Higher central extensions and cohomology

We establish a Galois-theoretic interpretation of cohomology in semi-abelian categories: cohomology with trivial coefficients classifies central extensions, also in arbitrarily high degrees. This allows us to obtain a duality, in a certain sense, between “internal” homology and “external” cohomology in semi-abelian categories. These results depend on a geometric viewpoint of the concept of a higher central extension, as well as the algebraic one in terms of commutators.