Editing Civilization (section)

== Fall of civilizations ==
{{Main|Societal collapse}}

Civilizations are traditionally understood as ending in one of two ways; either through incorporation into another expanding civilization (e.g. as Ancient Egypt was incorporated into Hellenistic Greek, and subsequently Roman civilizations), or by collapsing and reverting to a simpler form of living, as happens in so-called Dark Ages.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Toynbee |first1=Arnold |title=A Study Of History |date=1946 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=London |url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.241704/page/n3/mode/2up |author-link=Arnold J. Toynbee}}</ref>

There have been many explanations put forward for the collapse of civilization. Some focus on historical examples, and others on general theory.

* [[Ibn Khaldun]]'s ''[[Muqaddimah]]'' influenced theories of the analysis, growth, and decline of the Islamic civilization.<ref>Massimo Campanini (2005), [https://books.google.com/books?id=5DoasQxzvNQC&pg=PA75 ''Studies on Ibn Khaldûn''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190828221632/https://books.google.com/books?id=5DoasQxzvNQC&pg=PA75 |date=28 August 2019 }}, Polimetrica s.a.s., p. 75</ref> He suggested repeated invasions from nomadic peoples limited development and led to social collapse.[[File:Invasions of the Roman Empire 1.png|thumb|upright=1.4|[[Migration Period|Barbarian invasions]] played an important role in the fall of the [[Roman Empire]].]]
* [[Edward Gibbon]]'s work ''[[The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire]]'' is a well-known and detailed analysis of the fall of Roman civilization. Gibbon suggested the final act of the collapse of Rome was the fall of [[Constantinople]] to the [[Ottoman Turks]] in 1453 CE. For Gibbon, "The decline of Rome was the natural and inevitable effect of immoderate greatness. Prosperity ripened the principle of decay; the cause of the destruction multiplied with the extent of conquest; and, as soon as time or accident had removed the artificial supports, the stupendous fabric yielded to the pressure of its own weight. The story of the ruin is simple and obvious; and instead of inquiring why the Roman Empire was destroyed, we should rather be surprised that it has subsisted for so long".<ref>Gibbon, ''Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'', 2nd ed., vol. 4, ed. by J. B. Bury (London, 1909), pp.&nbsp;173–174. Chapter XXXVIII: Reign Of Clovis. Part VI. General Observations On The Fall Of The Roman Empire In The West.</ref>
* [[Theodor Mommsen]] in his ''[[History of Rome (Mommsen)|History of Rome]]'' suggested Rome collapsed with the collapse of the [[Western Roman Empire]] in 476 CE and he also tended towards a biological analogy of "genesis", "growth", "senescence", "collapse" and "decay".
* [[Oswald Spengler]], in his ''[[Decline of the West]]'' rejected [[Petrarch]]'s chronological division, and suggested that there had been only eight "mature civilizations". Growing cultures, he argued, tend to develop into imperialistic civilizations, which expand and ultimately collapse, with democratic forms of government ushering in [[plutocracy]] and ultimately [[imperialism]].
* [[Arnold J. Toynbee]] in his ''[[A Study of History]]'' suggested that there had been a much larger number of civilizations, including a small number of arrested civilizations, and that all civilizations tended to go through the cycle identified by Mommsen. The cause of the fall of a civilization occurred when a cultural [[elite]] became a [[parasitic]] elite, leading to the rise of internal and external [[proletariat]]s.
* [[Joseph Tainter]] in ''[[Societal collapse|The Collapse of Complex Societies]]'' suggested that there were [[diminishing returns]] to [[complexity]], due to which, as states achieved a maximum permissible complexity, they would decline when further increases actually produced a negative return. Tainter suggested that Rome achieved this figure in the 2nd century CE.
* [[Jared Diamond]] in his 2005 book ''[[Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed]]'' suggests five major reasons for the collapse of 41 studied cultures: environmental damage, such as [[deforestation]] and [[soil erosion]]; [[Climate variability and change|climate change]]; dependence upon [[international trade|long-distance trade]] for needed resources; increasing levels of internal and external violence, such as war or invasion; and societal responses to internal and environmental problems.
* [[Peter Turchin]] in his [https://web.archive.org/web/20060830212141/http://www.eeb.uconn.edu/faculty/turchin/HistDyn.htm ''Historical Dynamics''] and [[Andrey Korotayev]] ''et al.'' in their [https://www.academia.edu/22215616/Introduction_to_Social_Macrodynamics_Secular_Cycles_and_Millennial_Trends ''Introduction to Social Macrodynamics, Secular Cycles, and Millennial Trends''] suggest a number of mathematical models describing collapse of agrarian civilizations. For example, the basic logic of Turchin's "fiscal-demographic" model can be outlined as follows: during the initial phase of a sociodemographic [[Social cycle theory|cycle]] we observe relatively high levels of per capita production and consumption, which leads not only to relatively high [[population growth]] rates, but also to relatively high rates of surplus production. As a result, during this phase the population can afford to pay taxes without great problems, the taxes are quite easily collectible, and the population growth is accompanied by the growth of state revenues. During the intermediate phase, the increasing [[population growth]] leads to the decrease of per capita production and consumption levels, it becomes more and more difficult to collect taxes, and state revenues stop growing, whereas the state expenditures grow due to the growth of the population controlled by the state. As a result, during this phase the state starts experiencing considerable fiscal problems. During the final pre-collapse phases the overpopulation leads to further decrease of per capita production, the surplus production further decreases, state revenues shrink, but the state needs more and more resources to control the growing (though with lower and lower rates) population. Eventually this leads to famines, epidemics, state breakdown, and demographic and civilization collapse.<ref>Peter Turchin. ''Historical Dynamics''. [[Princeton University Press]], 2003:121–127</ref><ref>{{Cite book |url=https://www.academia.edu/22215616 |title=Secular Cycles and Millennial Trends. Moscow: Russian Academy of Sciences, 2006 |access-date=6 January 2020 |archive-date=18 September 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180918112553/http://www.academia.edu/22215616/Introduction_to_Social_Macrodynamics_Secular_Cycles_and_Millennial_Trends |url-status=live }}</ref>
* [[Peter Heather]] argues in his book ''[[Decline of the Roman Empire#Peter Heather|The Fall of the Roman Empire: a New History of Rome and the Barbarians]]''<ref>{{cite book|author=Peter J. Heather|title=The Fall Of The Roman Empire: A New History Of Rome And The Barbarians|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wCOJfTB7HtgC|access-date=22 June 2012|date= 2005|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-515954-7|archive-date=19 June 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130619073911/http://books.google.com/books?id=wCOJfTB7HtgC|url-status=live}}</ref> that this civilization did not end for moral or economic reasons, but because centuries of contact with barbarians across the frontier generated its own nemesis by making them a more sophisticated and dangerous adversary. The fact that Rome needed to generate ever greater revenues to equip and re-equip armies that were for the first time repeatedly defeated in the field, led to the dismemberment of the Empire. Although this argument is specific to Rome, it can also be applied to the Asiatic Empire of the Egyptians, to the [[Han dynasty|Han]] and [[Tang dynasty|Tang]] dynasties of China, to the Muslim [[Abbasid Caliphate]] and others.
* [[Bryan Ward-Perkins]], in his book ''The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization'',<ref>{{cite book|author=Bryan Ward-Perkins|title=The Fall of Rome: And the End of Civilization|url=https://archive.org/details/fallofromeendofc00ward|url-access=registration|access-date=22 June 2012|date=2006|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-280728-1}}</ref> argues from mostly archaeological evidence that the collapse of Roman civilization in western Europe had deleterious impacts on the living standards of the population, unlike some historians who downplay this. The collapse of complex society meant that even basic plumbing for the elite disappeared from the continent for 1,000 years. Similar impacts have been postulated for the [[Greek dark ages|Dark Age]] after the Late [[Bronze Age collapse]] in the Eastern Mediterranean, the collapse of the [[Maya civilization|Maya]], on [[Easter Island]] and elsewhere.
* [[Arthur Demarest]] argues in ''[[Ancient Maya: The Rise and Fall of a Rainforest Civilization]]'',<ref>{{Cite book |isbn=978-0-521-53390-4 |title=Ancient Maya: The Rise and Fall of a Rainforest Civilization |last1=Demarest |first1=Arthur |date=9 December 2004|publisher=Cambridge University Press }}</ref> using a holistic perspective to the most recent evidence from archaeology, [[paleoecology]], and epigraphy, that no one explanation is sufficient but that a series of erratic, complex events, including loss of soil fertility, drought and rising levels of internal and external violence led to the disintegration of the courts of Mayan kingdoms, which began a spiral of decline and decay. He argues that the collapse of the Maya has lessons for civilization today.
* Jeffrey A. McNeely has recently suggested that "a review of historical evidence shows that past civilizations have tended to [[over-exploit]] their forests, and that such abuse of important resources has been a significant factor in the decline of the over-exploiting society".<ref>McNeely, Jeffrey A. (1994) "Lessons of the past: Forests and Biodiversity" (Vol 3, No 1 1994. ''Biodiversity and Conservation'')</ref>
* [[Thomas Homer-Dixon]] considers the fall in the [[EROEI|energy return on investments]]. The energy expended to energy yield ratio is central to limiting the survival of civilizations. The degree of social complexity is associated strongly, he suggests, with the amount of disposable energy environmental, economic and technological systems allow. When this amount decreases civilizations either have to access new energy sources or collapse.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.theupsideofdown.com/ |title=''The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization'' |access-date=17 April 2015 |archive-date=12 October 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171012070649/http://www.theupsideofdown.com/ |url-status=live }}</ref>
* [[Feliks Koneczny]] in his work "On the Plurality of Civilizations" calls his study the science on civilizations. He asserts that civilizations fall not because they must or there exist some cyclical or a "biological" life span and that there stil exist two ancient civilizations&nbsp;– Brahmin-Hindu and Chinese&nbsp;– which are not ready to fall any time soon. Koneczny claimed that civilizations cannot be mixed into hybrids, an inferior civilization when given equal rights within a highly developed civilization will overcome it. One of Koneczny's claims in his study on civilizations is that "a person cannot be civilized in two or more ways" without falling into what he calls an "abcivilized state" (as in abnormal). He also stated that when two or more civilizations exist next to one another and as long as they are vital, they will be in an existential combat imposing its own "method of organizing social life" upon the other.<ref>Koneczny, Feliks (1962) ''On the Plurality of Civilizations'', Posthumous English translation by Polonica Publications, London {{ASIN|B0000CLABJ}}. Originally published in Polish, ''O Wielości Cywilizacyj'', Gebethner & Wolff, Kraków 1935.</ref> Absorbing alien "method of organizing social life" that is civilization and giving it equal rights yields a process of decay and decomposition.