I’ve just returned from California, where I spent last two weeks. I dislike long-distance air travel, and when I do it, I try to hit as many birds with the same stone, so to speak. This means bunching up as many talks and visits as possible. On this trip I started at Stanford, then we

Two weeks ago I was interviewed by BBC for their show Analysis that was aired on Feb. 3. You can listen to it here. A good summary is on the Equality by Lot blog. In the show Jeremy Cliffe examines the philosophy of Russell Brand, an English comedian and actor who gave the most watche

In my previous blog on War Before Civilization I used the paintings by a French artist Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues. Although there was some controversy on the authenticity of his depictions of life in Southeastern North America in sixteenth century, I believe that at this point the ve

I am currently reading The Barbarous Years by the historian Bernard Bailyn. He paints a pretty grim picture of life in the seventeenth century North America. Although our historical sources are primarily concerned with massacres and atrocities involving Europeans, who played the role

The last few days were very hectic. I gave more than ten interviews, about half by phone or Skype and the rest by answering e-mailed question. I prefer the second approach: I am a better writer than speaker. I am glad that there is so much interest in our results in the popular press.

One of the greatest puzzles of social science is how human societies evolved from small groups of relatives and friends to the huge, anonymous and complex societies of today. A peace demonstration. Today we live in huge societies of strangers, who nevertheless are capable of coming to

In this last installment on thoughts provoked by Sci Foo sessions, I’d like to speculate about what might happen if we (God forbid) encounter an extraterrestrial civilization in any not-too-distant future. As usual, I look at this question through the lens of social and cultural evolu

In the previous post I argued that although it looks like the period between 1 and 1500 AD was one of stagnation, and even regress (European ‘Dark Ages’, etc.), under the surface there was a lot of technological and social progress. In China, again, agricultural techniques continued t

My previous blog discussed the startling idea that war, despite all the blood, death, and suffering it has inflicted on countless humans over the ages, is actually good for something. As the historian and archaeologist Ian Morris argues, war “drove the creation of increasingly effecti

A few years ago, as I was writing an article about what it would take to transform history into science, I wanted to get a sample of what influential historians think about this idea. So I went through ten years of issues of Perspectives on History, a monthly bulletin of the American