In All Societies Die, Samuel Cohn asks us to prepare for the inevitable. Our society is going to die. What are you going to do about it? But he also wants us to know that there’s still reason for hope.
In an immersive and mesmerizing discussion Cohn considers what makes societies (throughout history) collapse. All Societies Die points us to the historical examples of the Byzantine empire, the collapse of Somalia, the rise of Middle Eastern terrorism, the rise of drug cartels in Latin America and the French Revolution to explain how societal decline has common features and themes. Cohn takes us on an easily digestible journey through history. While he unveils the past, his message to us about the present is searing.
Through his assessment of past—and current—societies, Cohn offers us a new way of looking at societal growth and decline. With a broad panorama of bloody stories, unexpected historical riches, crime waves, corruption, and disasters, he shows us that although our society will, inevitably, die at some point, there’s still a lot we can do to make it better and live a little longer.
His quirky and inventive approach to an ‘end-of-the-world’ scenario should be a warning. We’re not there yet. Cohn concludes with a strategy of preserving and rebuilding so that we don’t have to give a eulogy anytime soon.
Зміст
THE REALITY OF SOCIETAL DEATH
1. All Societies Die
2. Is a Fall Really a Fall?
3. The Fall of the Byzantine Empire: The Greatest Story You’ve Never Heard
4. The End Comes to Byzantium
5. The Environmental Causes of Violence in the Middle East
6. The French Revolution: Fighting about Taxes at the Worst Possible Time
7. How States Actually Die: The Real-Life Death of Somalia
8. Somalia after the Fall
9. What Links These Stories?
TEMPTING FALSE STEPS
10. Rethinking Ecological Catastrophe
11. Rethinking Moral Crisis
THINKING BIG ABOUT THINKING BIG
12. Networks of Cooperation
13. Why Bigger Is Better
14. Legitimation: So Hard to Earn, So Precious to Have
15. Psychological Foundations of Societal Survival
WHAT WOULD BE LOST
16. Progress That Is Real: The Reduction of Poverty
17. Progress That Is Real: The Improvement in Health
18. Progress That Is Real: The Reduction of Violent Crime
THE SEEDS OF TROUBLE
19. The Motivation to Not Cooperate: The Origins of Civilization in Raiding
20. Primitive Accumulation Today: Raiding Is Not Dead
21. he Motivation to Not Cooperate: How Europe Historically Underdeveloped Much of the World
22. What Can Go Wrong When Western Companies Invest in Poor Nations
23. Cycles of Catastrophic Debt
THE HIDDEN SOURCE OF STRENGTH
24. East Asian Secrets of Economic Growth
25. Big Government and Prosperity in the United States
26. The Miracle of Airports
27. The Origins of National Technological Advantage
28. The Economic Returns to Funding Scientific Research
29. The Tax Revolt: How the Conservative Middle Class Became the Revolutionary Class of Capitalism
30. Why Tax Cuts Do Not Create Jobs
CRIME, CORRUPTION AND VIOLENCE
31. The Explosion of Crime in the Global South
32. The Parallel Power: The Criminal Second State
33. A Guide to Corruption for Naive Idealists
34. Technical Demoralization
35. What It Takes to Clean Up Corruption
36. Ethnic Violence: The Economic Basis of Hatred
37. Working at Creating a Culture of Hatred
38. Landlessness and Political Violence
39. Landlessness and Political Violence: The Evidence
40. The Global Land Grab
41. Population Growth and Landlessness
TRIGGERS OF DESTRUCTION
42. Triggers of Destruction
43. Long-Term Booms and Busts in Capitalism
44. Technological and International Causes of Stagnation
45. Will There Be a Sixth Mensch Cycle?
46. Ever-Expanding Frontiers of Ecological Destruction
47. Why Women’s Power Matters
48. Patriarchy Redux?
THE CIRCLE OF SOCIETAL DEATH
49. The Circle of Societal Death
50. Triggering the Circle of Societal Death
CHANGING THE CULTURE, CHANGING THE WORLD
51. Creating a Culture of Societal Survival
52. Changing the Culture of One-Third of the World: How Christianity Spread from Palestine
53. Creating a Culture of Caretaking: Women in Ancient Rome and 2000’s Uganda
54. Creating Lasting Meaningful Social Reform: The Abolition of Slavery I
55. Creating Lasting Meaningful Social Reform: The Abolition of Slavery II
56. Doing the Right Thing under Impossible Conditions: Saving the Jews under Nazism
57. What You Can Do to Save the World
Про автора
Samuel Cohn is Professor of Sociology at Texas A & M University. He is the Founder and First President of the American Sociological Association Section on Development He is author of The Process of Occupational Sex-typing and Employment and Development under Globalization. Follow him on X @Samuel__Cohn.
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