Mercatus Senior Fellow Jack Goldstone Joins the Council on Foreign Relations

The Mercatus Center would like to congratulate Senior Fellow Jack Goldstone on his recent membership to the Council on Foreign Relations.

Professor Goldstone’s is known for work in several disciplines, mainly political sociology and world history.  His book Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World won the 1993 Distinguished Scholarly Publication Award from the American Sociological Association, and his edited volume States, Parties, and Social Movements was a Choice Outstanding Academic Title. He also won the Arnaldo Momigliano Prize of the Historical Society for his work on economic growth in world history.  More recently, Goldstone has published on the factors promoting political stability and democracy, including leading a National Academy of Sciences research committee report, Improving Democracy Assistance: Building Knowledge through Research and Evaluation (2009).

Goldstone is now working on two volumes on politics: One on Understanding Revolutions (Sage, forthcoming), and another on Political Demography.  The latter explores the many ways in which population change affects political alignments and political development.

Professor Goldstone is also researching the problem of the “Rise of the West.”  He has been an original member of the ‘California School’ of world historians who emphasize the similarities in the economics and politics of Europe and China up to the late 18th century.  His latest book: Why Europe? The Rise of the West in World History 1500-1850 argues that the “rise of the West” was a relatively late event, based on an exceptional combination of events in 18th century Britain, creating a new pattern of technological advance and industrial innovation, but it is a pattern that other countries can follow and use to create their own path to modern economic growth.

For more information on Professor Goldstone and his work, please visit his profile page.

Jack Goldstone's work for the Council on Foreign Relations is available at ForeignAffairs.com.