Comments on the Grays' Four Hundred Year Cycle in Human Ability
A. L. Kroeber
In the Journal of Cycle Research (7:43–48, April, 1958) S.W. and N.E. Gray published “Evidence for a 400-Year in Human Ability”, which might have been more accurately called “Human Achievement” since ability refers to potential, but 25,000 lives they reviewed were finished realized. They took names historic personages listed 1935 edition Columbia Encyclopedia classified them, without rating or ranking, each as an equivalent unit, according their occurrence time; or, exactly, counting how many individuals, eminent enough won inclusion this encyclopedia, alive decade between 500 B.C. A.D. 1800. The authors recognize that essentially data do not cover “human history”, “the western world its Mediterranean fringes”.
Comparative Studies in Society and History