From the co-founder of cliodynamics, a new interdisciplinary science of history, offering a big-picture explanation for America's civil strife and its possible endgames.
End Times [is] driven by a deep sense that American democracy is at serious risk. [It] may well be right about this, but [it] then [attaches] these concerns to elaborate meta-historical frameworks that purport to predict optimistic future outcomes rising from the current ashes of polarization and conflict ... The problem is that even the most sophisticated meta-history is not very useful in making short-term predictions.
A compelling analysis of why societies fail ... Social media might be too divisive for any unifying figure to emerge. Various madmen feed their online fan bases, but I wonder how many are capable of leading a wider movement. I am clinging rather desperately to these thoughts because Turchin’s book hardly leaves the reader in a cheerful mood. It’s a tribute to its terrible persuasiveness.
