A Systematic Assessment of "Axial Age" Proposals Using Global Comparative Historical Evidence

Bibliographic Data

ID4752989
AuthorsDaniel Austin Mullins (0000-0002-6052-643X, University of Oxford and University of London, corresponding author), Daniel Hoyer (0000-0003-2675-257X, Seshat: Global History Databank and George Brown College), Christina Collins (University of Exeter), Thomas E Currie (0000-0001-9861-1341, University of Exeter), Thomas Currie (University of Exeter), Kevin Feeney (0009-0008-1289-8774, Trinity College Dublin), Pieter François (0000-0002-1590-0509, University of Oxford), Patrick E Savage (0000-0001-6996-7496, Keio University Shonan Fujisawa Campus), H Whitehouse (0000-0001-6935-6724, University of Oxford), Peter Turchin (0000-0002-1292-8100, University of Connecticut)
Year2018
Volume83
Issue3
Pages596-626
Publication date2018-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAmerican Sociological Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0003-1224 • E-ISSN: 1939-8271
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0003122418772567
OpenAlexW2799404671
LanguageEN
Citations received28
References cited87

Proponents of the Axial Age contend that parallel cultural developments between 800 and 200 BCE in what is today China, Greece, India, Iran, and Israel-Palestine constitute the global historical turning point toward modernity. The Axial Age concept is well-known and influential, but deficiencies in the historical evidence and sociological analysis available have thwarted efforts to evaluate the concept's major global contentions. As a result, the Axial Age concept remains controversial. Seshat: Global History Databank provides new tools for examining this topic in social formations across Afro-Eurasia during the first two millennia BCE and first millennium CE, allowing scholars to empirically evaluate the varied and contrasting claims researchers have put forward. Results undercut the notion of a specific "age" of axiality limited to a specific geo-temporal localization. Critical traits offered as evidence of an axial transformation by proponents of the Axial Age concept appeared across Afro-Eurasia hundreds, and in some cases thousands, of years prior to the proposed Axial Age. Our analysis raises important questions for future evaluations of this period and points the way toward empirically-led, historical-sociological investigations of the ideological and institutional foundations of complex societies

China · Economic geography · Epistemology · Geography · Ideology · Modernity · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Culture, Economy, and Development Studies · Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation · History · Law · World Systems and Global Transformations

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