Structure and Dynamics Vol.1 No.2: Editorial Commentary

The Structure and Dynamics eJournal offers a conduit for refereed electronic publication, debate, and editorial communication in the domain of anthropology and human sciences. We invite you—as an open access reader at no cost, an author at no cost, or a volunteer, to submit book reviews or commentary—to contribute and to participate in raising the aspirations of the human sciences today. To submit an article, follow the link to “Submission guidelines.” To submit a review simply click Submit a “Reader's Comment” at the article site. We comment here on the contents and success of the first two issues. Full-text downloads of the eJournal articles numbered 5,313 in the 11 months since September 23, 2005, now averaging 16-17 a day. This reflects positively on quality of the articles, made possible in turn by the high quality and incisiveness of reviews, the number and diversity of reviewers who have responded, and selection for quality in article acceptance and reviewers (and we thank our reviewers for their efforts at timely review). In just two issues, the eJournal has come a long way in attaining the goals set out for it as a publication in which scholarship and debate can be engaged in contemporary fields of research, one that provides a venue for the study of the complex interplay between dynamics and structure, and gives an outlet for methods and results which speak to the issues of simplicity in complexity and the study of structure and dynamics. It has also facilitated presentations of new forms of analysis and visualization, new forums for debate and new vehicles for the dissemination and absorption of work at the cutting edges of the human sciences. Authors of issue 1#1 have had feedback and good reception. Peter Turchin’s findings on historical dynamics have been replicated, for example, using data covering a 700-year period from archaeological research in the Southwest. The replication study is in press in the journal Complexity. Wikipedia, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_cycle_theory, cites Turchin’s article in issue 1#1. Several of the issue 1#1 articles are now reviewed in blogs and on-line commentaries, digests, or reference lists, many with timely google citations. Links to them are starting to appear on educational sites at which students have direct access to download and on-line readership. Issue 1#1 marked our first use of high-quality color imagery and live url links. Krempel and Schnegg’s paper explained our journal’s dynamic-gif logo in their “About the Image: Diffusion Dynamics in an Historical Network,” which also allows the