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    War and Peace and War: The Rise and Fall of Empires
    Unavailable
    War and Peace and War: The Rise and Fall of Empires
    Unavailable
    War and Peace and War: The Rise and Fall of Empires
    Ebook578 pages8 hours

    War and Peace and War: The Rise and Fall of Empires

    By Peter Turchin

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    From the author of End Times

    In War and Peace and War, Peter Turchin uses his expertise in evolutionary biology to offer a bold new theory about the course of world history. 

    Turchin argues that the key to the formation of an empire is a society’s capacity for collective action. He demonstrates that high levels of cooperation are found where people have to band together to fight off a common enemy, and that this kind of cooperation led to the formation of the Roman and Russian empires, and the United States. But as empires grow, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, conflict replaces cooperation, and dissolution inevitably follows. Eloquently argued and rich with historical examples, War and Peace and War offers a bold new theory about the course of world history with implications for nations today.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Group
    Release dateFeb 27, 2007
    ISBN9781101126912
    Unavailable
    War and Peace and War: The Rise and Fall of Empires
    Author

    Peter Turchin

    Professor Peter Turchin is the founder of a new transdisciplinary field of Cliodynamics. He has authored seven books and has published 200 articles, including a dozen in such top journals as Nature, Science, and PNAS.

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    Reviews for War and Peace and War

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    • 5/5
      In a nut shell Turchin asserts that fault line frontiers (areas of conflict and challenge) are necessary for the development of empires, and he does a good job of providing many convincing examples. This development is based on the concept of asabiya and provides a truly inspiring line of argument. I found this book well written and thought provoking. I found the notion of multi-ethnic frontiers being a stimulus to development and societal cohesion quite convincing. I also found his analysis of the cyclical nature of prosperity and collapse being inversely related to wealth distribution fascinating. I have read criticisms that the exclusion of the British empire as a major focus in his analysis somehow negates the thesis, evidently because Great Britain managed to be a large and powerful empire without hard boarders. I tend to believe that Britain (as well as Japan) meet his criteria simply by being cohesive island nations interacting with the outside world.. Both the East India company's exploits and commodore Perry's forceful "opening up" of Japan speak to the conflicts envisioned as necessary for imperial development.. A compelling and thought provoking read.
    • 5/5
      Turchin is presenting the idea that a form of social cohesion (which he calls asabiya, after Arabic sources which discuss it) is the key factor in the rise and fall of empires, and discusses how asabiya is developed and lost in various cultures. Book starts with a fascinating look at the expansion of the Russian Empire into the Turkish lands of Central Asia, covers the American expansion into the West, the rise and fall of Rome, and many other pieces of history.
    • 4/5
      War and Peace and War –The Life Cycle of Imperial Nations by Peter TurchinThis wonderful book receives four out of five stars.It is wonderful in its breadth and depth of material covered, and clearly delivers on its promise of examining the causes behind the life cycles of imperial nations.While doing so, it also takes the reader over vast swaths of history and in doing so reinvigorates the reader with renewed interest in times past for histories of different countries..This is definitely a book worth reading for understanding the life and death cycles of empires and as well so as to gain an idea of the viewpoint of contemporary historians in the Cliometric / Cliodynamic schools of historiography.The reason this book did not receive the fifth star is due to poor editing. The reader should not expect to read the book with the easy flow of prose of a David McCullough, Robert Caro, or Ron Chernow.For starters, there are no numbered footnotes in the body of the book, or even a suggestion of tnotes until the end of the book. Once in the footnote section the notes are listed by chapter with a brief introductory quote and that is all. For a book so focused on history as this to be so loose in basic style or format requirements really is an imposition on the reader.Secondly, there are numerous chapters that have very large amounts of detailed that are simply not that necessary to the actual thesis at hand. It would appear almost as if the portions are there for padding rather than enlightenment of the reader.Thirdly, there is the writing itself, which can be more convoluted than necessary. This might be due to the scholarly inclinations of the author or due to his being Russian, but one does feel that the English language is still a struggle for the author.Having said that, I believe that this book is absolutely fascinating and well worth the effort reading in order to extract what it has to say. Yes, it will take effort; most worthwhile things do take effort and the effort will be richly rewarded. It is definitely an excellent book not only for the material it presents but also for the other historians, etc. that it references and the listing it gives of other authors in this school of historiography.Please note, since my finances are limited, I originally took this book out from the library rather purchase it. However, after book marking over 75% of the 356 pages of the, I realized I would have to go out and buy the book, which I have.Members of the group: History: On learning from and writing history will find this book especially relevant.
    • 1/5
      Great Britain was arguably the largest empire ever created, but Turchin doesn't discuss it at all (1 sentence). Why? It doesn't conform to his thesis of empire formation along metaethnic boundaries.