How the world works. Sketches on macrosociological topics (Second edition, revised)

Georgi Derlugyan

Moscow, Gaidar Institute Press, 2013. – 384 p.

ISBN 978-5-93255-363-3

Macrosociology is concerned with connecting key points in the changing and chaotic landscape of real human history into a clear and logically verifiable picture. Today, we continue to work on the main stem of classical theory, which goes back to analytical materialism (but not ideologies) Adam Smith, Karl Marx, max Weber, Joseph Schumpeter, and Fernand Braudel.

Georgy Derlugyan, a consultant Professor at Ranepa under the President of the Russian Federation and a Professor at new York University, tells how his science is looking for answers to big and interesting questions. Where in ancient history so many collapsed "lost" civilizations, and why did the inhabitants of Easter island erect giant statues? Why did capitalism break out in the extreme West of Eurasia, and not in the Arab Caliphate? How did the charismatic bureaucracy that max Weber himself did not foresee grow out of the Bolshevik party? Why, as a result of its erosion, did the ruling elite of Russia become not a liberal intelligentsia, not a Director's corps, or a class of private capitalists, but a "sovereign bureaucracy"? And finally, where does science itself come from?