In 1377 the North African scholar and statesman Ibn Khaldun composed the Muqaddimah, the introductory volume to his universal history. In it he developed the concept of asabiyyah, or group solidarity, to explain how cohesive groups seize power, found dynasties and cities, then weaken and are displaced over a cycle of roughly a few generations. He analysed the economic foundations of urban life, the division of labour, taxation and the relationship between nomadic and settled societies. The work treated history as a science with discoverable causes.
The Muqaddimah offered one of the earliest systematic theories of urban civilisation, its economy and its rise and decline, anticipating themes of later sociology, economics and urban analysis.
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