[M]y colleagues and I... focused on cycles of political integration and disintegration, particularly on state formation and state collapse. - Peter Turchin

The main question... Whether there is economic inequality, and social and political instability? Growing economic inequality, especially inequality in income and wealth, is currently a broadly shared concern. It has been a lot of the topics in the Davos meetings... and it is often adduced that growing inequality is a source of political discord. But is it? And if it's the case, how does it do it? What is the direct mechanism?

[T]he problem is... if the wealth pump is allowed to run long enough, eventually... the growing elite numbers and their consumption levels will overshoot the productive base, which is what the workers are producing.

... uses the methods of data science, treating the historical record... as Big Data. It employs mathematical models to trace the intricate web of interactions...