Peter Turchin

Peter Turchin
Born	1957 (age 59–60) Obninsk, Soviet Union
Residence	United States
Nationality	American
Fields	Cultural Evolution, Cliodynamics (historical dynamics)
Institutions	University of Connecticut
Alma mater	New York University
Known for	contributions to population biology and historical dynamics

Peter Turchin (Russian: Пётр Валенти́нович Турчи́н; born 1957) is a Russian-American scientist, specializing in cultural evolution and cliodynamics — mathematical modeling and statistical analysis of the dynamics of historical societies.

Turchin was born in Obninsk, Russia, in 1957 and in 1964 moved to Moscow. In 1975 he entered the Faculty of Biology of the Moscow State University and studied there until 1977, when his father, the Soviet dissident Valentin Turchin, was exiled from the USSR. He got his B.A. in biology from the New York University (cum laude) in 1980 and Ph.D. in zoology in 1985 from Duke University.

Peter Turchin is a professor at the University of Connecticut in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology as well as in the Department of Anthropology and in the Department of Mathematics.

Peter Turchin has made contributions to population ecology, cultural evolution, and historical dynamics. He is one of the founders of cliodynamics, the new scientific discipline at the intersection of historical macrosociology, cliometrics, and mathematical modeling of social processes. Turchin developed an original theory explaining how large historical empires evolve by the mechanism of multilevel selection. His research on secular cycles has contributed to our understanding of the collapse of complex societies as has his re-interpretation of Ibn Khaldun's asabiyya notion as "collective solidarity".

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