Figuring Out The Past

A History of the World in 3,495 Vital Statistics

Peter Turchin, Daniel Hoyer

$24.99

Paperback

Not in-store but you can order this
How long will it take?

Availability Information

We source books from suppliers in Australia and overseas. For books we don't currently have in stock, the time it takes to get them from our suppliers can vary widely - from a few days to a few months - so we check each book with each supplier to determine the expected time it will take to be supplied to us.

We then advise you accordingly. If the time taken to get any book is too long for you, you can let us know and we will cancel or adjust your order, and refund as required.

To find out the anticipated arrival time for specific items prior to ordering, please contact us by phone or email:

Phone +61 2 9264 3111, or 1800 4 BOOKS (1800 4 26657) if outside Sydney:
option 1 Abbey's Bookshop (Crime, History, Science, Kids & more) • info@abbeys.com.au
option 2 Language Book Centre (ESL & Foreign Languages) • language@abbeys.com.au
option 3 Galaxy Bookshop (Sci-fi, Fantasy, Romance, Graphic Novels) • sf@galaxybooks.com.au

QTY:

English

Profile Books LTD
31 January 2023

History; Economics

What was history's biggest empire? Or the tallest building of the ancient world? What was the average life expectancy in medieval Byzantium? The average wage in Old Kingdom Egypt? Where did scientific writing first emerge? What was the bloodiest ritual human sacrifice ever?

We are used to thinking about history in terms of stories. Yet we understand our own world through data: vast arrays of statistics that reveal the workings of our societies. So, join the radical historians Peter Turchin and Dan Hoyer for a dive into the numbers that reveal the true shape of the past. Drawing on their own Seshat project, a staggeringly ambitious attempt to log each piece of demographic and econometric information that can be reliably estimated for every society that has ever existed, Figuring Out The Past does more than tell the story of the past: it shows you the large-scale patterns.

By: Peter Turchin, Daniel Hoyer
Imprint: Profile Books LTD
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Edition: Main
Dimensions: Height: 228mm, Width: 152mm, Spine: 13mm
Weight: 330g
ISBN: 9781788161930
ISBN 10: 1788161939
Pages: 272
Publication Date: 31 January 2023
Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , General/trade , Primary , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Professor Peter Turchin is Project Leader at the Complexity Science Hub Vienna. He is a founder of a new transdisciplinary field of Cliodynamics and has authored nine books. Dr Dan Hoyer is an historian and social scientist serving as Senior Reseracher and Project Manager of the Seshat: Global History Databank Project. He has been collaborating with Peter Turchin since 2014.

Reviews for Figuring Out The Past: A History of the World in 3,495 Vital Statistics

'Vital ... If you're thinking about setting up a giant land empire in Asia, you cannot do so without this book ... If only the last Song emperor had had this book by his side, he might have avoided his appalling fate' - Dan Snow