Peter Turchin

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Peter Turchin, is a world known specialist in population dynamics and mathematical modeling of historical dynamics.

He was born in Moscow in 1958.

In 1975 he entered the School of Biology of the Moscow State University and studied there till 1977 when his father, a Soviet dissident scientist Valentin Turchin, was extradicted from the USSR. He got his B.A. in Biology from the New York University (cum laude) in 1980. He got his Ph.D. in Zoology in 1985 from Duke University.

Peter Turchin is a professor of University of Connecticut in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology as well as the Department of Mathematics. He is a founder of theory of Cliodynamics, the new scientific discipline related to Cliometrics that investigates such dynamical processes in history. His ideas contributed to social cycle theory through the development of the mathematical models of long-term ("secular") sociodemographic cycles. His publications include:

Turchin, P., et al., eds. 2007. History & Mathematics: Historical Dynamics and Development of Complex Societies. Moscow: KomKniga. ISBN 5484010020

Turchin P. 2006. War and Peace and War: The Life Cycles of Imperial Nations. New York: Pi Press.

Turchin P. 2006. Population Density and Warfare: A Reconsideration. Social Evolution & History 5(2): 121–158 (with Andrey Korotayev).

Turchin, P. 2003. Historical Dynamics: Why States Rise and Fall. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Turchin, P. 2003. Complex Population Dynamics: a Theoretical/Empirical Synthesis. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Turchin, P. 1998. Quantitative Analysis of Movement: measuring and modeling population redistribution in plants and animals. Sunderland, MA: Sinauer Associates.