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Peter Turchin (Russian: Пётр Валенти́нович Турчи́н; born 1957) is a Russian-American scientist, specialized in population biology and "cliodynamics"—mathematical modeling and statistical analysis of the dynamics of historical societies.
Biography
Turchin was born in Obninsk, Russia, in 1957 and in 1963 moved to Moscow. In 1975 he entered the Faculty of Biology of the Moscow State University and studied there till 1977, when his father, the Soviet dissident Valentin Turchin, was exiled from the USSR. He got his B.A. in biology from the New York University (cum laude) in 1980 and Ph.D. in zoology in 1985 from Duke University.
Peter Turchin is a professor at the University of Connecticut in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology as well as in the Department of Mathematics.
Work
Peter Turchin has made contributions to population ecology and historical dynamics. According to ISIHighlyCited.com, Turchin is one of the top cited authors in the field of Ecology/Environment. He is one of the founders of cliodynamics, the new scientific discipline located at the intersection of historical macrosociology, cliometrics, and mathematical modeling of social processes. Turchin developed an original theory explaining how large historical empires evolve by the mechanism of multilevel selection.[1] His research on secular cycles[2] has contributed to our understanding of the collapse of complex societies. Note also his re-interpretation of Ibn Khaldun's asabiyya notion as "collective solidarity".[3]
Publications
Turchin published over 100 scientific articles (including ten in Nature, Science, or PNAS) and five books. A selection:
- Turchin, P.; Scheidel, W., "Coin Hoards Speak of Population Declines in Ancient Rome", PNAS in press, http://cliodynamics.info/PDF/HoardCens_PNAS.pdf
- Turchin, P.; Nefedov, S. (2009), Secular Cycles, Princeton University Press
- Turchin, P. (2009), "Long-term population cycles in human societies", in Ostfeld, R. S.; Schlesinger, W. H., The Year in Ecology and Conservation Biology, 2009, pp. 1–17, http://cliodynamics.info/PDF/RevSEC.pdf
- Turchin P. (2006). Population Density and Warfare: A Reconsideration. Social Evolution & History 5(2): 121–158 (with Andrey Korotayev).
- Turchin, P. (2006), War and Peace and War: The Rise and Fall of Empires, Plume
- Burtsev, M.; Turchin, P. (2006), "Evolution of cooperative strategies from first principles", Nature 440 (7087): 1041–1044, doi:10.1038/nature04470
- Turchin, P. (2003), Historical Dynamics: Why States Rise and Fall, Princeton University Press
- Turchin, P. (2003), Complex Population Dynamics: a Theoretical/Empirical Synthesis, Princeton University Press
- Turchin, P.; Oksanen, L.; Ekerholm, P.; Oksanen, T. & Henttonen, H. (2000), "Are lemmings prey or predators?", Nature 405 (6786): 562–565, doi:10.1038/35014595
- Turchin, P.; Taylor, A. D. & Reeve, J. D. (1999), "Dynamical role of predators in population cycles of a forest insect: an experimental test", Science 285 (5430): 1068–1071, doi:10.1126/science.285.5430.1068
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