All Societies Die : : How to Keep Hope Alive / / Samuel Cohn.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Cornell University Press Complete eBook-Package 2021
• VerfasserIn: Cohn, Samuel,
• Place / Publishing House: Ithaca, NY : : Cornell University Press, , [2021]; ©2021
• Year of Publication: 2021
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (272 p.) :; 15 b&w line drawings, 2 maps

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.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- 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? -- 10. Rethinking Ecological Catastrophe -- 11. Rethinking Moral Crisis -- 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 -- 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 -- 19. The Motivation to Not Cooperate: The Origins of Civilization in Raiding -- 20. Primitive Accumulation Today: Raiding Is Not Dead -- 21. The 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 -- 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 -- 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 -- 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? -- 49. The Circle of Societal Death -- 50. Triggering the Circle of Societal Death -- 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 -- Appendix: Unit of Analysis Issues in Comparative Social Science -- Scholarly References