Leonid Grinin
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Leonid Grinin (born in 1958) is a philosopher of history.
Born in Kamyshin (the Volgograd Region), Grinin attended Volgograd Pedagogical University, where he got an M.A. in 1980. He got his Ph.D. from Moscow State University in 1996. He is a senior research fellow of the Volgograd Center for Social Research, a vice-editor of the journals History and Modernity and Philosophy and Society, and a co-editor of the Social Evolution & History.
Leonid Grinin's major contributions belong to the following fields: (1) studies of the long-term trends in the evolution of technologies and their influences on sociocultural evolution, (2) periodization of history, (3) studies of long-term development of the political systems. Here Grinin insists that the two-stage scheme of the state macroevolution (Early State – Mature State) proposed by Henry Claessen and Peter Skalnik is not sufficient, and suggests that it should be modified as "Early State – Developed State – Mature State", emphasizing that the differences between developed and early states are no less pronounced than the ones between the former and the mature states.
Grinin has written 5 books and over 60 articles dealing with his research interests. These include Philosophy, Sociology, and Theory of History, Productive Forces and Historical Process, Formations and Civilizations (in Russian). Among his more important journal articles are "The Early State and its Analogues" in the 2003 Social Evolution & History and “Early State and Democracy” (in The Early State, Its Alternatives and Analogues, pp. 419–463. Volgograd: Uchitel).
