History is not just one thing after another. Historians spend lifetimes figuring out how X event in medieval France impacted Y event in 20th century Polynesia, but none of them have truly ‘done the math’ like this week’s guest.

Coming from a background in applied mathematics, Peter Turchin has gathered an unprecedented amount of historical data that he believes gives him a better chance than most of predicting how societies slide into grave crises. He’s been proven right too: in the early 2010s, he predicted that 2020 would see a global rise in instability. Aaron Bastani finds out how he did it.

End Times: Elites, Counter-Elites and the Path of Political Disintegration is available from Penguin.