A network framework of cultural history
- Maximilian Schich1,2,3,*,
- Chaoming Song4,
- Yong-Yeol Ahn5,
- Alexander Mirsky2,
- Mauro Martino3,
- Albert-László Barabási3,6,7,
- Dirk Helbing2
+ Author Affiliations
- ↵*Corresponding author. E-mail: maximilian.schich@utdallas.edu
The emergent processes driving cultural history are a product of complex interactions among large numbers of individuals, determined by difficult-to-quantify historical conditions. To characterize these processes, we have reconstructed aggregate intellectual mobility over two millennia through the birth and death locations of more than 150,000 notable individuals. The tools of network and complexity theory were then used to identify characteristic statistical patterns and determine the cultural and historical relevance of deviations. The resulting network of locations provides a macroscopic perspective of cultural history, which helps us to retrace cultural narratives of Europe and North America using large-scale visualization and quantitative dynamical tools and to derive historical trends of cultural centers beyond the scope of specific events or narrow time intervals.
- Received for publication 6 May 2013.
- Accepted for publication 13 June 2014.
