Stairway to Heaven I
The author revisits a promised structural‑demographic deep‑dive into China, noting the analysis was delayed but is now underway. The first phase focuses on how China’s ruling class reproduces itself, tracing aspirants’ origins and pathways to power. The piece introduces the metaphor “stairway to heaven” to describe the ascent to supreme authority. A full report will follow, expanding on these initial findings.
Cliodynamica Substack: A Year in Review
Peter Turchin’s Cliodynamica Substack celebrated its first anniversary, having published 87 articles at an average of 1.4 posts per week. The most lucrative paid‑subscriber posts focus on structural‑demographic analysis of America, Japan, and European geopolitics, while the free‑subscriber record belongs...
Two Millennia of European History Written on Bones
The European History of Health Project has assembled a massive anthropometric database, analyzing over 15,119 skeletons from more than a hundred archaeological sites across Europe. By digitizing bone measurements, the initiative creates a longitudinal record spanning two millennia, enabling continent‑wide...
Do Lemmings Commit Mass Suicide?
The author recounts publishing a lemming study in Science, which landed on the journal's front cover. The piece challenges the long‑standing myth that lemmings commit mass suicide by leaping off cliffs. By tracing the myth’s origins to early 20th‑century observations...