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."
The effort reminds me of Lewis Fry Richardson creating his data sets and fitting linear dynamical models in the unsuccessfully search for unstable arms races leading to violent quarrells. Richardson seemed far more aware of the creative act he was involved undertaking. The data in this field are not actual measurements, but often educated guesses by historians that may differ orders of magnitude, or dubious inferences from proxy sources. His honest assesment of the sensistivity of his quantitative conclusions to choices he made in creating the data should be an exemplar to any budding Cliodynamicists.
The effort to create data for Cliodynamics is Seshat. Seshat is intended to "systematically collect[s] what is currently known about the social and political organization of human societies and how civilizations have evolved over time."
Sources
- Mathematicians Predict the Future With Data From the Past
- Can History Predict the Future?
- Hacker News Discussion of Can History Predict the Future?
- Turchin response to Can History Predict the Future?
- An Introduction to Seshat: Global History Databank
