This is the second book by Peter Turchin to enter my experience, although it precedes the other, Secular Cycles[1] in publishing chronology. Judging from a note near the end, it’s meant to be a popularization of two earlier works, one of which is the aforementioned Secular Cycles.
The goal of this book is to give the reader a sense of how history is primarily affected by population, by the cycles of asabiya, and, perhaps inadvertently, how the twin motivations of justice and vengeance are submerged by exhaustion. This sense is conveyed through the use of anecdotes, followed by generalizations of those anecdotes, often accompanied by references to similar incidents in other cultural contexts.
The Introduction sets the problem of adequately and precisely describing how empires form, rule, and crumble, using as a reference the classic science fiction series Foundation by Asimov. In the series, these questions are precisely described by mathematics, and while Turchin doesn’t pretend to the precision suggested in the fictional series, he does wish to take the next step along that path.
Empire is defined as a “large, multiethnic territorial state with a complex power structure.” This does not preclude monarchies nor democracies, suggesting a wide applicability. Questions of how such entities, given traditional hostilities between human groups, bind together are brought up.
A fast overview of the proposed theoretical framework is given; how it is predicated on differentiated groups, rather than individuals; how groups are defined in terms of internal cooperation, rather than competition, which leads to asabiya, a critical concept and term from Ibn Khaldun, meaning the “capacity of a social group for concerted collective action.” Such questions as measurement, origin (external threats), and attenuation are noted, if not immediately answered. He declines to agree with dominant theories in social and biological sciences, as they are not congruent with this theory.
Once imperiogenesis is overviewed, it’s the turn of the destruction of empires: imperiopathosis. As external threats decline, how is asabiya, and thus internal peace and stability, affected? How does the rise in population first benefit, then damage, all classes of society, all handled under the rubric of The Matthew Principle; and how the behavior of the occupants of an empire seems, in my view, to emulate that of the terminally drunk man who eventually stumbles disastrously into the nearby river.
Chapter 1 gives us the example of a 1581 Cossack raid through the Urals, where a small band of men won against immense odds due, in part, to their superior sense of asabiya. The Cossacks were multiethnic, and had suffered from the raids of the Tatars for many years. This provided the forge on which a shared group identity was formed; the Tatars did not have that shared allegiance, and when faced with the Cossack resurgence, fell apart and were conquered.
A further example is the success of the Tatar’s ancestors, the Mongol Horde’s invasion of Russia. The transition from success to failure by the Tatars is contrasted with the transition from the failure of the Russians to the success of the Cossacks, and the ebb and flow of social cohesion suggested as the primary reason for these successes and failures.
Chapter 2 covers the Russian Empire up to the mid-1600s in greater detail, illuminating its early failures, the progression of its asabiya, and its later successes. Then it transitions to the United States, noting how the ferocity of the war between Europeans and Indians increased the asabiya between Europeans, regardless of national origin.
Chapter 3 is devoted to chronicling Rome during its secular cycles (see Secular Cycles for more on the terminology), and how its asabiya enabled it to defeat its various enemies, most importantly the Gauls, and how the Gauls strengthened the Romans’ asabiya.
Chapter 4 focuses on the contributions of Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406), an early Tunisian historiographer and demographer, whose concept of asabiya is central to Turchin’s work. From there it moves on to the rise of Islam and the part asabiya played in that rise, as did umma, the closely knit Islamic community. By definition, no one could be excluded from the umma due to origin or social status, and that contributed greatly to asabiya.
Chapter 5, “The Myth of Self-Interest, And The Science of Cooperation,” examines those subjects in the context of World War I, Machiavelli, etc, and critiques rational choice theory as it relates to cooperation, and it covers evolutionary biology aspects of cooperation. Based on studies, he divides people into knaves (aka rational theory agents), who I might characterize as parasites; the opposite of the knaves, the saints, who give to the community regardless of the actions of others; and the moralists, who’d like to be saints, but are so disgusted with the knaves that they withdraw cooperation; etc. This chapter, although abstract, is possibly the most interesting of all from a theoretical standpoint, and leaves me wondering how rational could have been part of the name of rational choice theory, when it should have been short-sighted choice theory, or worse. I am not particularly familiar with rational choice theory, but it appears to be little more than satisfying immediate desires in your choices, rather than considering how a different choice might contribute to the strength of a community which supports the chooser.
Chapter 6 returns for a closer look at Rome, the archetypal empire of the West, using stories to draw out general principles concerning the essence of Roman cooperation, or asabiya, and how it enabled empire.
Chapter 7 gives a light overview of Europe in the last 1500 years, beginning with an invasion of Berbers and Arabs in 711, Charlemagne, Iberia and the Castilians, the Franks (even further back than 711), Germany, etc. The themes should be familiar by now.
Chapter 8 begins the exploration of imperiopathosis, or the collapse of empires, a set of chapters which may make observant American readers uncomfortable. It explores the collapse of the French empire and, just as importantly, the behaviors of both upper and lower classes, which are morbidly fascinating as well as illuminating as to how individual behaviors come together to destroy social structures. Physical structures such as churches, lodges, clubs, and other such buildings will only exist and be symbolic of their creator organizations so long as the spirit of empire-wide cooperation exists; once that disappears due to divergent ideologies, the adoration of old grudges, or simple pursuit of self-importance, the buildings are only symbolic of a lost time. Similarly, the great empire becomes only a dusty name when the citizens pull themselves apart, whether losing their asabiya or due to an overpopulation that strains the resources people need to stay relatively equal – or even simply survive.
Chapter 9 continues the exploration of the dissolution of the French empire, and indulges in some comparisons with the English empire.
Chapter 10 switches gears to the abstract and mathematical, describing a simple model Turchin designed and implemented to explore how individual decisions, as well as events outside of anyone’s control, such as fertility or disease, can lead to the destruction or advancement of a single family line. He compares it to historical records for validation. He uses the model for Dumas’ character d’Artagnan to trace the doings of various elite families in England, and how their short-sighted, self-serving actions served to lead all England astray, and how the wiser members of the royalty dealt with those elite families which had the potential to become threats to the royals, whether through straight-forward murder, or the more charming approach of Queen Elizabeth I, who would simply move her entire court to the castle of a rival she deemed dangerous, and after a few weeks or months, the man would be financially ruined by this “opportunity”, unable to engage in rebellion.
Chapter 11 explores the long dissolution of the Roman Empire, arguably signaled by their own final defeat of the Gauls. Their ancient enemy finally ended, their asabiya slowly dissolved, as can be seen by the focus swinging from the health of the state to the overflowing coffers of its upper classes, while the lower classes became poorer and poorer. This is followed all the way to modern day Italy, in which the differences between the prosperous northern part is contrasted with the poverty-stricken southern part, and explained as a lack of social cohesion.
Chapter 12 signals the end of examples, and begins the exploration of cliodynamics, a view of history through the lens of mathematics, including asabiya. He turns to a colleague’s use of mathematics to quantify the efficacy of various military units during World War II.
Chapter 13 extends Chapter 12 out of the realm of military cliodynamics, and he returns to Italy and its history as a natural laboratory.
And Chapter 14 looks to the future, predicting which powers are ambitious to be empires, and pointing at Russia’s Chechen population as a signal to watch. Keep in mind this was almost certainly written pre-2006.
In general, this is an educational and, in parts, entertaining book concerning how human behaviors dictate demographics as we see throughout history. It disputes the previous theory of the Great Man defining history, and instead points to how the clashes at metaethnic frontiers can, over time, generate the social cohesion across ethnic groups necessary to build empires, and, conversely, when the enemy is vanquished, that cohesion can disappear. Interested younger readers, unfamiliar with the tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States may wish to review that history; application of Turchin’s theory to the history of the United States since 1991 may find it enlightening. Also keep in mind that a theory is only valuable in that it generates predictions which can be checked, and if those predictions turn out to be true.
If you want to have a different view on history, its past, present, and future, this book may be for you. It lacks the charts and graphs which made Secular Cycles more enlightening, but has a few more stories and is built on the basis provided by Secular Cycles. Have at it!
1 Secular is used by Turchin and his co-author Nefedov in the secondary sense of “greater than 100 years.”
