ISBN:
978-0-241-55348-0
,
978-0-241-63779-1
Language:
English
Pages:
xv, 352 Seiten ;
,
25 cm.
Parallel Title:
Äquivalent
Parallel Title:
Erscheint auch als
Parallel Title:
Erscheint auch als
Keywords:
United States / Politics and government
;
United States / History
;
United States
;
Political stability / United States
;
Elite (Social sciences) / Political activity / United States
;
Interdisciplinary approach in education
;
Elite (Social sciences) / Political activity
;
Political stability
;
Politics and government
;
History
Abstract:
"From the pioneering co-founder of cliodynamics, the ground-breaking new interdisciplinary science of history, a brilliant big-picture explanation for America's civil strife and its possible endgames. Peter Turchin, one of the most interesting social scientists of our age by any measure, has infused the study of history with approaches and insights from other fields for over a quarter century. End Times is the culmination of his work to understand what causes political communities to cohere and what causes them to fall apart, as applied to the current turmoil within the United States. Back in 2010, Nature magazine asked Turchin, along with other leading scientists, to provide a ten-year forecast. Based on his models, Turchin predicted that America was in a spiral of social disintegration that would lead to a breakdown in the political order ca 2020. As the years passed, and his prediction proved accurate in more and more respects, attention around his work grew. End Times distills his framework, its empirical justification, and its highly relevant findings, into an accessible, thought-provoking book that puts the American story into broad historical context. The lessons of world history are clear, Turchin argues: when the equilibrium between ruling elites and the majority tips too far in favor of elites, political instability is all but inevitable. Before the industrial era, the imbalance between labor and capital, signaled by rising economic inequality, was usually caused by excessive population growth. For the past 250 or so years, it has been laissez-faire government, technological innovation, globalization, and immigration that have tended to disrupt the balance. Whatever the cause, when income inequality surges, the common people suffer, and prosperity flows disproportionately into the hands of the elites. [...]."
Description / Table of Contents:
Part I. The cliodynamics of power. Elites, elite overproduction, and the road to crisis -- Stepping back : lessons of history -- Part II. The drivers of instability. "The peasants are revolting" -- The revolutionary troops -- The ruling class -- Why is is America a plutocracy? -- Part III. Crisis and aftermath. State breakdown -- Histories of the near future -- The wealth pump and the future of democracy -- Appendix. A new science of history -- A historical macroscope -- The structural dynamic approach
