#496 Daniel Hoyer - Figuring Out the Past: The 3,495 Vital Statistics that Explain World History
Dr. Daniel Hoyer currently holds a postdoctoral position working with Dr. Peter Turchin on the Deep Roots of the Modern World, part of the SESHAT: Global History Databank Project, a large-scale, interdisciplinary and comparative project hosted by the Evolution Institute and the University of Oxford. His postdoctoral work focuses on determining the institutional features and structures which underpin economic performance and the provision of public goods in these different places and times. He received his Ph.D. from New York University in 2014 with a dissertation entitled Buying a Province, Building an Empire: Money, Markets, and Growth in Roman Africa from Augustus to Aurelian on the economic and financial development of the western Roman Empire. He is the author of Figuring Out The Past: The 3,495 Vital Statistics that Explain World History.
In this episode, we focus on Figuring Out The Past. We start by discussing some possible limitations of (narrative) History, and what SHESHAT’s approach has to offer. We talk about many different kinds of patterns we find across societies and across time, and how societies are similar but also differ from one another. We discuss cultural evolution, how it works in different domains, and things like rates of innovation. We ask why societies rise and fall. We discuss the role religion plays in society. We also talk about how to make sense of some of the statistics presented in the book, particularly the ones related to standing armies, collective rituals, monuments, and cultural tools like calendars, law codes, and bureaucracy. Finally, we ask if it is possible to use these date to understand contemporary events and to predict future events.
Time Links:
Intro
An integrative approach to History
Patterns across societies
Insights about cultural evolution
Why do societies rise and fall?
Why do big societies collapse?
The social role of religion
Standing armies, monuments, collective rituals, and social organization
Bureaucracy, law codes, calendars, and other cultural tools
Making sense of contemporary events, and prediction the future
Follow Dr. Hoyer’s work!
Follow Dr. Hoyer’s work:
Academia.edu page: https://bit.ly/3s4KT9s
ResearchGate profile: https://bit.ly/3mwCD0R
Sheshat: https://bit.ly/3wCihYJ
Amazon page: https://amzn.to/31XTWhY
Figuring Out The Past: https://amzn.to/3t4RMJf
Twitter handle: @hoyerdan