Applying insights from a massive historical research project-Seshat: Global History Databank-this edited volume reveals that there was no single "Axial Age" in human history. Instead, it points to cross-cultural parallels in the co-evolution of egalitarian ideals and constraints on political authority with sociopolitical complexity. The first book-length publication to make use of Seshat's systematic approach to collecting information about the human past, Seshat History of the Axial Age expands the Axial Age debate beyond first-millennium BCE Eurasia. Fourteen chapters survey earlier and later periods as well as developments in regions previously neglected in Axial Age discussions. The conclusion? There was no identifiable Axial Age confined to a few Eurasian hotspots in the last millennium BCE. However, "axiality" as a cluster of traits emerged time and again whenever societies reached a certain threshold of scale and level of complexity. Co-editors Daniel Hoyer and Jenny Reddish paired some of the world's leading historians, archaeologists, and anthropologists with members of the Seshat team. Hoyer, Project Manager with Seshat, is a historian and social scientist specializing in cross-cultural historical analysis. Reddish, Seshat's Lead Editor, is an anthropologist working on the material correlates of cultural systems from societies around the world. She is based at the Complexity Science Hub, Vienna. Seshat: Global History Databank was founded in 2011 to bring together the most current and comprehensive knowledge about human history in one place, collecting what is known about the social and political organization of human societies to track how civilizations have evolved over time. Seshat History of the Axial Age is the first entry in the Seshat Histories series.

Discover the world records that define our history and jump headfirst into the past using scientific data that reveals accurate and insightful answers to life’s biggest questions. What was history's biggest empire? Or the tallest building of the ancient world? What was the plumbing like in medieval Byzantium? The average wage in the Mughal Empire? Where did scientific writing first emerge? What was the bloodiest ever ritual human sacrifice? ​ We are used to thinking about history in terms of stories. Yet we understand our own world through data: cast arrays of statistics that reveal the workings of our societies. In Figuring Out the Past, radical historians Peter Turchin and Dan Hoyer dive into the numbers that reveal the true shape of the past, drawing on their own Seshat project, a staggeringly ambitious attempt to log every data point that can be gathered for every society that has ever existed. This book does more than tell the story of humanity: it shows you the big picture, by the numbers.

In the last two decades it has become increasingly clear that the spatial dimension is a critically important aspect of ecological dynamics. Ecologists are currently investing an enormous amount of effort in quantifying movement patterns of organisms. Connecting these data to general issues in metapopulation biology and landscape ecology, as well as to applied questions in conservation and natural resource management, however, has proved to be a non-trivial task. This book presents a systematic exposition of quantitative methods for analyzing and modeling movements of organisms in the field. Quantitative Analysis of Movement is intended for graduate students and researchers interested in spatial ecology, including applications to conservation, pest control, and fisheries. Models are a key ingredient in the analytical approaches developed in the book; however, the primary focus is not on mathematical methods, but on connections between models and data. The methodological approaches discussed in the book will be useful to ecologists working with all taxonomic groups. Case studies have been selected from a wide variety of organisms, including plants (seed dispersal, spatial spread of clonal plants), insects, and vertebrates (primarily, fish, birds, and mammals).

Biohistory is a revolutionary new theory that explores the biological and behavioural underpinnings of social change, including the rise and fall of civilisations. Informed by significant research into the physiological basis of behaviour conducted by author Dr Jim Penman and a team of scientists at RMIT University and the Florey Institute in Melbourne, Australia, Biohistory examines how a complex interplay between culture and biology has shaped civilisations from the Roman Empire to the modern West. Penman proposes that historical changes are driven by changes in the prevailing temperament of populations, based on physiological mechanisms that adapt animal behaviour to changing food conditions. It details the history of human society by mapping the effects of these epigenetic changes on cultures, and on historical tipping points including wars and revolutions. It shows how laboratory studies can be used to explain broad social and economic changes, including the fortunes of entire civilizations. The authors shocking conclusion is that the West is in terminal and inevitable decline, and that its only hope may lie with the biological sciences. Drawing on the disciplines of history, biology, anthropology and economics, Biohistory is the first theory of society that can be tested with some rigour in the laboratory. It explains how environment, cultural values and childrearing patterns determine whether societies prosper or collapse, and how social change can be both predictedand potentially modifiedthrough biochemistry.

A collection of essays by social theorists, historical sociologists and area specialists in classical, biblical and Asian studies. The contributions deal with cultural transformations in major civilizational centres during the "Axial Age," the middle centuries of the last millennium BCE, and their long-term consequences.

As a beginning design student, you need to learn to think like a designer, to visualize ideas and concepts, as well as objects. In the second edition of Diagramming the Big Idea, Jeffrey Balmer and Michael T. Swisher illustrate how you can create and use diagrams to clarify your understanding of both particular projects and organizing principles and ideas. With accessible, step-by-step exercises that interweave full color diagrams, drawings and virtual models, the authors clearly show you how to compose meaningful and useful diagrams. As you follow the development of the four project groups drawn from the authors’ teaching, you will become familiar with architectural composition concepts such as proportion, site, form, hierarchy and spatial construction. In addition, description and demonstration essays extend concepts to show you more examples of the methods used in the projects. Whether preparing for a desk critique, or any time when a fundamental insight can help to resolve a design problem, this new and expanded edition is your essential studio resource.

It is widely understood that Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution completely revolutionized the study of biology. Yet, according to David Sloan Wilson, the Darwinian revolution won’t be truly complete until it is applied more broadly—to everything associated with the words “human,” “culture,” and “policy.” In a series of engaging and insightful examples—from the breeding of hens to the timing of cataract surgeries to the organization of an automobile plant—Wilson shows how an evolutionary worldview provides a practical tool kit for understanding not only genetic evolution but also the fast-paced changes that are having an impact on our world and ourselves. What emerges is an incredibly empowering argument: If we can become wise managers of evolutionary processes, we can solve the problems of our age at all scales—from the efficacy of our groups to our well-being as individuals to our stewardship of the planet Earth.

A generously illustrated collection of John Baines's influential writings on the role of writing and the importance of visual culture in ancient Egypt. Investigation of these key topics in a comparative study of early civilizations is pursued through a number of case studies, and characterized by a radically interdisciplinary approach.

Analyzes the social structure of 50 primitive peoples to show how it determined the form of their religious worship