Seshat History of the Axial Age: Data-Driven Historical Analysis
This edited volume applies insights from Seshat: Global History Databank, a massive historical research project, to challenge conventional understanding of the Axial Age. Rather than identifying a single "Axial Age" in human history, this work reveals cross-cultural parallels in the co-evolution of egalitarian ideals and constraints on political authority with sociopolitical complexity.
First Book-Length Publication from Seshat
As the inaugural book-length publication utilizing Seshat's systematic approach to collecting information about the human past, this volume expands the Axial Age debate beyond first-millennium BCE Eurasia. Fourteen chapters survey earlier and later periods, examining developments in regions previously neglected in Axial Age discussions.
Key Findings and Methodology
The research concludes that no identifiable Axial Age was confined to a few Eurasian hotspots in the last millennium BCE. Instead, "axiality" as a cluster of traits emerged repeatedly whenever societies reached specific thresholds of scale and complexity levels. This data-driven approach provides new perspectives on sociopolitical evolution across human civilizations.
Expert Contributors and Editors
Co-editors Daniel Hoyer and Jenny Reddish assembled leading historians, archaeologists, and anthropologists alongside Seshat team members. Hoyer serves as Project Manager with Seshat, specializing in cross-cultural historical analysis as a historian and social scientist. Reddish, Seshat's Lead Editor and anthropologist based at the Complexity Science Hub in Vienna, focuses on material correlates of cultural systems from societies worldwide.
About Seshat: Global History Databank
Founded in 2011, Seshat: Global History Databank brings together comprehensive knowledge about human history, collecting data on social and political organization of human societies to track civilization evolution over time. This volume represents the first entry in the Seshat Histories series, establishing a new standard for systematic historical research.
Product Details
Format: Paperback
Publication Date: December 2019
Series: Seshat Histories
Editors: Daniel Hoyer, Jenny Reddish
Publisher: Beresta Books
