So here is the first five weekspic.twitter.com/5cY65VL89E
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So I was playing with this today and ended up creating a potential syllabus style reading list. My only fear is that it might be a bit too much for undergrads. Here is what I was thinking:https://twitter.com/Scholars_Stage/status/1073512245395546112 …
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So now there are seven main texts. I have kept Azar Gat's WAR IN HUMAN CIVILIZATION as the anchor text of the course. It is a multidisciplinary masterpiece, but takes a strong evo anthropology view of the question.https://amzn.to/2EslwKF
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The second anchor text is Vaclav Smil's ENERGY & CIVILIZATION. I actually have not read this one yet except through Google book previews, but I did read his earlier ENERGY IN NATURE AND SOCIETY and it absolutely changed how I understood the world. https://amzn.to/2EmZ0Sw
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Robert Kelly's LIFEWAYS OF HUNTER-GATHERERS (https://amzn.to/2EwqOon ) is a natural counterpart to Smil's work. Kelly is a Human Behavioral Ecologist, and they are one of the few social sciences that takes energetics as seriously as Smil does. But there are a couple of other
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reasons for including his book: Kelly's book is the single best comparative synthesis of anthropological field work among hunter-gatherers. It is crammed with data... and with formal models. This is a model heavy course. The HBE models are a gentle intro to what is coming.
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Boix's book POLITICAL ORDER AND INEQUALITY ranges from the neolithic to the 19th century. However, it is *not* a history. It is all about the models. Boix is a political economist, and his models come from the techniques of that discipline https://www.amazon.com/Political-Order-Inequality-Foundations-Consequences/dp/1107089433/ref=as_li_ss_tl?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1544840561&sr=1-1&linkCode=sl1&tag=theschssta-20&linkId=2b5fe31ace9f9b6628c014ea5ccb3853&language=en_US …
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Boix is neat because the conclusions he reaches with modeling often differ from both from Gat and from those of
@Peter_Turchin, another super modeler. His models (inspired mostly by ecology) are presented in HISTORICAL DYNAMICS https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0691180776/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&linkCode=sl1&tag=theschssta-20&linkId=8982c4c063af8b6a95fab31728502211&language=en_US …Show this thread -
Economist Philip T. Hoffman fills out our last formal modeler with a work on the relationship between state competition, innovation, and military powerhttps://www.amazon.com/Conquer-Princeton-Economic-History-Western-ebook/dp/B00U58Y4EA/ref=as_li_ss_tl?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1544840796&sr=1-1&keywords=hoffman+why+europe&linkCode=sl1&tag=theschssta-20&linkId=9f74ef8f2df5a7402a23adbeece797d7&language=en_US …
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Finally I finish with
@dhnexon's work THE STRUGGLE FOR POWER IN EARLY MODERN EUROPE because out of all these social scientists Nexon has the best understanding of how pre-modern empires worked *internally* and how this affected their geopolitical calcshttps://www.amazon.com/Struggle-Power-Early-Modern-Europe-ebook/dp/B005AUUXUM/ref=as_li_ss_tl?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1544840910&sr=1-1&keywords=daniel+nexon&linkCode=sl1&tag=theschssta-20&linkId=bcd9e1507ef04939bf6bc70383cdc67c&language=en_US …Show this thread -
He does an excellent job of throwing wrenches in some of the assumptions that guide the earlier work on this list, both the qualitative and modeling sides of it.
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This course is obviously not very realistic. It is not argumentative enough for a grad course, but has too much reading for an undergrad one. It really requires that you come into knowing both a fair deal of history *and* a fair deal of mathmatics
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It also ignores some important topics--*why* Europe was the first place to hit upon modern economic growth and science is not really looked into (that would require an entire course of its own), but the effects of this are considered,
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But within those limitations... I think it represents a fair attempt at "Here are current social scientist's best attempts to understand the dynamics behind the rise and fall of civilizations and societies." Tell me if you think you would add anything!
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End of conversation
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Do you happen to know whether the e-books are readable? I’ve bought some kindle books with graphs and math and badly regretted it in the end.
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The only one I have on ebook is the Political Order one. The math looks good on my copy, though it is not *that* complex and doesn't include much in way of graphs. I would not want to get the Kelly book except in real book form. Every chapter has 4-5 maps, tables, or graphs.
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Thank you very much!
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Thanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
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Where do I apply? Lol
Thanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
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