The Evolution of Civilizations: An Introduction to Historical AnalysisCarroll Quigley was a legendary teacher at the Georgetown School of Foreign Service. His course on the history of civilization was extraordinary in its scope and in its impact on students. Like the course, The Evolution of Civilizations is a comprehensive and perceptive look at the factors behind the rise and fall of civilizations. Quigley examines the application of scientific method to the social sciences, then establishes his historical hypotheses. He poses a division of culture into six levels from the abstract to the more concrete. He then tests those hypotheses by a detailed analysis of five major civilizations: the Mesopotamian, the Canaanite, the Minoan, the classical, and the Western. Quigley defines a civilization as "a producing society with an instrument of expansion." A civilization's decline is not inevitable but occurs when its instrument of expansion is transformed into an institution--that is, when social arrangements that meet real social needs are transformed into social institutions serving their own purposes regardless of real social needs. |
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... Mediterranean , while the peoples north of the mountains ( who were bio- logically closer relatives but culturally remote ) were called " barbarians " for most of the Classical period . Less obvious than the Mediterranean were other geo ...
... MEDITERRANEAN CRETE Peoples of the sea SEA Phrygians listines crossed the Mediterranean and became the unsuccessful Iron Age invaders of Egypt . In two amphibious assaults on the Nile Delta , one about 1221 and the second about 1194 ...
... Mediterranean Sea for almost a millennium and a half ( 950 B.C.-A.D. 550 ) , follows the pattern of seven stages ... Mediterranean basin ) came from the extreme eastern end of the sea . A glance at any map of the Mediterranean shows that ...
Contents
Diagrams Tables and Maps | 11 |
Foreword by Harry J Hogan | 13 |
Preface to the First Edition | 23 |
Copyright | |
13 other sections not shown