Seven Stages of Rise and Fall of the Civilization

The first stage of rise and fall of civilization as argued by Quigley (1979) in his book “Historical
Change in civilization”, is mixture. Mixture occurs in different ways, first is when people trade
goods or services, the traders bring their products to their hometown and sometimes they
replicate this product or innovate it to have a new use and then it became part of their
civilization. When people innovate, this means that they acquired new knowledge and see the
value of improving things. The result of invention or innovation will be traded again resulting to
another mixture of civilization. Due to continues trading, their capacity of life will improve
resulting to savings and investments that implies that they’re thinking of their future. Invasion is
the other event that result to mixture. When invaders successfully invade the civilization, they
apply their knowledge, religion, language, and etc. to their conquered people thus resulting to
another mixture. The second stage is gestation, this is the time where a civilization is peaceful,
and their status is stable. This is also a stage where investment and invention take place. Though
there is only a little change in their lives, this is still considered as a good condition. The third
stage is expansion. There are 4 kinds of expansion, first is increase in production of goods, this
kind of expansion means that the standard of living of the civilization is rising. Second is
increase in population, this means that the death rate is less than the birth rate, resulting to
increase in manpower and stable standard of living. Third is increase in territory, cause by
expansion or invasion that shows their wealth and power and now gives them more gold, glory,
and growth, The fourth is increase in knowledge, this means that their view in improving things,
inventing things, saving, and investment is broad. The fourth stage is the age of conflict, where
decline in expansion, growing irrationality, frequent wars, and growth of tension between the
citizens itself that causes internal conflict occurs. The fifth stage is the universal empire, this
stage occurs after invasion or war for expansion. The civilization is again united in a single
empire and growth is visible within the citizens thus resulting to its golden age. The sixth stage is
the decay. The standard of living is visible across the civilization due to economic depression,
The civilization is divided due to internal conflicts, the reluctancy of its people to support and
fight for their society due to the conflicts and hardships, and the illiteracy due to wars within
their own people. The last is the stage of invasion. Due to divided society, they are now more
vulnerable to number of invasion and eventually will destroy their civilization and a new one
will emerge resulting to the period of mixture.