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

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. ( )

War and Peace and War –The Life Cycle of Imperial Nations by Peter Turchin

This 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. ( )

In his recent book, War and Peace and War: The Rise and Fall of Empires, Turchin talks about the factors that influence the fate of empires, rather than specific actions by individuals. These factors include collective solidarity, population numbers, economic inequality, and so on.

From the book, p.316:

"The science of historical dynamics - cliodynamics - offers insights not about certain individual people, but about all individuals in a group - call them societies, states, or empires. The basic premise of the discipline is that history is shaped by great impersonal forces - not by actions of single individuals, but by actions of whole collectives of them. This does not mean that I personally think that individuals do not matter; in fact, we sometimes can measure the effect of a remarkable individual (such as Napoleon) using standard scientific methods. The theory ignores the action of individual wills (or treats them as stochastic factors), but it also ignores may other influences that affect the course of history - this is what good scientific theories are supposed to do, after all. A good theory is not necessarily the absolutely correct theory. In fact, in science we do not have absolutely correct theories.... In my opinion, cliodynamics is a productive framework."

From the introduction, p.6-7

"My main argument, therefore, is that people originating on fault-line frontiers become characterized by cooperation and a high capacity for collective action, which in turn enables them to build large and powerful territorial states.... The critical assumption in my argument is that cooperation provides the basis for imperial power."

In the book he discusses measurable factors that lead to high asabiya (an arab term he uses to describe collective action) and the formation of empires, as well as measurable factors that lead to decline. He provides many examples of several different cycles in history and how these cycles can be shown interact together.

I found his book fascinating, though as I've shown, he is the first to admit that it is not an all-encompassing theory of history. What it certainly is, is food for thought, and it succeeds remarkably well as that. ( )

The introduction is available at the author's website here:
http://www.eeb.uconn.edu/people/turchin/PDF/Intro.pdf

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. ( )