lpetrich
Contributor
Peter Turchin and Sergei Nefedov have published a book, Secular Cycles, in which they propose that large-scale human societies have cycles of growth and decay. He also has a popularized version: "War and Peace and War: The Rise and Fall of Empires" .
That's not a new sort of thesis, but they back it up with lots of evidence, like population, average height, and even counts of hoards of coins. In some premodern societies, people would bury their money, and since it was coins of precious metals, it would not corrode. If they got caught up in civil strife, like getting killed in it, then they would not be able to dig up those coins again.
He proposes this cycle:
Dates: B = BCE, (none) = CE
Here are the phases for the dominant states in western Europe until the late 19th cy. First Rome, then medieval German empires, then France.
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Here also for imperial China.
In their book, PT and SN have counts of "instability" events, and they fit very well. European nations have 0.6 +- 0.06 instability events per decade in their integrative phases and 3.8 +- 0.5 in their disintegrative phases. For imperial China, the numbers are 3.4 and 11.3.
There is also a shorter-term cycle of violence that's apparent during the European disintegrative phases and a bit during some European integrative phases. It's not very apparent in China, however. It has a period of about 50 +- 10 years. PT calls it a "fathers and sons cycle", and he proposes a generational explanation. One generation revolts against perceived injustice, and its descendant generation does not think that the injustices it suffers is worth fighting about. But that's a more distant memory for the next generation, and its injustices may be worse. So this second generation revolts again, completing the cycle.
PT and SN do not pretend that this is a complete explanation; they note some events that don't fit in very well, like the mid first century crisis in the Roman Principiate, complete with a year of three emperors.
That's not a new sort of thesis, but they back it up with lots of evidence, like population, average height, and even counts of hoards of coins. In some premodern societies, people would bury their money, and since it was coins of precious metals, it would not corrode. If they got caught up in civil strife, like getting killed in it, then they would not be able to dig up those coins again.
He proposes this cycle:
- Integrative - centralized, unified elites, strong state, order, stability -- wars of conquest against neighbors
- Expansion (Growth) - population increases
- Stagflation (Compression) - population levels off, elites increase
- Disintegrative - decentralized, divided elites, weak state, disorder, instability -- civil wars
- Crisis (State Breakdown) - population declines, elites continue, lots of strife
- Depression - population stays low, civil wars, elites get pruned
- Intercycle - if it takes time to form a strong state
Era | Overall | Expansion | Stagflation | Crisis | Depression |
Rome: Republic | 350B - 30B | 350B - 180B | 180B - 130B | 130B - 30B | |
Rome: Principiate | 30B - 285 | 27B - 96 | 96 - 165 | 165 - 197 | 197 - 285 |
England: Plantagenet | 1150 - 1485 | 1150 - 1260 | 1260 - 1315 | 1315 - 1400 | 1400 - 1485 |
England: Tudor-Stuart | 1485 - 1730 | 1485 - 1580 | 1580 - 1640 | 1640 - 1660 | 1660 - 1730 |
France: Capetian | 1150 - 1450 | 1150 - 1250 | 1250 - 1315 | 1315 - 1365 | 1365 - 1450 |
France: Valois | 1450 - 1660 | 1450 - 1520 | 1520 - 1570 | 1570 - 1600 | 1600 - 1660 |
Russia: Muscovy | 1460 - 1620 | 1460 - 1530 | 1530 - 1565 | 1565 - 1615 | |
Russia: Romanov | 1620 - 1922 | 1620 - 1800 | 1800 - 1905 | 1905 - 1922 |
Here are the phases for the dominant states in western Europe until the late 19th cy. First Rome, then medieval German empires, then France.
Era | Integrative | Disintegrative |
Republican Rome | 350–130 BCE | 130–30 BCE |
Principate | 30 BCE–165 CE | 165–285 |
Dominate/Merovingian | 285–540 | 540–700 |
Carolingian | 700–820 | 820–920 |
Ottonian-Salian | 920–1050 | 1050–1150 |
Capetian | 1150–1315 | 1315–1450 |
Valois | 1450–1560 | 1560–1660 |
Bourbon | 1660–1780 | 1780–1870 |
Dynasty | Integrative | Disintegrative |
Western Han | 200B - 10 | 10 - 40 |
Eastern Han | 40 - 180 | 180 - 220 |
Sui | 550 - 610 | 610 - 630 |
Tang | 630 - 750 | 750 - 770 |
Northern Sung | 960 - 1120 | 1120 - 1160 |
Yuan | 1250 - 1350 | 1350 - 1410 |
Ming | 1410 - 1620 | 1620 - 1650 |
Qing | 1650 - 1850 | 1850 - 1880 |
There is also a shorter-term cycle of violence that's apparent during the European disintegrative phases and a bit during some European integrative phases. It's not very apparent in China, however. It has a period of about 50 +- 10 years. PT calls it a "fathers and sons cycle", and he proposes a generational explanation. One generation revolts against perceived injustice, and its descendant generation does not think that the injustices it suffers is worth fighting about. But that's a more distant memory for the next generation, and its injustices may be worse. So this second generation revolts again, completing the cycle.
PT and SN do not pretend that this is a complete explanation; they note some events that don't fit in very well, like the mid first century crisis in the Roman Principiate, complete with a year of three emperors.