Throughout human history, societies have risen, weathered crises, and sometimes collapsed. What has driven these changes?

Join Peter Turchin, pioneer of the science of cliodynamics and author of End Times, as he shares the story behind the Seshat Global History Databank – a way to understand the forces shaping human societies. Together with CSH researcher Jenny Reddish, he will explore:

|| What data from the past can tell us about the future stability of our societies

|| The roots of today’s world religions in the warring societies of Iron Age Eurasia

|| Why states, which first appeared 5,000 years ago, took over the world

Since the end of the last Ice Age around 10,000 years ago, human societies have been completely transformed: from a global population of a few million people, mostly living mobile, foraging lifestyles, to our current world of over 8 billion people. What’s more, centralized political formations ‒ states ‒ now dominate the world’s land surface and much of its oceans. How did this happen? What can explain the massive growth in both population numbers and social complexity? And why do states periodically experience crisis and even sometimes collapse?

In 2011, Peter Turchin and colleagues founded a project to collect and organize the large amounts of data needed to answer these questions: the Seshat Global History Databank. In this lecture, Turchin will talk about the results of this research, which he has synthesized in his latest book: The Great Holocene Transformation (2025). The group’s work sheds light on an apparent paradox: that conflict and competition have been driving forces towards ever-greater scales of cooperation. Our modern societies, with their dense social and economic networks, impressive infrastructure and technological prowess ‒ but also deep inequalities and exploitative power structures ‒ are products of this evolutionary process.

Jenny Reddish, Seshat Databank’s Lead Editor, will speak about the role of religion and ritual in long-term cultural evolution. She will share some insights from a recent volume co-edited with Turchin and Jennifer Larson, a classical historian: the Seshat History of Moralizing Religion (2025). This work emphasizes that “moralizing religions” ‒ those that include belief in a system of supernatural reward and punishment for human behavior, like Christianity and Buddhism ‒ are relatively recent in human history. They emerged during times of political fragmentation and conflict in Eurasia around 1500 to 2500 years ago. However, once they were adopted by expansionist states and empires, they proved a powerful shaping force in the history of Eurasia and (after c. 1500 CE) the rest of the world.

Overall, the team’s work offers a lens through which to view the long sweep of human history, the rise of complex states and the puzzle of large-scale cooperation. 

An evening for everyone curious about history, data, and the fate of our world.

🎄 Join us for Punsch & roasted Chestnuts afterwards! 🎄