemony. This historical record comfortably validates the main results of the model.
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Book Reviews
Rediscovering Democracy: A Review of The Decline and Rise of Democracy: A Global History from Antiquity to Today by David Stasavage (Princeton University Press, 2020)
A Review of The Decline and Rise of Democracy: A Global History from Antiquity to Today by David Stasavage (Princeton University Press, 2020)
The Great Escape: A Review Essay on Escape from Rome: The Failure of Empire and the Road to Prosperity by Walter Scheidel (Princeton University Press, 2019)
A review of Escape from Rome: The Failure of Empire and the Road to Prosperity by Walter Scheidel (Princeton University Press, 2019)