Ibn Khaldun's famous 'Introduction', originally meant as an introduction to his complete work of history eventually turned out to be his masterpiece on ideas of social studies and the way human history develops.
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«The Muqaddimah, also known as the Muqaddimah of Ibn Khaldun or Ibn Khaldun's Prolegomena, is a book written by the historian Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406 AD) in 1377 which presents a view of universal history. Some modern thinkers view it as the first work dealing with the social sciences of sociology, demography, and cultural history. »(Wikipedia)