History, Big History and Metahistory

* Book: History, Big History and Metahistory. By David C. Krakauer, John Lewis Gaddis and Kenneth Pomeranz, eds. Santa Fe Institute, 2017.

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Description

From the introduction by the editors:

"If generalization is necessary within particular disciplines — how could it not be?—then it should also be useful across all the disciplines that take, as the subject of their inquiries, Very Big History. It pursues the possibility of taking what one of our contributors, Murray Gell-Mann, has called “a crude look at the whole.” It explores the possibility that the science of complexity and its many tributary fields and concepts pioneered at Santa Fe, may provide new methods, or minimally metaphors, by which to do this. It is premised on the notion that curiosity—the foundation of all knowledge—requires the ability to be both a specialist and a generalist at the same time—and that this simultaneity of perspective is in need of new transdisciplinary approaches and ideas.

Our title, History, Big History and Metahistory , requires a brief explanation.

• By “history,” we mean the study, chiefly, of written records, extending from the most ancient cuneiform tablet through the most recent e-mails and tweets.

• By “ Big History,” we mean all reconstructions of the past that do not rely on written materials.

• By “ metahistory,” we mean the patterns that emerge from both modes of inquiry which make generalization, and hence analysis, possible.

We do not mean to imply by this sequence of terms that moving to the method and scale of “Big History” is the only way to search for meaningful patterns."

Contents

From the editors:

"We start with David Christian, who discusses the chronometric revolution, and how this has led to a single historical continuum stretching all the way back to the Big Bang, allowing for what he calls Grand Unified Stories.

Douglas Erwin explores how paleontologists deal with the vagaries of preservation, how statistical techniques developed in biology and have been applied to textual evidence, and the complexities of nonuniform trends leading to convergent and parallel events.

John Lewis Gaddis shows that several 19 th century searches for a science of history—those of Leo Tolstoy, Carl von Clausewitz, and Henry Adams—grasped key concepts of complexity theory, but lacked the means of visualizing and verifying it that are available today.

Murray Gell-Mann discusses the nature of empirical regularities, and their relationship to measures of complexity, and illustrates how apparently complex histories and patterns can sometimes be organized using simple models of growth and scaling.

Geoffrey Harpham discusses the possible limitations and abuses of unified frameworks of explanation, using the history of philology as a case study. Unchecked, scientific trajectories in a social matrix can lead to unjustified inferences.

David Krakauer introduces a range of concepts from non-linear dynamics, statistical physics, and evolutionary biology, which he argues should be of use to all students of history. Using examples from traditional historicism, he shows how history often uses analogs of concepts and tools expressed quantitatively in the natural sciences.

John McNeill explores parallels between cultural and biological evolution, exploring patterns of increasing cultural heterogeneity through time, and the role that specialist (pandas) and generalist (pigs) societies and states have played in explaining these patterns.

Ken Pomeranz describes the ways in which naming historical phenomena influences how we then analyze them. Arguing that many of the classification schemes that are conventional among historians serve some other purposes well but are not very conducive to seeking meaningful generalizations or engaging in dialogue with scientists. He suggests other approaches while also giving reasons why they are far more likely to complement than displace currently popular taxonomies.

Fred Spier , speaking as an historian, explores how Big History might be brought within a reductive framework of physics, using the concept of free energy rate density, as a means of organizing major transitions, from the abiotic to the biotic and cultural domains.

Peter Turchin explores the value of general quantitative theory in areas where prediction is limited and comparative data and retrodiction need to be explored. The transformation of natural history into quantitative biology is used as possible precedent and model for a transformation of qualitative history.

Geerat Vermeij considers a grand, economic theory of history, in which biology and culture might both be subsumed. Concepts of competition, feedback, and power provide potential unifying historical concepts.

Geoffrey West argues for quantitative approaches to history through a suitable choice of coarse-grained variables. He proposes that it is unlikely that we shall discern common patterns at the level of individuals, but that if we allow ourselves to study collective phenomena, such as urban systems, then we might make surprising new discoveries."