Cliodynamics: can we use history to forecast the future?

Intro:

Could gathering data from the past help us prevent a future disaster? An evolutionary anthropologist at the University of Connecticut has dedicated his career to answering this question.
Professor Peter Turchin founded a new field of academic study called cliodynamics in 2003, and then set up a research consortium eight years later to build a huge historical database called Seshat in a bid to uncover major patterns in world history.