The Waves of Time Long-Term Change and International Relations

Since the end of the Cold War, analysts of international politics have given much greater attention to issues of change. It has become increasingly clear to specialists from many fields that any understanding of large-scale political change must encompass far longer timescales than has been usual in the study of world politics, and must incorporate multi-disciplinary perspectives. This book evaluates and draws on relevant theoretical approaches from other disciplines such as sociology, economics, geography, history, anthropology and archaeology, as well as evolutionary theory and the mathematical study of complexity. Using an epistemological framework, Dark sets out a theory of long-term world political change: the theory of ''Macrodynamics''. This is then applied to historical, anthropological and archaeological data to explain the changing forms of political organization, from the earliest human societies to the late twentieth century. The resulting analysis is a reinterpretation of the processes of global political change in the past and present. This, in turn, opens new areas of enquiry in the study of international relations and has profound implications for how we understand the changing world of today.>

About the author

Dr Ken Dark is Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Reading, UK. His area of interest covers the interdisciplinary relationship between archaeological and historical research and studies of contemporary economics and international relations.

Product details

• Authors: K. R. Dark, K. R. (University of Reading Dark, Dark K. R., K R Dark
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Content: Book
• Product form: Hardback
• Publication date: 06.10.2016
• Subject: Social sciences, law, business > Political science > Political science and political education
• EAN: 9781474288309
• ISBN: 978-1-4742-8830-9
• Pages: 304
• Series: History and Politics in the 20th Century: Bloomsbury Academic; History and Politics in the 20th Century: Bloomsbury Academic
• Subjects: POLITICAL SCIENCE / International Relations / General; International Relations