Big History represents an interdisciplinary approach that strives to unite scientific knowledge from natural sciences and social sciences. The International Big History Association defines their goal as such: “attempt to understand, in a unified and interdisciplinary way, the history of the Cosmos, Earth, Life, and Humanity”. Eurasian Center for Big History and System Forecasting was founded in 2011, by the Academic Council of The Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS). Some of the most important representatives of the center and the approach, itself, are Russian scientists Leonid Grinin, Dmitri Bondarenko, Andrey Korotayev, and Peter Turchin. Big History strives to “develop a unified and interdisciplinary history of the Cosmos, Earth, Life and Humanity. It also seeks to develop system forecasting of social, political, demographic, ethnic and cultural processes at regional and global levels”. The aims of this approach and the center are: to develop forecasting systems for social, political, economical, and cultural processes at the global and regional level; to explore evolutionary processes, and their regularities, trends, and mechanisms; to examine the history of the interrelation of society and environment; to study world history and global processes; to promote international and interdisciplinary collaboration in order to better understand big historical processes; to use acquired knowledge to promote humanitarian goals and improve political, economical and social development.

The Center publishes journals: Social Evolution & History, Journal of Globalization Studies,  as well as the Evolution almanac, and individual volumes dedicated to the study of world history, Big History, and system forecasting.

Leonid Grinin is the Editor-in-Chief of the journal Social Evolution and History and the Journal of Globalization Studies. Grinin's field of interest and research is extremely wide and includes global studies, futurology (forecasting world political and socio-economic development), globalization, modernization, social evolution, economic cycles and global economic crises, information science revolution, and analysis of global trends in historical processes. comparison of social and natural evolution, etc.

In his article "Production Revolutions and Periodization of History" (2007b), Grinin introduced a typology of periods of social evolution based on the key technological and economic organization of society and the revolutions associated with it that led to higher levels. The first level is „Hunter-Gatherer“, whit hunting and gathering technology, the second level was created with the agricultural (Neolithic) revolution and that is the „Craft-Agrarian level“. The third level is „Industrial“, which arose with the industrial revolution, while the fourth level is „Information-Scientific“, which came about as a result of the scientific and information revolution.

In "The Early State and Its Analogues" (2004a), Grinin introduces several new typologies concerning political evolution. The first typology concerns the emergence of the first states in history and he divides those states into: 1) Early States; 2) Developed State; and 3) Mature State. Grinin also introduces a typology of what he calls "analogues of the early state", that is, societies that were similar in demographic, technological, and economic characteristics to states, but lacked a political organization specific to early states. It introduces five types of analogues of the early state: 1) small autonomous communities that engaged in a trade or were religious centers, most often a city with its surroundings; 2) large tribal confederations with a supreme leader; 3) large tribal confederations without a supreme leader; 4) Super big nomadic amalgams - nomadic empires; 5) very large complex chiefdoms. Grinin also introduces the criteria that a political organization should meet in order to be considered a state: specific characteristics (attributes) of the supreme power; new principles of government organization; non-traditional and new forms of regulating social life; and redistribution of power.

Authors: Grinin Leonid. Bondarenko, Dmitri; Korotayev, Andrey; Turchin, Peter.

Books:

Bondarenko, Dmitri. The Axial Ages of World History: Lessons for the 21st Century (2014);

Grinin. „The Early State and its Analogues”, in Social Evolution & History (2004);

     -     „Production Revolutions and Periodization of History”, in Social Evolution & History (2007);

     -     Chiefdoms: Тheories, Problems, and Comparisons (2011a);

      -     The Evolution of Statehood: From Early States to Global Society  (2011b);

      -     Great Divergence and Great Convergence: A Global Perspective  (2015);

     -     Economic Cycles, Crises and the Global Periphery (2016a);  

     -     The Cybernetic Revolution and the Forthcoming Epoch of Self-Regulating Systems (2016b).

     -     Islamism, Arab Spring, and the Future of Democracy. World System and World Values Perspectives (2018);

Korotayev, Andrey. World Religions and Social Evolution of the Old World Oikumene Civilizations: A Cross-cultural Perspective (2004);

     -     Introduction to Social Macrodynamics. Compact Macromodels of the World System Growth (2006a);

     -     Introduction to Social Macrodynamics. Secular Cycles and Millennial Trends  2006b);

Turchin, Peter. Figuring Out the Past; The 3,495 Vital Statistics that Explain World History (2020); 

     -     Ages of Discord; A Structural-demographic Analysis of American History (2016); 

     -     Ultrasociety: How 10,000 Years of War Made Humans the Greatest Cooperators on Earth (2016); 

     -     Secular Cycles (2009); 

     -     War and Peace and War: The Rise and Fall of Empires, Plume (2006); 

     -     Historical Dynamics: Why States Rise and Fall (2003); 

     -     Complex Population Dynamics: a Theoretical/Empirical Synthesis (2003).