This page gathers links to notes regarding the most important facts, models, coincidences and overlaps identified in the process of compiling this website.
Notes on Politics
- The Probability of Emperors and Empires
- Olson’s Logic of Collective Action
- The Peltzman Model of Regulatory Capture
- Tentative thoughts on an extension of the Peltzman model
- Finding Peltzman in Olson
- Complexity and Fragility in Social Networks: Applications to Patronage and Political Stability
- Agriculture, Surplus, Inequality and Political Power
- The Problem of Succession
- The Rise and Fall of Empires: A review of existing theories with a preliminary commentary
- The Rise and Fall of Empires: A Conclusion
Religious Notes
- The Logic of Religion: A side-effect of bounded rationality
- Monotheism: Monopolistic Competition and Patronage – Judaism, Christianity and Islam
Notes on Trading
- Inequality and its Determinants: The role of property
- The constrains of barter economies
- What is money?
- Commodity Money: The differences and constrains of single (gold) and dual (gold+silver) metal currency systems
- Imperial fiscal management: Tax Collection Policies & Specialisation
Geographical Notes
- Thinking about physical barriers: Equilibria, phase transitions and an analogy with technical analysis
- Rivers, Mountains and Climate: Framing states and their expansion
The Empires Project 