Fate of Empires and the Search for Survival

[JagerIV]

This is a very interesting essay, that I think is well worth peoples read, and at only 26 pages do not take long, but is packed with information. If you had any interest in the idea of cyclical history, or the suspicion of intellectualism, this is a very good intro and summary of the topic. Even if you don't agree with the arguments, this is a fairly strong and concise putting forward of what those arguments are.

THE FATE OF EMPIRES
and
SEARCH FOR SURVIVAL
Sir John Glubb
​

Some samples from the work

Life Of Empires

The nation	Dates of rise and fall	Duration in years
Assyria	859-612 B.C.	247
Persia	538-330 B.C.	208
Greece	331-100 B.C.	231
Roman Republic	260-27 B.C.	233
Roman Empire	27 B.C.-A.D. 180	207
Arab Empire	A.D. 634-880	246
Mameluke Empire	1250-1517	267
Ottoman Empire	1320-1570	250
Spain	1500-1750	250
Romanov Russia	1682-1916	234
Britain	1700-1950	250

XX The inadequacy of intellect

Perhaps the most dangerous by-product of the Age of Intellect is the unconscious growth of the idea that the human brain can solve the problems of the world. Even on the low level of practical affairs this is patently untrue. Any small human activity, the local bowls club or the ladies’ luncheon club, requires for its survival a measure of selfsacrifice and service on the part of the members. In a wider national sphere, the survival of the nation depends basically on the loyalty and self-sacrifice of the citizens. The impression that the situation can be saved by mental cleverness, without unselfishness or human self-dedication, can only lead to collapse.

Thus we see that the cultivation of the human intellect seems to be a magnificent ideal, but only on condition that it does not weaken unselfishness and human dedication to service. Yet this, judging by historical precedent, seems to be exactly what it does do. Perhaps it is not the intellectualism which destroys the spirit of self-sacrifice—the least we can say is that the two, intellectualism and the loss of a sense of duty, appear simultaneously in the life-story of the nation. Indeed it often appears in individuals, that the head and the heart are natural rivals. The brilliant but cynical intellectual appears at the opposite end of the spectrum from the emotional self-sacrifice of the hero or the martyr. Yet there are times when the perhaps unsophisticated self-dedication of the hero is more essential than the sarcasms of the clever.

 

[Arch Dornan]

Thomas Sowell talked about the intellectuals big brained ideas fucking society over.

 

[gral]

Hmm. These dates are, shall we say, interesting. In some cases(Ottoman Empire, maybe Spain - in Spain's case, we can debate whether their apogee came earlier or not), the 'fall' is merely the high water mark which preceded a long period of decadence. In others(Persia, the Third(I think) Assyrian Empire), it's the actual end of the empire itself. Republican Rome's 'rise' is set at the time Rome became the senior power of the Italian Peninsula(in fact, by 260 BC the First Punic War was already ongoing for 4 years). Let's see where he goes with that.

 

[Deleted member 88]

Spain was basically finished by 1700 with Charles' death it wasn't the driver of events in Europe anymore, but itself something to be fought over in dynastic conflicts.

I would say Spain as an empire began in 1492, with the driving out of the Moors, the conquest of the Canaries and the first steps into the New World.

So assuming that-208 years. A bit on the lower end.

For Greece it wasn't one empire but Hellenistic post Alexandrian civilization in general, which lasted until the fall of the Ptolemies and the last Greco-Bactrian kingdoms near India.

For the Ottomans, I'd say they didn't really decline until later in the 18th century, and their peak was more 1470 to around 1700. So about 230 years.

 

[JagerIV]

Yeah, some of the dates strike me as being a little, arbitrary. Like you said with spain, the end of the Spanish empire I think is more properly 1800, with the nepoleonic invasion. Thats when they properly lost the Empire. You might say they were teetering by the end of the 7 year war as a major power, but it took nepoleons invasion to actually lose most of the Empire.

Britain is interesting (the author was a Brit born in I think the 1890s and was writing this in the 1970s) . I can see a Brit seeing 1950 as more or less the wrapping up, but most of the "decadence" stage is more or less post when he thinks the Empire ended. I think his 10 generation idea might have value, but that's more of a 200 to 400 year, averaging around 300 years more than 250.

 

[Deleted member 88]

If we want to talk about the British Empire-we can either talk about the 18th century empire in the Western Hemisphere or the 19th century one in the Orient.

Or we can talk about both.

So a good starting point would be the foundation of the East India Trading Company. The foundation of colonies in the new world-occurred IIRC in the decades after this.

The earliest British empire was its colonies in North America and the Caribbean, and the trading posts in Africa, then the expansions into India.

After the American revolution-it can be cogently argued the first phase of British imperialism ended, and the second phase began, with further conquest in India, and the eventual end of the Mughal Empire and the effective end of the EIC in 1857. This British empire was focused on India and China, after 1857, the government was more directly involved in colonial management and affairs, it was consolidated and this era of the empire peaked in 1919-1920. When the British actually had around a fourth of the world's landmass under their authority. This decline was a quick one and accelerated after WW2 with the loss of India, the African colonies, and the withdrawal from everything east of the Suez, though a British presence in Hong Kong and Oman(more cold war than anti colonial) remained. But definitely the third phase of the empire was basically done by 1967.

So 183 years for the first phase, 74 years for the second phase, and 110 years in between the withdrawal of everything east of Suez, and the 1857 events in India.

367 years total. Or you could argue there was a fourth phase in between 1857-1920, 63 years. If we want to further subdivide it.

The last decline phase being 47 years.

With Spain you still have a century after the War of the Spanish succession, and some Spanish revival in the late 19th century, but the empire was finished 1898, barring some small African holdings.

I guess you could argue Spain has a whole decline phase of stagnation from 1700 to 1812, and then a period of further decline with some attempts at revival, but overall further breakdown concluding in 1898.

 

[gral]

Read the entire text, and as I had thought, the dates are somewhat arbitrary, especially since he considers decadence part of the life of an empire, which lifespan he posits as being around 10 human generations, or 250 years(BTW, 1776+250=2026).

Still, it's an interesting text, and one which has opinions that would enrage lots of(most?) academics today. The author postulates that the life of an empire goes through a number of phases:

1) The Outburst, or Age of Conquests, where the core ethnic group of the empire conquers and expands through violence;
2) The Age of Commerce, where the focus changes from military conquest and glory(even though these continue) to the accumulation of wealth;
3) The Age of Affluence, where wealth has been accumulated by the empire, and they start to enjoy the fruits of it. This is the high mark of the empire, and here the focus of the empire becomes defensive instead of expansionistic;
4) The Age of Intellect; the accumulation of wealth from the previous age means people are able to take care of their basic necessities and luxuries of life with money to spare, so the wealth is used in the pursuit of knowledge(and culture, but he doesn't dwell too much on this). Symptoms of this age is the explosion of universities, scientific knowledge grows by leaps and bounds. Yet, this scientific progress doesn't save the empire of what's to come(that's where the author goes on the Inadequacy of Intellect passage quoted on the OP). The author also points out that the intellectual discourse fosters not acceptance of opposite points of view, but intolerance and polarization;
5) The Age of Decadence, where the whole building comes crashing down. The author's list of the symptoms of this age are, in a way, hilarious(if you love self-deprecating, black humor): "Defensiveness; Pessimism; Materialism; Frivolity; An influx of foreigners; The Welfare State; A weakening of religion".

All in all, an interesting text. Thanks for calling attention to it.

 

[KilroywasNOTHere]

you know looking at these dates America ain't doing half bad.

 

[Cherico]

you know looking at these dates America ain't doing half bad.

244 years

According to this we have outlasted the roman republic, if we manage to make it another 6 years we will have matched most of the great empires in world history for longevity. Not a bad run but I hope we make it far longer then just 6 more years.

 

[JagerIV]

Well, the healthy have a great deal of similarity, but they all die in a great multitude of varied ways. I think he made that comparison in the essay that people die a great multitude of ways, but somehow often live about 70 years despite all going out differently. Some have a heart attack and die instantly, some get cancer and slowly waste away for 10 years.

 

[Deleted member 88]

The US like Britain can be divided into phases, you have the government of 1783 to about 1865. 1865, to roughly either 1933 or 1965. The New Deal and WW2 reorganized the American government and society, as did LBJ’s great society. After the civil war the federal government’s sovereignty was no longer challenged.

Each of these phases-involving a shift in the role of government(that is massively expanded) and restructuring of society occurred roughly eighty years apart.

Curiously 2013 is the beginning of another one of these eighty year periods and had one of the biggest fights between Obama and the Republican Party over financial concerns. IIRC there was no massive expansion of the government or revamp of the structure of society.

Foreign policy wise-the US can be divided between 1783-1898 or so. With prior military and commercial expeditions, but none as significant as the Spanish-American war, and the entry of the US as a world power. This period was defined by the conquest of the North American continent to the pacific, and occasional conflict with both other post colonial states(Mexico) and tensions with European powers-France, The UK and Spain.

After 1898 the US was an imperialist power in the Western Hemisphere and the Asian littoral. We still in some sense are. But American foreign policy shifted again to a leading global role-financially, culturally, militarily, and diplomatically after 1945.

A role that has continued to the present day. 75 years later.

Given the British had an imperial history lasting three hundred and sixty seven years by my count, the US would then apparently be well placed to endure for another century at least. With a decline of the US and shrinking of its impact sometime around 2150 or so.

I’m not too sure the US can last that long, but it is interesting to see US history from this perspective.

 

[Skallagrim]

Glubb is pretty infamous for his dating system, which is manipulated to serve his argument. A real shame, because he could support all his theses about a culture's development without that contrivance. In fact, he could have used his reasoning to demonstrate "cycles within cycles". (That is: instead of trying to fit his own contrived periodisation, he could have just used the model already advanced by Spengler and Toynbee, but could then have expanded upon it by demonstrating that there are (multi-)generation cycles within the greater cycles those other historians already outlined.)

 

[Lord Sovereign]

244 years

According to this we have outlasted the roman republic, if we manage to make it another 6 years we will have matched most of the great empires in world history for longevity. Not a bad run but I hope we make it far longer then just 6 more years.

As long as America's sons and daughters are willing to love her, to care for her, then she shall reign forever.

 

[JagerIV]

As long as America's sons and daughters are willing to love her, to care for her, then she shall reign forever.

Not to be too much of a downer, I'm sure Brutus thought the same thing.

But, the interesting thing about theories of history are:

1) How predictive is the actual model?

2) What the actual mechanism is?

3) How much flex is there in the system?

Like, if we said a human lives 75 years

1) It would be pretty accurate, through most of history, as long as we excluded death of youths.

2) The mechanism of why this is so is fairly complicated however: seeing some of the research suggests that's there's a confluence of issues, which means extending useful life notably beyond 75 is a very complicated, hard to solve problem, because your actually solving a whole bunch of interrelated problems.

3) Thus, as much hope as some people place in life extenders, I have suspicions that the possible flex up or down 75 years is not all that huge: there is certainly flex, by about 20 years up or down: unhealthy life can get your life expectancy down to say, 50, or up to about 90 at the high end. But, dying at 50 vs dying at 80 is not nothing, about a 30% swing up or down.

So, if his 250 number is accurate,+- about 30%, that's a swing of about 75 years. The US empire ending in 2026 is a very different thing than the US empire ending in 2101. Plus, well, "Empire" is a fairly loose term as well. Like, France's period as global colonial power ended sometime between the franco-prussian and WWI, say 1900, the 250 rule would put the period of French Imperial Glory as starting around 1650, arround the rule of the Sun King, which sounds plausible.

However, there was still a France post the 1910s, and a France pre 1650. And pre 1650 France was hardly an irrelevant state either. And Imperial glory is a somewhat slippery concept to discuss anyways, making such a precise number fairly suspect: like, if the US's start is considered to begin with the signing of the constitution in 1788, then our end of 250 year cycle would be in 2038.

Most states don't really have particularly clean beginnings and ends.

 

[Scottty]

I think an important distinction to keep in mind is that between a nation and an empire. A people their own distinct language, culture, etc, who mind their own business can keep going for thousands of years, as long as they avoid either getting swallowed up by someone else's empire, or falling to the temptation to go doing that themselves.

 

[Lord Sovereign]

I think an important distinction to keep in mind is that between a nation and an empire. A people their own distinct language, culture, etc, who mind their own business can keep going for thousands of years, as long as they avoid either getting swallowed up by someone else's empire, or falling to the temptation to go doing that themselves.

If we're willing to stretch the definition of nation a bit, case in point of that is Greece and China.

 

[Sage of Sierra]

HAPPY 4TH!

While John Glubb's essay (1976) is starting to show some whiskers (he dares to use the word "race" for example) it easily withstands the nitpicking about dating the duration of civilizations as it is intended to make the reader think about their place in the global pecking order and the impermanace of all forms of government. Personally I am counting the start of the United States from the date of the adoption of the Constitution (June 21, 1788) instead of July 4, 1776 because the Declaration was no sure thing, more of a prayer to the Almighty really. Besides, Constitution Day gives us 17 years before we hit Glubb's termination line...2038 is looking better all the time.

 

[JagerIV]

hey, you could also claim we weren't trully an Empire till the Luisiana purchase pushed really started the big territorial expansion. So we actually have until 2053. He does in some parts seem a little overly set to try and get it to exactly fit a 250 year cycle.

Still, I'd forgotten about this work, and its probably worth a re-read. I remember it being a very spicey thing.