War and Peace and War, by Peter Turchin
Subtitle: The Rise and Fall of Empires
So, as you may have heard me say before, the books I read can mostly be divided into two types: Big Idea books, and Many Small Ideas books. This one is a Big Idea book. One might say, ridiculously big.
The author, born in Russia, moved to the U.S. at age 20 (his father, a dissident, was exiled), and eventually got his Ph.D. in zoology. He studied population dynamics for a time, the kind of ecology-based biology that looks at a species' role vis-a-vis its prey and predators and competitors in its niche. This involved finding mathematical models and descriptions of the cycles of boom and bust which happen in populations in the natural world. Far from the "delicate balance" of popular belief, the natural worlds' populations have cycles, not quite regular usually but far from random, and in the last few decades a robust field of scientific inquiry has grown up around efforts to better understand how this works.
Then, Turchin took an abrupt turn, and moved into the study of history. Well, almost; he actually moved into a field of mathematical sociobiology that he helped name as well as create: "cliodynamics". Clio, the muse of history, combined with dynamics, the study of changing systems. Turchin's objective is nothing less than an updated real-life Hari Seldon, of Isaac Asimov's Foundation series. But, given what we know now of nonlinear systems, the objective is to find the "strange attractors" of historical dynamics. Given that absolute prediction of precise events far into the future is made impossible by the nonlinearity ("chaos") of the actions of humans in large groups, what CAN we say, and test empirically?
This book is Turchin's first public swipe at the task, and he has gone further with it in his blog and new science journal, Cliodynamics, since the book was published. This book is a beginning, albeit an audacious one, and it begins with a theory on where empires come from, and why they decline and fall.
Essentially, Turchin holds that empires rise due to "asabiya", the ability to take action cooperatively, in a coordinated fashion. As an example, he cites records from the early days of the Mongols in which armies of 100,000 could execute complex military manuevers just based on flag signals, without the many horns, drums, pipes, and bellowing sergeants necessary to get western Europeans to do the same at that time. Facing invasion, some cities (Italians in the face of Hannibal, for example) were able to act together to repel the invaders, while others (Italians in the face of late Roman Empire Germanic invasions, for example) were not. Why and how could the same genetic stock, the same culture (broadly speaking) sometimes have "asabiya", and sometimes not? The same issue of acting collectively, in a less dramatic sense, can be seen in whether or not to work together to make canals, long-distance roads, or other public infrastructure.
Turchin identifies (and provides copious historical examples and counter examples for) several factors:
1) threats from "the other". For slavic Russians, this was Turkic and central Asian nomadic peoples; for colonial Americans, this was Native Americans; for early Romans, this was the "barbarians" of Gaul, who were far more alien to them than the Etruscans or other Italian or Greek "civilized" peoples. Turchin shows evidence that empires tend to begin on the edges between peoples (nomads and farmers, for example) who have enough differences in culture and way of life that the differences between separate villages or tribes on one side of the divide seem small by comparison.
2) modest levels of inequality. Whereas his stress on the importance of defining one's identity in opposition to another culture may alienate the conventional Left, here Turchin alienates the conventional Right, by showing copious examples (ancient Rome vs. Imperial Rome, different centuries of medieval France) wherein an accumulation of wealth at the top is corrosive to the society's asabiya. The 99%, in any society, will know that the 1% is better off than they are. How great the disparity, however, will impact how much they are willing to support that society. In a clash between two armies, one of which fights for the good of the society, and the other of which fights if it cannot safely evade fighting, the former will win.
3) the ratio of elite to non-elite. In any society, some portion of the population is part of the most favored class (this includes Communist and modern American societies no less than any other). The growth rate of the elite, however, is not necessarily well correlated to the growth rate of the overall society. If the food supply in an agricultural society is running out, the elite will not starve, but the general populace may well (or at least may have fewer children). This can make an already strained society even more top-heavy, and eventually this will result in internal division (in many historical cases, resulting in intra-elite civil war such as the English War of the Roses).
4) "war begets peace begets war". People who lived through war as children, are less enamored of it as a solution to their problems as adults, especially if it was a civil war rather than a war fought on another nation's territory. This leads to a frequent alternation of war and peace generations through many periods and cultures; Turchin uses the term "fathers-and-sons cycles" for these.
Whenever we look at attempts to find patterns in the chaos of history, it is equally easy to be either more easily impressed by the new theory than is warranted, or to be more skeptical. There have been many attempts before. In some sense, there is a "fathers and sons" pattern here, as well, where about every half-century scientists look again at whether they can bring order to the riot of human history, only to throw up their hands in despair after a decade or two and abjure the attempt for another generation. Perhaps this will be the latest failed attempt.
There is no question, however, that we have more data available to historians (not only the written chronicles of old but also archaeological, climatalogical, etc.). We also have vastly more computing power to see if we can find patterns amidst the data. Perhaps, like predicting the weather past a one or two week window, we will not yet be able to find the way to wrap our minds around our own social selves. But then, even meteorologists have made progress in recent decades, and if we are changeable as the weather, perhaps we are also not wholly beyond the reach of human understanding. It is good to know that minds as innovative, and simultaneously disciplined, as Turchin are squaring their shoulders and charging once more unto the breach.
So, as you may have heard me say before, the books I read can mostly be divided into two types: Big Idea books, and Many Small Ideas books. This one is a Big Idea book. One might say, ridiculously big.
The author, born in Russia, moved to the U.S. at age 20 (his father, a dissident, was exiled), and eventually got his Ph.D. in zoology. He studied population dynamics for a time, the kind of ecology-based biology that looks at a species' role vis-a-vis its prey and predators and competitors in its niche. This involved finding mathematical models and descriptions of the cycles of boom and bust which happen in populations in the natural world. Far from the "delicate balance" of popular belief, the natural worlds' populations have cycles, not quite regular usually but far from random, and in the last few decades a robust field of scientific inquiry has grown up around efforts to better understand how this works.
Then, Turchin took an abrupt turn, and moved into the study of history. Well, almost; he actually moved into a field of mathematical sociobiology that he helped name as well as create: "cliodynamics". Clio, the muse of history, combined with dynamics, the study of changing systems. Turchin's objective is nothing less than an updated real-life Hari Seldon, of Isaac Asimov's Foundation series. But, given what we know now of nonlinear systems, the objective is to find the "strange attractors" of historical dynamics. Given that absolute prediction of precise events far into the future is made impossible by the nonlinearity ("chaos") of the actions of humans in large groups, what CAN we say, and test empirically?
This book is Turchin's first public swipe at the task, and he has gone further with it in his blog and new science journal, Cliodynamics, since the book was published. This book is a beginning, albeit an audacious one, and it begins with a theory on where empires come from, and why they decline and fall.
Essentially, Turchin holds that empires rise due to "asabiya", the ability to take action cooperatively, in a coordinated fashion. As an example, he cites records from the early days of the Mongols in which armies of 100,000 could execute complex military manuevers just based on flag signals, without the many horns, drums, pipes, and bellowing sergeants necessary to get western Europeans to do the same at that time. Facing invasion, some cities (Italians in the face of Hannibal, for example) were able to act together to repel the invaders, while others (Italians in the face of late Roman Empire Germanic invasions, for example) were not. Why and how could the same genetic stock, the same culture (broadly speaking) sometimes have "asabiya", and sometimes not? The same issue of acting collectively, in a less dramatic sense, can be seen in whether or not to work together to make canals, long-distance roads, or other public infrastructure.
Turchin identifies (and provides copious historical examples and counter examples for) several factors:
1) threats from "the other". For slavic Russians, this was Turkic and central Asian nomadic peoples; for colonial Americans, this was Native Americans; for early Romans, this was the "barbarians" of Gaul, who were far more alien to them than the Etruscans or other Italian or Greek "civilized" peoples. Turchin shows evidence that empires tend to begin on the edges between peoples (nomads and farmers, for example) who have enough differences in culture and way of life that the differences between separate villages or tribes on one side of the divide seem small by comparison.
2) modest levels of inequality. Whereas his stress on the importance of defining one's identity in opposition to another culture may alienate the conventional Left, here Turchin alienates the conventional Right, by showing copious examples (ancient Rome vs. Imperial Rome, different centuries of medieval France) wherein an accumulation of wealth at the top is corrosive to the society's asabiya. The 99%, in any society, will know that the 1% is better off than they are. How great the disparity, however, will impact how much they are willing to support that society. In a clash between two armies, one of which fights for the good of the society, and the other of which fights if it cannot safely evade fighting, the former will win.
3) the ratio of elite to non-elite. In any society, some portion of the population is part of the most favored class (this includes Communist and modern American societies no less than any other). The growth rate of the elite, however, is not necessarily well correlated to the growth rate of the overall society. If the food supply in an agricultural society is running out, the elite will not starve, but the general populace may well (or at least may have fewer children). This can make an already strained society even more top-heavy, and eventually this will result in internal division (in many historical cases, resulting in intra-elite civil war such as the English War of the Roses).
4) "war begets peace begets war". People who lived through war as children, are less enamored of it as a solution to their problems as adults, especially if it was a civil war rather than a war fought on another nation's territory. This leads to a frequent alternation of war and peace generations through many periods and cultures; Turchin uses the term "fathers-and-sons cycles" for these.
Whenever we look at attempts to find patterns in the chaos of history, it is equally easy to be either more easily impressed by the new theory than is warranted, or to be more skeptical. There have been many attempts before. In some sense, there is a "fathers and sons" pattern here, as well, where about every half-century scientists look again at whether they can bring order to the riot of human history, only to throw up their hands in despair after a decade or two and abjure the attempt for another generation. Perhaps this will be the latest failed attempt.
There is no question, however, that we have more data available to historians (not only the written chronicles of old but also archaeological, climatalogical, etc.). We also have vastly more computing power to see if we can find patterns amidst the data. Perhaps, like predicting the weather past a one or two week window, we will not yet be able to find the way to wrap our minds around our own social selves. But then, even meteorologists have made progress in recent decades, and if we are changeable as the weather, perhaps we are also not wholly beyond the reach of human understanding. It is good to know that minds as innovative, and simultaneously disciplined, as Turchin are squaring their shoulders and charging once more unto the breach.