{"id":25765,"date":"2025-10-30T13:19:52","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T17:19:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/awarningministry.com\/?p=25765"},"modified":"2025-10-30T14:09:54","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T18:09:54","slug":"25765","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/awarningministry.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/30\/25765\/","title":{"rendered":"WHY…? We do not learn from history…? because our studies are brief and prejudiced?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

CLICK HERE TO SEARCH for HISTORY<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

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James L. Melton<\/strong><\/a> – \"\"Favorites \u00b76h<\/strong><\/a> \u00b7 (12) Facebook<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

THE FATE OF EMPIRES and SEARCH FOR SURVIVAL Sir John Glubb<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(The following is the closing summary of Glubb’s fine work.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As numerous points of interest have arisen in the course of this essay, I close with a brief summary, to refresh the reader\u2019s mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(a) We do not learn from history because our studies are brief and prejudiced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(b) In a surprising manner, 250 years emerges as the average length of national greatness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(c) This average has not varied for 3,000 years. Does it represent ten generations?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(d) The stages of the rise and fall of great nations seem to be: The Age of Pioneers (outburst), The Age of Conquests, The Age of Commerce, The Age of Affluence, The Age of Intellect, The Age of Decadence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(e) Decadence is marked by: Defensiveness, Pessimism, Materialism, Frivolity, An influx of foreigners, The Welfare State, A weakening of religion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(f) Decadence is due to: Too long a period of wealth and power, Selfishness, Love of money, The loss of a sense of duty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(g) The life histories of great states are amazingly similar, and are due to internal factors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(h) Their falls are diverse, because they are largely the result of external causes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(i) History should be taught as the history of the human race, though of course with emphasis on the history of the student\u2019s own country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The entire essay may be read at http:\/\/people.uncw.edu\/kozloffm\/glubb.pdf<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

THE FATE OF EMPIRES
and
SEARCH FOR SURVIVAL
Sir John Glubb
John Bagot Glubb was born in 1897, his father being a regular officer in the Royal Engineers.
At the age of four he left England for Mauritius, where his father was posted for a three-year
tour of duty. At the age of ten he was sent to school for a year in Switzerland. These youthful
travels may have opened his mind to the outside world at an early age.
He entered the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich in September 1914, and was
commissioned in the Royal Engineers in April 1915. He served throughout the first World War
in France and Belgium, being wounded three times and awarded the Military Cross. In 1920 he
volunteered for service in Iraq, as a regular officer, but in 1926 resigned his commission and
accepted an administrative post under the Iraq Government.
In 1930, however, he signed a contract to serve the Transjordan Government (now Jordan).
From 1939 to 1956 he commanded the famous Jordan Arab Legion, which was in reality the
Jordan Army. Since his retirement he has published seventeen books, chiefly on the Middle
East, and has lectured widely in Britain, the United States and Europe.
William Blackwood & Sons Ltd
32 Thistle Street
Edinburgh EH1 1HA
Scotland
\u00a9 J. B. G. Ltd, 1976, 1977
ISBN 0 85158 127 7
Printed at the Press of the Publisher
Introduction
As we pass through life, we learn by
experience. We look back on our behaviour
when we were young and think how foolish
we were. In the same way our family, our
community and our town endeavour to avoid
the mistakes made by our predecessors.
The experiences of the human race have
been recorded, in more or less detail, for
some four thousand years. If we attempt to
study such a period of time in as many
countries as possible, we seem to discover
the same patterns constantly repeated under
widely differing conditions of climate,
culture and religion. Surely, we ask
ourselves, if we studied calmly and
impartially the history of human institutions
and development over these four thousand
years, should we not reach conclusions
which would assist to solve our problems
limited to this small island. We endlessly
mull over the Tudors and the Stewarts, the
Battle of Crecy, and Guy Fawkes. Perhaps
this narrowness is due to our examination
system, which necessitates the careful
definition of a syllabus which all children
must observe.
I remember once visiting a school for
mentally
handicapped
children.
\u201cOur
children do not have to take examinations,”
the headmaster told me,\u201d and so we are able
to teach them things which will be really
useful to them in life.”
today? For everything that is occurring
around us has happened again and again
before.
No such conception ever appears to have
entered into the minds of our historians. In
general, historical teaching in schools is
However this may be, the thesis which I
wish to propound is that priceless lessons
could be learned if the history of the past
four thousand years could be thoroughly and
impartially studied. In these two articles,
which first appeared in Blackwood\u2019s
Magazine, I have attempted briefly to sketch
some of the kinds of lessons which I believe
we could learn. My plea is that history
should be the history of the human race, not
of one small country or period.
The Fate of Empires
I
Learning from history
\u2018The only thing we learn from history,\u2019 it
has been said, \u2018is that men never learn from
history\u2019, a sweeping generalisation perhaps,
but one which the chaos in the world today
goes far to confirm. What then can be the
reason why, in a society which claims to
probe every problem, the bases of history are
still so completely unknown?
Several reasons for the futility of our
historical studies may be suggested.
First, our historical work is limited to short
periods\u2014the history of our own country, or
that of some past age which, for some
reason, we hold in respect.
Second, even within these short periods,
the slant we give to our narrative is governed
by our own vanity rather than by objectivity.
If we are considering the history of our own
country, we write at length of the periods
when our ancestors were prosperous and
victorious, but we pass quickly over their
shortcomings or their defeats. Our people
are represented as patriotic heroes, their
enemies as grasping imperialists, or
subversive rebels. In other words, our
national histories are propaganda, not well
balanced investigations.
Third, in the sphere of world history, we
study certain short, usually unconnected,
periods, which fashion at certain epochs has
made popular. Greece 500 years before
Christ, and the Roman Republic and early
Roman Empire are cases in point. The
intervals between the \u2018great periods\u2019 are
neglected. Recently Greece and Rome have
become largely discredited, and history tends
to become increasingly the parochial history
of our own countries.
To derive any useful instruction from
history, it seems to me essential first of all to
grasp the principle that history, to be
meaningful, must be the history of the
human race. For history is a continuous
process, gradually developing, changing and
turning back, but in general moving forward
in a single mighty stream. Any useful lessons
to be derived must be learned by the study of
the whole flow of human development, not
by the selection of short periods here and
there in one country or another.
Every age and culture is derived from its
predecessors, adds some contribution of its
own, and passes it on to its successors. If we
boycott various periods of history, the
origins of the new cultures which succeeded
them cannot be explained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Sir John Glubb, better known as Glubb
Pasha, was born in 1897, and served in
France in the First World War from 1915 to<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  1. In 1926 he left the regular army to
    serve the Iraq Government. From 1939 to
    1956, he commanded the famous Jordan
    Arab Legion. Since retirement, he has
    published sixteen books, chiefly on the
    Middle East, and has lectured widely.
    2
    The Fate of Empires
    Physical science has expanded its knowledge
    by building on the work of its predecessors,
    and by making millions of careful experi
    ments, the results of which are meticulously
    recorded. Such methods have not yet been
    employed in the study of world history. Our
    piecemeal historical work is still mainly
    dominated by emotion and prejudice.
    II The lives of empires
    If we desire to ascertain the laws which
    govern the rise and fall of empires, the
    obvious course is to investigate the imperial
    experiments recorded in history, and to
    The nation
    endeavour to deduce from them any lessons
    which seem to be applicable to them all.
    The word \u2018empire\u2019, by association with the
    British Empire, is visualised by some people
    as an organisation consisting of a home
    country in Europe and \u2018colonies\u2019 in other
    continents. In this essay, the term \u2018empire\u2019 is
    used to signify a great power, often called
    today a superpower. Most of the empires in
    history have been large landblocks, almost
    without overseas possessions.
    We possess a considerable amount of
    information on many empires recorded in
    history, and of their vicissitudes and the
    lengths of their lives, for example:
    Dates of rise and fall
    Assyria
    Persia
    (Cyrus and his descendants)
    Greece
    (Alexander and his successors)
    Roman Republic
    Roman Empire
    Arab Empire
    Mameluke Empire
    Ottoman Empire
    Spain
    Romanov Russia
    Britain
    859-612 B.C.
    538-330 B.C.
    331-100 B.C.
    260-27 B.C.
    27 B.C.-A.D. 180
    A.D. 634-880
    1250-1517
    1320-1570
    1500-1750
    1682-1916
    Duration in years
    247
    208
    231
    233
    207
    246
    267
    250
    250
    234
    1700-1950
    This list calls for certain comments.
    (1) The present writer is exploring the facts,
    not trying to prove anything. The dates given
    are largely arbitrary. Empires do not usually
    begin or end on a certain date. There is
    250
    normally a gradual period of expansion and
    then a period of decline. The resemblance in
    the duration of these great powers may be
    queried. Human affairs are subject to many
    chances, and it is not to be expected that they
    The Fate of Empires
    3
    could be calculated with mathematical
    accuracy.
    (2) Nevertheless, it is suggested that there is
    sufficient resemblance between the life
    periods of these different empires to justify
    further study.
    (3) The division of Rome into two periods
    may be thought unwarranted. The first, or
    republican, period dates from the time when
    Rome became the mistress of Italy, and ends
    with the accession of Augustus. The imperial
    period extends from the accession of
    Augustus to the death of Marcus Aurelius. It
    is true that the empire survived nominally
    for more than a century after this date, but it
    did so in constant confusion, rebellions, civil
    wars and barbarian invasions.
    (4) Not all empires endured for their full life
    span. The Babylonian Empire of Nebucha
    dnezzar, for example, was overthrown by
    Cyrus, after a life duration of only some
    seventy-four years.
    (5) An interesting deduction from the figures
    seems to be that the duration of empires
    does not depend on the speed of travel or the
    nature of weapons. The Assyrians marched
    on foot and fought with spears and bow and
    arrows. The British used artillery, railways
    and ocean-going ships. Yet the two empires
    lasted for approximately the same periods.
    There is a tendency nowadays to say that
    this is the jet-age, and consequently there is
    nothing for us to learn from past empires.
    Such an attitude seems to be erroneous.
    (6) It is tempting to compare the lives of
    empires with those of human beings. We
    may choose a figure and say that the average
    life of a human being is seventy years. Not all
    human beings live exactly seventy years.
    Some die in infancy, others are killed in
    accidents in middle life, some survive to the
    age of eighty or ninety. Nevertheless, in spite
    of such exceptions, we are justified in saying
    that seventy years is a fair estimate of the
    average person\u2019s expectation of life.
    (7) We may perhaps at this stage be allowed
    to draw certain conclusions:
    (a) In spite of the accidents of fortune, and
    the apparent circumstances of the human
    race at different epochs, the periods of
    duration of different empires at varied
    epochs show a remarkable similarity.
    (b) Immense changes in the technology of
    transport or in methods of warfare do not
    seem to affect the life-expectation of an
    empire.
    (c) The changes in the technology of trans
    port and of war have, however, affected the
    shape of empires. The Assyrians, marching
    on foot, could only conquer their neigh
    bours, who were accessible by land\u2014the
    Medes, the Babylonians, the Persians and
    the Egyptians.
    The British, making use of ocean-going
    ships, conquered many countries and sub
    continents, which were accessible to them
    by water\u2014North America, India, South
    Africa, Australia and New Zealand\u2014but
    they never succeeded in conquering their
    neighbours, France, Germany and Spain.
    But, although the shapes of the Assyrian
    and the British Empires were entirely
    different, both lasted about the same
    length of time.
    III The human yardstick
    What then, we may ask, can have been the
    factor which caused such an extraordinary
    similarity in the duration of empires, under
    such diverse conditions, and such utterly
    different technological achievements?
    4
    The Fate of Empires
    One of the very few units of measurement
    which have not seriously changed since the
    Assyrians is the human \u2018generation\u2019, a period
    of about twenty-five years. Thus a period of
    250 years would represent about ten gene
    rations of people. A closer examination of the
    characteristics of the rise and fall of great
    nations may emphasise the possible signifi
    cance of the sequence of generations.
    Let us then attempt to examine the stages
    in the lives of such powerful nations.
    IV Stage one. The outburst
    Again and again in history we find a small
    nation, treated as insignificant by its
    contemporaries, suddenly emerging from its
    homeland and overrunning large areas of the
    world. Prior to Philip (359-336 B.C.), Mace
    don had been an insignificant state to the
    north of Greece. Persia was the great power
    of the time, completely dominating the area
    from Eastern Europe to India. Yet by 323
    B.C., thirty-six years after the accession of
    Philip, the Persian Empire had ceased to
    exist, and the Macedonian Empire extended
    from the Danube to India, including Egypt.
    This amazing expansion may perhaps he
    attributed to the genius of Alexander the
    Great, but this cannot have been the sole
    reason; for although after his death every
    thing went wrong\u2014the Macedonian generals
    fought one another and established rival
    empires\u2014Macedonian pre-eminence survi
    ved for 231 years.
    In the year A.D. 600, the world was divided
    between two superpower groups as it has
    been for the past fifty years between Soviet
    Russia and the West. The two powers were
    the eastern Roman Empire and the Persian
    Empire. The Arabs were then the despised
    and backward inhabitants of the Arabian
    Peninsula. They consisted chiefly of wan
    dering tribes, and had no government, no
    constitution and no army. Syria, Palestine,
    Egypt and North Africa were Roman
    provinces, Iraq was part of Persia.
    The Prophet Mohammed preached in
    Arabia from A.D. 613 to 632, when he died.
    In 633, the Arabs burst out of their desert
    peninsula, and simultaneously attacked the
    two super-powers. Within twenty years, the
    Persian Empire had ceased to exist. Seventy
    years after the death of the Prophet, the
    Arabs had established an empire extending
    from the Atlantic to the plains of Northern
    India and the frontiers of China.
    At the beginning of the thirteenth century,
    the Mongols were a group of savage tribes in
    the steppes of Mongolia. In 1211, Genghis
    Khan invaded China. By 1253, the Mongols
    had established an empire extending from
    Asia Minor to the China Sea, one of the
    largest empires the world has ever known.
    The Arabs ruled the greater part of Spain
    for 780 years, from 712 A.D. to 1492. (780
    years back in British history would take us to
    1196 and King Richard C\u0153ur de Lion.)
    During these eight centuries, there had been
    no Spanish nation, the petty kings of Aragon
    and Castile alone holding on in the
    mountains.
    The agreement between Ferdinand and
    Isabella and Christopher Columbus was
    signed immediately after the fall of Granada,
    the last Arab kingdom in Spain, in 1492.
    Within fifty years, Cortez had conquered
    Mexico, and Spain was the world\u2019s greatest
    empire.
    Examples of the sudden outbursts by
    which empires are born could be multiplied
    indefinitely. These random illustrations must
    suffice.
    The Fate of Empires
    5
    V Characteristics of the outburst
    These sudden outbursts are usually
    characterised by an extraordinary display of
    energy and courage. The new conquerors are
    normally poor, hardy and enterprising and
    above all aggressive. The decaying empires
    which they overthrow are wealthy but
    defensive-minded. In the time of Roman
    greatness, the legions used to dig a ditch
    round their camps at night to avoid surprise.
    But the ditches were mere earthworks, and
    between them wide spaces were left through
    which the Romans could counter-attack. But
    as Rome grew older, the earthworks became
    high walls, through which access was given
    only by narrow gates. Counterattacks were
    no longer possible. The legions were now
    passive defenders.
    But the new nation is not only distingui
    shed by victory in battle, but by unresting
    enterprise in every field. Men hack their way
    through jungles, climb mountains, or brave
    the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans in tiny
    cockle-shells. The Arabs crossed the Straits
    of Gibraltar in A.D. 711 with 12,000 men,
    defeated a Gothic army of more than twice
    their strength, marched straight over 250
    miles of unknown enemy territory and seized
    the Gothic capital of Toledo. At the same
    stage in British history, Captain Cook disco
    vered Australia. Fearless initiative characte
    rises such periods.
    Other peculiarities of the period of the
    conquering pioneers are their readiness to
    improvise and experiment. Untrammelled by
    traditions, they will turn anything available
    to their purpose. If one method fails, they try
    something else. Uninhibited by textbooks or
    book learning, action is their solution to
    every problem.
    Poor, hardy, often half-starved and ill-clad,
    they abound in courage, energy and
    initiative, overcome every obstacle and
    always seem to be in control of the situation.
    VI The causes of race outbursts
    The modern instinct is to seek a reason for
    everything, and to doubt the veracity of a
    statement for which a reason cannot be
    found. So many examples can be given of the
    sudden eruption of an obscure race into a
    nation of conquerors that the truth of the
    phenomenon cannot be held to be doubtful.
    To assign a cause is more difficult. Perhaps
    the easiest explanation is to assume that the
    poor and obscure race is tempted by the
    wealth of the ancient civilisation, and there
    would undoubtedly appear to be an element
    of greed for loot in barbarian invasions.
    Such a motivation may be divided into two
    classes. The first is mere loot, plunder and
    rape, as, for example, in the case of Attila
    and the Huns, who ravaged a great part of
    Europe from A.D. 450 to 453. However, when
    Attila died in the latter year, his empire fell
    apart and his tribes returned to Eastern
    Europe.
    Many of the barbarians who founded
    dynasties in Western Europe on the ruins of
    the Roman Empire, however, did so out of
    admiration for Roman civilisation, and
    themselves aspired to become Romans.
    VII A providential turnover?
    Whatever causes may be given for the
    overthrow of great civilisations by
    barbarians, we can sense certain resulting
    benefits. Every race on earth has distinctive
    characteristics. Some have been distingui
    shed in philosophy, some in administration,
    some in romance, poetry or religion, some in
    6
    The Fate of Empires
    their legal system. During the pre-eminence
    of each culture, its distinctive characteristics
    are carried by it far and wide across the
    world.
    If the same nation were to retain its
    domination indefinitely, its peculiar qualities
    would permanently characterise the whole
    human race. Under the system of empires
    each lasting for 250 years, the sovereign race
    has time to spread its particular virtues far
    and wide. Then, however, another people,
    with entirely different peculiarities, takes its
    place, and its virtues and accomplishments
    are likewise disseminated. By this system,
    each of the innumerable races of the world
    enjoys a period of greatness, during which its
    peculiar qualities are placed at the service of
    mankind.
    To those who believe in the existence of
    God, as the Ruler and Director of human
    affairs, such a system may appear as a
    manifestation of divine wisdom, tending
    towards the slow and ultimate perfection of
    humanity.
    VIII The course of empire
    The first stage of the life of a great nation,
    therefore, after its outburst, is a period of
    amazing initiative, and almost incredible
    enterprise, courage and hardihood. These
    qualities, often in a very short time, produce
    a new and formidable nation. These early
    victories, however, are won chiefly by
    reckless bravery and daring initiative.
    The ancient civilisation thus attacked will
    have defended itself by its sophisticated
    weapons, and by its military organisation
    and discipline. The barbarians quickly
    appreciate the advantages of these military
    methods and adopt them. As a result, the
    second stage of expansion of the new empire
    consists of more organised, disciplined and
    professional campaigns.
    In other fields, the daring initiative of the
    original
    conquerors is maintained\u2014in
    geographical exploration, for example:
    pioneering new countries, penetrating new
    forests, climbing unexplored mountains, and
    sailing uncharted seas. The new nation is
    confident, optimistic and perhaps contemp
    tuous of the \u2018decadent\u2019 races which it has
    subjugated.
    The methods employed tend to be practical
    and experimental, both in government and
    in warfare, for they are not tied by centuries
    of tradition, as happens in ancient empires.
    Moreover, the leaders are free to use their
    own improvisations, not having studied
    politics or tactics in schools or in textbooks.
    IX U.S.A. in the stage of the pioneers
    In the case of the United States of America,
    the pioneering period did not consist of a
    barbarian conquest of an effete civilisation,
    but of the conquest of barbarian peoples.
    Thus, viewed from the outside, every
    example seems to be different. But viewed
    from the standpoint of the great nation,
    every example seems to be similar.
    The United States arose suddenly as a new
    nation, and its period of pioneering was
    spent in the conquest of a vast continent, not
    an ancient empire. Yet the subsequent life
    history of the United States has followed the
    standard pattern which we shall attempt to
    trace\u2014the periods of the pioneers, of
    commerce, of affluence, of intellectualism
    and of decadence.
    X Commercial expansion
    The conquest of vast areas of land and
    their
    subjection to one government
    The Fate of Empires
    7
    automatically acts as a stimulant to com
    merce. Both merchants and goods can be
    exchanged over considerable distances.
    Moreover, if the empire be an extensive one,
    it will include a great variety of climates,
    producing extremely varied products, which
    the different areas will wish to exchange with
    one another.
    The speed of modern methods of trans
    portation tends to create in us the impress
    sion that far-flung commerce is a modern
    development, but this is not the case. Objects
    made in Ireland, Scandinavia and China
    have been found in the graves or the ruins of
    the Middle East, dating from 1,000 years
    before Christ. The means of transport were
    slower, but, when a great empire was in
    control, commerce was freed from the
    innumerable shackles imposed upon it today
    by passports, import permits, customs,
    boycotts and political interference.
    The Roman Empire extended from Britain
    to Syria and Egypt, a distance, in a direct
    line, of perhaps 2,700 miles. A Roman
    official, transferred from Britain to Syria,
    might spend six months on the journey. Yet,
    throughout the whole distance, he would be
    travelling in the same country, with the same
    official language, the same laws, the same
    currency and the same administrative
    system. Today, some twenty independent
    countries separate Britain from Syria, each
    with its own government, its own laws,
    politics,
    customs fees, passports and
    currencies, making commercial co-operation
    almost impossible. And this process of
    disintegration is still continuing. Even within
    the small areas of the modern European
    nations, provincial movements demanding
    secession or devolution tend further to
    splinter the continent.
    The present fashion for \u2018independence\u2019 has
    produced great numbers of tiny states in the
    world, some of them consisting of only one
    city or of a small island. This system is an
    insuperable obstacle to trade and co
    operation. The present European Economic
    Community is an attempt to secure commer
    cial cooperation among small independent
    states over a large area, but the plan meets
    with many difficulties, due to the mutual
    jealousies of so many nations.
    Even savage and militaristic empires
    promoted commerce, whether or not they
    intended to do so. The Mongols were some of
    the most brutal military conquerors in
    history, massacring the entire populations of
    cities. Yet, in the thirteenth century, when
    their empire extended from Peking to
    Hungary, the caravan trade between China
    and Europe achieved a remarkable degree of
    prosperity\u2014the whole journey was in the
    territory of one government.
    In the eighth and ninth centuries, the
    caliphs of Baghdad achieved fabulous wealth
    owing to the immense extent of their
    territories, which constituted a single trade
    bloc. The empire of the caliphs is now
    divided into some twenty-five separate
    \u2018nations\u2019.
    XI The pros and cons of empires
    In discussing the life-story of the typical
    empire, we have digressed into a discussion
    of whether empires are useful or injurious to
    mankind. We seem to have discovered that
    empires have certain advantages, particu
    larly in the field of commerce, and in the
    establishment of peace and security in vast
    areas of the globe. Perhaps we should also
    include the spread of varied cultures to many
    races. The present infatuation for indepen
    8
    The Fate of Empires
    dence for ever smaller and smaller units will
    eventually doubtless be succeeded by new
    international empires.
    The present attempts to create a European
    community may be regarded as a practical
    endeavour to constitute a new super-power,
    in spite of the fragmentation resulting from
    the craze for independence. If it succeeds,
    some of the local independencies will have to
    be sacrificed. If it fails, the same result may
    be attained by military conquest, or by the
    partition of Europe between rival super
    powers. The inescapable conclusion seems,
    however, to be that larger territorial units are
    a benefit to commerce and to public stability,
    whether the broader territory be achieved by
    voluntary association or by military action.
    XII Sea power
    One of the more benevolent ways in which
    a super-power can promote both peace and
    commerce is by its command of the sea.
    From Waterloo to 1914, the British Navy
    commanded the seas of the world. Britain
    grew rich, but she also made the Seas safe for
    the commerce of all nations, and prevented
    major wars for 100 years.
    Curiously enough, the question of sea
    power was never clearly distinguished, in
    British politics during the last fifty years,
    from the question of imperial rule over other
    countries. In fact, the two subjects are
    entirely distinct. Sea power does not offend
    small countries, as does military occupation.
    If Britain had maintained her navy, with a
    few naval bases overseas in isolated islands,
    and had given independence to colonies
    which asked for it, the world might well be a
    more stable place today. In fact, however, the
    navy was swept away in the popular outcry
    against imperialism.
    XIII The Age of Commerce
    Let us now, however, return to the life
    story of our typical empire. We have already
    considered the age of outburst, when a little
    regarded people suddenly bursts on to the
    world stage with a wild courage and energy.
    Let us call it the Age of the Pioneers.
    Then we saw that these new conquerors
    acquired the sophisticated weapons of the
    old empires, and adopted their regular
    systems of military organisation and
    training. A great period of military expansion
    ensued, which we may call the Age of
    Conquests. The conquests resulted in the
    acquisition of vast territories under one
    government, thereby automatically giving
    rise to commercial prosperity. We may call
    this the Age of Commerce.
    The Age of Conquests, of course, overlaps
    the Age of Commerce. The proud military
    traditions still hold sway and the great
    armies guard the frontiers, but gradually the
    desire to make money seems to gain hold of
    the public. During the military period, glory
    and honour were the principal objects of
    ambition. To the merchant, such ideas are
    but empty words, which add nothing to the
    bank balance.
    XIV Art and luxury
    The wealth which seems, almost without
    effort, to pour into the country enables the
    commercial classes to grow immensely rich.
    How to spend all this money becomes a
    problem to the wealthy business community.
    Art, architecture and luxury find rich
    patrons. Splendid municipal buildings and
    wide streets lend dignity and beauty to the
    wealthy areas of great cities. The rich
    merchants build themselves palaces, and
    money is invested in communications,
    The Fate of Empires
    9
    highways, bridges, railways or hotels,
    according to the varied patterns of the ages.
    The first half of the Age of Commerce
    appears to be peculiarly splendid. The
    ancient virtues of courage, patriotism and
    devotion to duty are still in evidence. The
    nation is proud, united and full of self
    confidence. Boys are still required, first of all,
    to be manly\u2014to ride, to shoot straight and to
    tell the truth. (It is remarkable what
    emphasis is placed, at this stage, on the
    manly virtue of truthfulness, for lying is
    cowardice\u2014the fear of facing up to the
    situation.)
    Boys\u2019 schools are intentionally rough. Fru
    gal eating, hard living, breaking the ice to
    have a bath and similar customs are aimed at
    producing a strong, hardy and fearless breed
    of men. Duty is the word constantly drum
    med into the heads of young people.
    The Age of Commerce is also marked by
    great enterprise in the exploration for new
    forms of wealth. Daring initiative is shown in
    the search for profitable enterprises in far
    corners of the earth, perpetuating to some
    degree the adventurous courage of the Age of
    Conquests.
    XV The Age of Affluence
    There does not appear to be any doubt that
    money is the agent which causes the decline
    of this strong, brave and self-confident
    people. The decline in courage, enterprise
    and a sense of duty is, however, gradual.
    The first direction in which wealth injures
    the nation is a moral one. Money replaces
    honour and adventure as the objective of the
    best young men. Moreover, men do not
    normally seek to make money for their
    country or their community, but for them
    selves. Gradually, and almost imperceptibly,
    the Age of Affluence silences the voice of
    duty. The object of the young and the
    ambitious is no longer fame, honour or
    service, but cash.
    Education undergoes the same gradual
    transformation. No longer do schools aim at
    producing brave patriots ready to serve their
    country. Parents and students alike seek the
    educational
    qualifications
    which will
    command the highest salaries. The Arab
    moralist, Ghazali (1058-1111), complains in
    these very same words of the lowering of
    objectives in the declining Arab world of his
    time. Students, he says, no longer attend
    college to acquire learning and virtue, but to
    obtain those qualifications which will enable
    them to grow rich. The same situation is
    everywhere evident among us in the West
    today.
    XVI High Noon
    That which we may call the High Noon of
    the nation covers the period of transition
    from the Age of Conquests to the Age of
    Affluence: the age of Augustus in Rome, that
    of Harun al-Rashid in Baghdad, of Sulaiman
    the Magnificent in the Ottoman Empire, or
    of Queen Victoria in Britain. Perhaps we
    might add the age of Woodrow Wilson in the
    United States.
    All these periods reveal the same
    characteristics. The immense wealth accu
    mulated in the nation dazzles the onlookers.
    Enough of the ancient virtues of courage,
    energy and patriotism survive to enable the
    state successfully to defend its frontiers. But,
    beneath the surface, greed for money is
    gradually replacing duty and public service.
    Indeed the change might be summarised as
    being from service to selfishness.
    10
    The Fate of Empires
    XVII Defensiveness
    Another outward change which invariably
    marks the transition from the Age of
    Conquests to the Age of Affluence is the
    spread of defensiveness. The nation, immen
    sely rich, is no longer interested in glory or
    duty, but is only anxious to retain its wealth
    and its luxury. It is a period of defensiveness,
    from the Great Wall of China, to Hadrian\u2019s
    Wall on the Scottish Border, to the Maginot
    Line in France in 1939.
    Money being in better supply than courage,
    subsidies instead of weapons are employed
    to buy off enemies. To justify this departure
    from ancient tradition, the human mind
    easily devises its own justification. Military
    readiness, or aggressiveness, is denounced as
    primitive and immoral. Civilised peoples are
    too proud to fight. The conquest of one
    nation by another is declared to be immoral.
    Empires are wicked. This intellectual device
    enables us to suppress our feeling of
    inferiority, when we read of the heroism of
    our ancestors, and then ruefully contemplate
    our position today. \u2018It is not that we are
    afraid to fight,\u2019 we say, \u2018but we should
    consider it immoral.\u2019 This even enables us to
    assume an attitude of moral superiority.
    The weakness of pacifism is that there are
    still many peoples in the world who are
    aggressive. Nations who proclaim themselves
    unwilling to fight are liable to be conquered
    by peoples in the stage of militarism\u2014
    perhaps even to see themselves incorporated
    into some new empire, with the status of
    mere provinces or colonies.
    When to be prepared to use force and when
    to give way is a perpetual human problem,
    which can only be solved, as best we can, in
    each successive situation as it arises. In fact,
    however, history seems to indicate that great
    nations do not normally disarm from
    motives of conscience, but owing to the
    weakening of a sense of duty in the citizens,
    and the increase in selfishness and the desire
    for wealth and ease.
    XVIII The Age of Intellect
    We have now, perhaps arbitrarily, divided
    the life-story of our great nation into four
    ages. The Age of the Pioneers (or the
    Outburst), the Age of Conquests, the Age of
    Commerce, and the Age of Affluence. The
    great wealth of the nation is no longer
    needed to supply the mere necessities, or
    even the luxuries of life. Ample funds are
    available also for the pursuit of knowledge.
    The merchant princes of the Age of
    Commerce seek fame and praise, not only by
    endowing works of art or patronising music
    and literature. They also found and endow
    colleges and universities. It is remarkable
    with what regularity this phase follows on
    that of wealth, in empire after empire,
    divided by many centuries.
    In the eleventh century, the former Arab
    Empire, then in complete political decline,
    was ruled by the Seljuk sultan, Malik Shah.
    The Arabs, no longer soldiers, were still the
    intellectual leaders of the world. During the
    reign of Malik Shah, the building of
    universities and colleges became a passion.
    Whereas a small number of universities in
    the great cities had sufficed the years of Arab
    glory, now a university sprang up in every
    town.
    In our own lifetime, we have witnessed the
    same phenomenon in the U.S.A. and Britain.
    When these nations were at the height of
    their glory, Harvard, Yale, Oxford and
    Cambridge seemed to meet their needs. Now
    almost every city has its university.
    The Fate of Empires
    11
    The ambition of the young, once engaged
    in the pursuit of adventure and military
    glory, and then in the desire for the
    accumulation of wealth, now turns to the
    acquisition of academic honours.
    It is useful here to take note that almost all
    the pursuits followed with such passion
    throughout the ages were in themselves
    good. The manly cult of hardihood, frank
    ness and truthfulness, which characterised
    the Age of Conquests, produced many really
    splendid heroes.
    The opening up of natural resources, and
    the peaceful accumulation of wealth, which
    marked the age of commercialism, appeared
    to introduce new triumphs in civilisation, in
    culture and in the arts. In the same way, the
    vast expansion of the field of knowledge
    achieved by the Age of Intellect seemed to
    mark a new high-water mark of human
    progress. We cannot say that any of these
    changes were \u2018good\u2019 or \u2018bad\u2019.
    The striking features in the pageant of
    empire are:
    (a) the extraordinary exactitude with which
    these stages have followed one another, in
    empire after empire, over centuries or even
    millennia; and
    (b) the fact that the successive changes
    seem to represent mere changes in popular
    fashion\u2014new fads and fancies which sweep
    away public opinion without logical reason.
    At first, popular enthusiasm is devoted to
    military glory, then to the accumulation of
    wealth and later to the acquisition of
    academic fame.
    Why could not all these legitimate, and
    indeed beneficent, activities be carried on
    simultaneously, each of them in due modera
    tion? Yet this never seemed to happen.
    XIX The effects of intellectualism
    There are so many things in human life
    which are not dreamt of in our popular
    philosophy. The spread of knowledge seems
    to be the most beneficial of human activities,
    and yet every period of decline is character
    rised by this expansion of intellectual
    activity. \u2018All the Athenians and strangers
    which were there spent their time in nothing
    else, but either to tell or to hear some new
    thing\u2019 is the description given in the Acts of
    the Apostles of the decline of Greek
    intellectualism.
    The Age of Intellect is accompanied by
    surprising advances in natural science. In the
    ninth century, for example, in the age of
    Mamun, the Arabs measured the circum
    ference of the earth with remarkable
    accuracy. Seven centuries were to pass
    before Western Europe discovered that the
    world was not flat. Less than fifty years after
    the amazing scientific discoveries under
    Mamun, the Arab Empire collapsed. Won
    derful and beneficent as was the progress of
    science, it did not save the empire from
    chaos.
    The full flowering of Arab and Persian
    intellectualism did not occur until after their
    imperial and political collapse. Thereafter
    the intellectuals attained fresh triumphs in
    the academic field, but politically they
    became the abject servants of the often
    illiterate rulers. When the Mongols conqu
    ered Persia in the thirteenth century, they
    were themselves entirely uneducated and
    were obliged to depend wholly on native
    Persian officials to administer the country
    and to collect the revenue. They retained as
    wazeer, or Prime Minister, one Rashid al
    Din, a historian of international repute. Yet
    12
    The Fate of Empires
    the Prime Minister, when speaking to the
    Mongol II Khan, was obliged to remain
    throughout the interview on his knees. At
    state banquets, the Prime Minister stood
    behind the Khan\u2019s seat to wait upon him. If
    the Khan were in a good mood, he
    occasionally passed his wazeer a piece of
    food over his shoulder.
    As in the case of the Athenians,
    intellectualism leads to discussion, debate
    and argument, such as is typical of the
    Western nations today. Debates in elected
    assemblies or local committees, in articles in
    the Press or in interviews on television\u2014
    endless and incessant talking.
    Men are interminably different, and
    intellectual arguments rarely lead to
    agreement. Thus public affairs drift from bad
    to worse, amid an unceasing cacophony of
    argument. But this constant dedication to
    discussion seems to destroy the power of
    action. Amid a Babel of talk, the ship drifts
    on to the rocks.
    XX The inadequacy of intellect
    Perhaps the most dangerous by-product of
    the Age of Intellect is the unconscious
    growth of the idea that the human brain can
    solve the problems of the world. Even on the
    low level of practical affairs this is patently
    untrue. Any small human activity, the local
    bowls club or the ladies\u2019 luncheon club,
    requires for its survival a measure of self-
    sacrifice and service on the part of the
    members. In a wider national sphere, the
    survival of the nation depends basically on
    the loyalty and self-sacrifice of the citizens.
    The impression that the situation can be
    saved by mental cleverness, without unsel
    f
    ishness or human self-dedication, can only
    lead to collapse.
    Thus we see that the cultivation of the
    human intellect seems to be a magnificent
    ideal, but only on condition that it does not
    weaken unselfishness and human dedication
    to service. Yet this, judging by historical
    precedent, seems to be exactly what it does
    do. Perhaps it is not the intellectualism
    which destroys the spirit of self-sacrifice\u2014the
    least we can say is that the two,
    intellectualism and the loss of a sense of
    duty, appear simultaneously in the life-story
    of the nation.
    Indeed it often appears in individuals, that
    the head and the heart are natural rivals. The
    brilliant but cynical intellectual appears at
    the opposite end of the spectrum from the
    emotional self-sacrifice of the hero or the
    martyr. Yet there are times when the perhaps
    unsophisticated self-dedication of the hero is
    more essential than the sarcasms of the
    clever.
    XXI Civil dissensions
    Another remarkable and unexpected
    symptom of national decline is the intensi
    f
    ication of internal political hatreds. One
    would have expected that, when the survival
    of the nation became precarious, political
    factions would drop their rivalry and stand
    shoulder-to-shoulder to save their country.
    In the fourteenth century, the weakening
    empire of Byzantium was threatened, and
    indeed dominated, by the Ottoman Turks.
    The situation was so serious that one would
    have expected every subject of Byzantium to
    abandon his personal interests and to stand
    with his compatriots in a last desperate
    attempt to save the country. The reverse
    occurred. The Byzantines spent the last fifty
    years of their history in fighting one another
    in repeated civil wars, until the Ottomans
    The Fate of Empires
    13
    moved in and administered the coup de
    gr\u00e2ce.
    Britain has been governed by an elected
    parliament for many centuries. In former
    years, however, the rival parties observed
    many unwritten laws. Neither party wished
    to eliminate the other. All the members
    referred to one another as honourable
    gentlemen. But such courtesies have now
    lapsed. Booing, shouting and loud noises
    have undermined the dignity of the House,
    and angry exchanges are more frequent. We
    are fortunate if these rivalries are fought out
    in Parliament, but sometimes such hatreds
    are carried into the streets, or into industry
    in the form of strikes, demonstrations,
    boycotts and similar activities. True to the
    normal course followed by nations in
    decline,
    internal
    differences
    are
    not
    reconciled in an attempt to save the nation.
    On the contrary, internal rivalries become
    more acute, as the nation becomes weaker.
    XXII The influx of foreigners
    One of the oft-repeated phenomena of
    great empires is the influx of foreigners to
    the capital city. Roman historians often
    complain of the number of Asians and
    Africans in Rome. Baghdad, in its prime in
    the ninth century, was international in its
    population\u2014Persians, Turks, Arabs, Arme
    nians, Egyptians, Africans and Greeks
    mingled in its streets.
    In London today, Cypriots, Greeks,
    Italians, Russians, Africans, Germans and
    Indians jostle one another on the buses and
    in the underground, so that it sometimes
    seems difficult to find any British. The same
    applies to New York, perhaps even more so.
    This problem does not consist in any
    inferiority of one race as compared with
    another, but simply in the differences
    between them.
    In the age of the first outburst and the
    subsequent Age of Conquests, the race is
    normally
    ethnically more
    or
    less
    homogeneous. This state of affairs facilitates
    a feeling of solidarity and comradeship. But
    in the Ages of Commerce and Affluence,
    every type of foreigner floods into the great
    city, the streets of which are reputed to be
    paved with gold. As, in most cases, this great
    city is also the capital of the empire, the
    cosmopolitan crowd at the seat of empire
    exercises a political influence greatly in
    excess of its relative numbers.
    Second- or third-generation foreign
    immigrants may appear outwardly to be
    entirely assimilated, but they often constitute
    a weakness in two directions. First, their
    basic human nature often differs from that of
    the original imperial stock. If the earlier
    imperial race was stubborn and slow
    moving, the immigrants might come from
    more emotional races, thereby introducing
    cracks and schisms into the national policies,
    even if all were equally loyal.
    Second, while the nation is still affluent, all
    the diverse races may appear equally loyal.
    But in an acute emergency, the immigrants
    will often be less willing to sacrifice their
    lives and their property than will be the
    original descendants of the founder race.
    Third, the immigrants are liable to form
    communities of their own, protecting
    primarily their own interests, and only in the
    second degree that of the nation as a whole.
    Fourth, many of the foreign immigrants
    will probably belong to races originally
    conquered by and absorbed into the empire.
    While the empire is enjoying its High Noon
    of prosperity, all these people are proud and
    14
    The Fate of Empires
    glad to be imperial citizens. But when decline
    sets in, it is extraordinary how the memory
    of ancient wars, perhaps centuries before, is
    suddenly revived, and local or provincial
    movements appear demanding secession or
    independence. Some day this phenomenon
    will doubtless appear in the now apparently
    monolithic and authoritarian Soviet empire.
    It is amazing for how long such provincial
    sentiments can survive.
    Historical examples of this phenomenon
    are scarcely needed. The idle and captious
    Roman mob, with its endless appetite for
    free distributions of food\u2014bread and
    games\u2014is notorious, and utterly different
    from that stern Roman spirit which we
    associate with the wars of the early republic.
    In Baghdad, in the golden days of Harun
    al-Rashid, Arabs were a minority in the
    imperial capital. Istanbul, in the great days
    of Ottoman rule, was peopled by inhabitants
    remarkably few of whom were descendants
    of Turkish conquerors. In New York,
    descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers are few
    and far between.
    This interesting phenomenon is largely
    limited to great cities. The original conqu
    ering race is often to be found in relative
    purity in rural districts and on far frontiers.
    It is the wealth of the great cities which
    draws the immigrants. As, with the growth of
    industry, cities nowadays achieve an ever
    greater preponderance over the countryside,
    so will the influence of foreigners increa
    singly dominate old empires.
    Once more it may be emphasised that I do
    not wish to convey the impression that
    immigrants are inferior to older stocks. They
    are just different, and they thus tend to
    introduce cracks and divisions.
    XXIII Frivolity
    As the nation declines in power and
    wealth, a universal pessimism gradually
    pervades the people, and itself hastens the
    decline. There is nothing succeeds like
    success, and, in the Ages of Conquest and
    Commerce, the nation was carried
    triumphantly onwards on the wave of its own
    self-confidence. Republican Rome was
    repeatedly on the verge of extinction\u2014in 390
    B.C. when the Gauls sacked the city and in
    216 B.C. after the Battle of Cannae. But no
    disasters could shake the resolution of the
    early Romans. Yet, in the later stages of
    Roman decline, the whole empire was deeply
    pessimistic, thereby sapping its own
    resolution.
    Frivolity is the frequent companion of
    pessimism. Let us eat, drink and be merry,
    for tomorrow we die. The resemblance
    between various declining nations in this
    respect is truly surprising. The Roman mob,
    we have seen, demanded free meals and
    public games. Gladiatorial shows, chariot
    races and athletic events were their passion.
    In the Byzantine Empire the rivalries of the
    Greens and the Blues in the hippodrome
    attained the importance of a major crisis.
    Judging by the time and space allotted to
    them in the Press and television, football and
    baseball are the activities which today chiefly
    interest the public in Britain and the United
    States respectively.
    The heroes of declining nations are always
    the same\u2014the athlete, the singer or the
    actor. The word \u2018celebrity\u2019 today is used to
    designate a comedian or a football player,
    not a statesman, a general, or a literary
    genius.
    The Fate of Empires
    15
    XXIV The Arab decline
    In the first half of the ninth century,
    Baghdad enjoyed its High Noon as the
    greatest and the richest city in the world. In
    861, however, the reigning Khalif (caliph),
    Mutawakkil, was murdered by his Turkish
    mercenaries, who set up a military dictator
    ship, which lasted for some thirty years.
    During this period the empire fell apart, the
    various dominions and provinces each
    assuming virtual independence and seeking
    its own interests. Baghdad, lately the capital
    of a vast empire, found its authority limited
    to Iraq alone.
    The works of the contemporary historians
    of Baghdad in the early tenth century are still
    available.
    They
    deeply deplored the
    degeneracy of the times in which they lived,
    emphasising particularly the indifference to
    religion, the increasing materialism and the
    laxity of sexual morals. They lamented also
    the corruption of the officials of the
    government and the fact that politicians
    always seemed to amass large fortunes while
    they were in office.
    The historians commented bitterly on the
    extraordinary influence acquired by popular
    singers over young people, resulting in a
    decline in sexual morality. The \u2018pop\u2019 singers
    of Baghdad accompanied their erotic songs
    on the lute, an instrument resembling the
    modern guitar. In the second half of the
    tenth century, as a result, much obscene
    sexual language came increasingly into use,
    such as would not have been tolerated in an
    earlier age. Several khalifs issued orders
    banning \u2018pop\u2019 singers from the capital, but
    within a few years they always returned.
    An increase in the influence of women in
    public life has often been associated with na
    tional decline. The later Romans complained
    that, although Rome ruled the world, women
    ruled Rome. In the tenth century, a similar
    tendency was observable in the Arab Empire,
    the women demanding admission to the
    professions hitherto monopolised by men.
    \u2018What,\u2019 wrote the contemporary historian,
    Ibn Bessam, \u2018have the professions of clerk,
    tax-collector or preacher to do with women?
    These occupations have always been limited
    to men alone.\u2019 Many women practised law,
    while others obtained posts as university
    professors. There was an agitation for the
    appointment of female judges, which,
    however, does not appear to have succeeded.
    Soon after this period, government and
    public order collapsed, and foreign invaders
    overran the country. The resulting increase
    in confusion and violence made it unsafe for
    women to move unescorted in the streets,
    with the result that this feminist movement
    collapsed.
    The disorders following the military take
    over in 861, and the loss of the empire, had
    played havoc with the economy. At such a
    moment, it might have been expected that
    everyone would redouble their efforts to save
    the country from bankruptcy, but nothing of
    the kind occurred. Instead, at this moment of
    declining trade and financial stringency, the
    people of Baghdad introduced a five-day
    week.
    When I first read these contemporary
    descriptions of tenth-century Baghdad, I
    could scarcely believe my eyes. I told myself
    that this must be a joke! The descriptions
    might have been taken out of The Times
    today. The resemblance of all the details was
    especially breathtaking\u2014the break-up of the
    empire, the abandonment of sexual morality,
    the \u2018pop\u2019 singers with their guitars, the entry
    of women into the professions, the five-day
    16
    The Fate of Empires
    week. I would not venture to attempt an
    explanation! There are so many mysteries
    about human life which are far beyond our
    comprehension.
    XXV Political ideology
    Today we attach immense importance to
    the ideology of our internal politics. The
    Press and public media in the U.S.A. and
    Britain pour incessant scorn on any country
    the political institutions of which differ in
    any manner from our own idea of
    democracy. It is, therefore, interesting to
    note that the life-expectation of a great
    nation does not appear to be in any way
    affected by the nature of its institutions.
    Past empires show almost every possible
    variation of political system, but all go
    through the same procedure from the Age of
    Pioneers through Conquest, Commerce,
    Affluence to decline and collapse.
    XXVI The Mameluke Empire
    The empire of the Mamelukes of Egypt
    provides a case in point, for it was one of the
    most exotic ever to be recorded in history. It
    is also exceptional in that it began on one
    f
    ixed day and ended on another, leaving no
    doubt of its precise duration, which was 267
    years.
    In the first part of the thirteenth century,
    Egypt and Syria were ruled by the Ayoubid
    sultans, the descendants of the family of
    Saladin. Their army consisted of Mamelukes,
    slaves imported as boys from the Steppes
    and trained as professional soldiers. On 1st
    May 1250, the Mamelukes mutinied,
    murdered Turan Shah, the Ayoubid sultan,
    and became the rulers of his empire.
    The first fifty years of the Mameluke
    Empire were marked by desperate fighting
    with the hitherto invincible Mongols, the
    descendants of Genghis Khan, who invaded
    Syria. By defeating the Mongols and driving
    them out of Syria, the Mamelukes saved the
    Mediterranean from the terrible fate which
    had overtaken Persia. In 1291, the Mame
    lukes captured Acre, and put an end to the
    Crusades.
    From 1309 to 1341, the Mameluke Empire
    was everywhere victorious and possessed the
    f
    inest army in the world. For the ensuing
    hundred years the wealth of the Mameluke
    Empire was fabulous, slowly leading to
    luxury, the relaxation of discipline and to
    decline, with ever more bitter internal
    political rivalries. Finally the empire collap
    sed in 1517, as the result of military defeat
    by the Ottomans.
    The Mameluke government appears to us
    utterly illogical and fantastic. The ruling
    class was entirely recruited from young boys,
    born in what is now Southern Russia. Every
    one of them was enlisted as a private soldier.
    Even the sultans had begun life as private
    soldiers and had risen from the ranks. Yet
    this extraordinary political system resulted
    in an empire which passed through all the
    normal stages of conquest, commercialism,
    affluence and decline and which lasted
    approximately the usual period of time.
    XXVII The master race
    The people of the great nations of the past
    seem normally to have imagined that their
    pre-eminence would last for ever. Rome
    appeared to its citizens to be destined to be
    for all time the mistress of the world. The
    Abbasid Khalifs of Baghdad declared that
    God had appointed them to rule mankind
    until the day of judgement. Seventy years
    ago, many people in Britain believed that the
    The Fate of Empires
    17
    empire would endure for ever. Although
    Hitler failed to achieve his objective, he
    declared that Germany would rule the world
    for a thousand years. That sentiments like
    these could be publicly expressed without
    evoking derision shows that, in all ages, the
    regular rise and fall of great nations has
    passed unperceived. The simplest statistics
    prove the steady rotation of one nation after
    another at regular intervals.
    The belief that their nation would rule the
    world forever, naturally encouraged the
    citizens of the leading nation of any period to
    attribute their pre-eminence to hereditary
    virtues. They carried in their blood, they
    believed, qualities which constituted them a
    race of supermen, an illusion which inclined
    them to the employment of cheap foreign
    labour (or slaves) to perform menial tasks
    and to engage foreign mercenaries to fight
    their battles or to sail their ships.
    These poorer peoples were only too happy
    to migrate to the wealthy cities of the empire,
    and thereby, as we have seen, to adulterate
    the close-knit, homogeneous character of the
    conquering race. The latter unconsciously
    assumed that they would always be the
    leaders of mankind, relaxed their energies,
    and spent an increasing part of their time in
    leisure, amusement or sport.
    In recent years, the idea has spread widely
    in the West that \u2018progress\u2019 will be automatic
    without effort, that everyone will continue to
    grow richer and richer and that every year
    will show a \u2018rise in the standard of living\u2019. We
    have not drawn from history the obvious
    conclusion that material success is the result
    of courage, endurance and hard work\u2014a
    conclusion nevertheless obvious from the
    history of the meteoric rise of our own
    ancestors. This self-assurance of its own
    superiority seems to go hand-in-hand with
    the luxury resulting from wealth, in
    undermining the character of the dominant
    race.
    XXVIII The welfare state
    When the welfare state was first introduced
    in Britain, it was hailed as a new high-water
    mark in the history of human development.
    History, however, seems to suggest that the
    age of decline of a great nation is often a
    period which shows a tendency to
    philanthropy and to sympathy for other
    races. This phase may not be contradictory
    to the feeling described in the previous
    paragraph, that the dominant race has the
    right to rule the world. For the citizens of the
    great nation enjoy the role of Lady Bountiful.
    As long as it retains its status of leadership,
    the imperial people are glad to be generous,
    even if slightly condescending. The rights of
    citizenship are generously bestowed on every
    race, even those formerly subject, and the
    equality of mankind is proclaimed. The
    Roman Empire passed through this phase,
    when equal citizenship was thrown open to
    all peoples, such provincials even becoming
    senators and emperors.
    The Arab Empire of Baghdad was equally,
    perhaps even more, generous. During the
    Age of Conquests, pure-bred Arabs had
    constituted a ruling class, but in the ninth
    century the empire was completely
    cosmopolitan.
    State assistance to the young and the poor
    was equally generous. University students
    received government grants to cover their
    expenses while they were receiving higher
    education. The State likewise offered free
    medical treatment to the poor. The first free
    public hospital was opened in Baghdad in
    18
    The Fate of Empires
    the reign of Harun al-Rashid (786-809), and
    under his son, Mamun, free public hospitals
    sprang up all over the Arab world from Spain
    to what is now Pakistan.
    The impression that it will always be
    automatically rich causes the declining
    empire to spend lavishly on its own
    benevolence, until such time as the economy
    collapses, the universities are closed and the
    hospitals fall into ruin.
    It may perhaps be incorrect to picture the
    welfare state as the high-water mark of
    human attainment. It may merely prove to
    be one more regular milestone in the life
    story of an ageing and decrepit empire.
    XXIX Religion
    Historians of periods of decadence often
    refer to a decline in religion, but, if we
    extend our investigation over a period
    covering the Assyrians (859-612 B.C.) to our
    own times, we have to interpret religion in a
    very broad sense. Some such definition as
    \u2018the human feeling that there is something,
    some invisible Power, apart from material
    objects, which controls human life and the
    natural world\u2019.
    We are probably too narrow and
    contemptuous in our interpretation of idol
    worship. The people of ancient civilisations
    were as sensible as we are, and would
    scarcely have been so foolish as to worship
    sticks and stones fashioned by their own
    hands. The idol was for them merely a
    symbol, and represented an unknown,
    spiritual reality, which controlled the lives of
    men and demanded human obedience to its
    moral precepts.
    We all know only too well that minor
    differences in the human visualisation of this
    Spirit frequently became the ostensible
    reason for human wars, in which both sides
    claimed to be fighting for the true God, but
    the
    absurd
    narrowness
    of
    human
    conceptions should not blind us to the fact
    that, very often, both sides believed their
    campaigns to have a moral background.
    Genghis Khan, one of the most brutal of all
    conquerors, claimed that God had delegated
    him the duty to exterminate the decadent
    races of the civilised world. Thus the Age of
    Conquests often had some kind of religious
    atmosphere, which implied heroic self
    sacrifice for the cause.
    But this spirit of dedication was slowly
    eroded in the Age of Commerce by the action
    of money. People make money for
    themselves, not for their country. Thus
    periods of affluence gradually dissolved the
    spirit of service, which had caused the rise of
    the imperial races.
    In due course, selfishness permeated the
    community, the coherence of which was
    weakened until
    disintegration
    was
    threatened. Then, as we have seen, came the
    period of pessimism with the accompanying
    spirit of frivolity and sensual indulgence, by
    products of despair. It was inevitable at such
    times that men should look back yearningly
    to the days of \u2018religion\u2019, when the spirit of
    self-sacrifice was still strong enough to make
    men ready to give and to serve, rather than
    to snatch.
    But while despair might permeate the
    greater part of the nation, others achieved a
    new realisation of the fact that only readi
    ness for self-sacrifice could enable a commu
    nity to survive. Some of the greatest saints in
    history lived in times of national decadence,
    raising the banner of duty and service
    against the flood of depravity and despair.
    The Fate of Empires
    19
    In this manner, at the height of vice and
    frivolity the seeds of religious revival are
    quietly sown. After, perhaps, several
    generations (or even centuries) of suffering,
    the impoverished nation has been purged of
    its selfishness and its love of money, religion
    regains its sway and a new era sets in. \u2018It is
    good for me that I have been afflicted,\u2019 said
    the psalmist, \u2018that I might learn Thy
    Statutes.\u2019
    XXX New combinations
    We have traced the rise of an obscure race
    to fame, through the stages of conquest,
    commercialism, affluence, and intellectu
    alism, to disintegration, decadence and
    despair. We suggested that the dominant
    race at any given time imparts its leading
    characteristics to the world around, being in
    due course succeeded by another empire. By
    this means, we speculated, many successive
    races succeeded one another as super
    powers, and in turn bequeathed their
    peculiar qualities to mankind at large.
    But the objection may here be raised that
    some day the time will come when all the
    races of the world will in turn have enjoyed
    their period of domination and have
    collapsed again in decadence. When the
    whole human race has reached the stage of
    decadence, where will new energetic con
    quering races be found?
    The answer is at first partially obscured by
    our modern habit of dividing the human race
    into nations, which we seem to regard as
    water-tight compartments, an error respon
    sible for innumerable misunderstandings.
    In earlier times, warlike nomadic nations
    invaded the territories of decadent peoples
    and settled there. In due course, they
    intermarried with the local population and a
    new race resulted, though it sometimes
    retained an old name. The barbarian
    invasions of the Roman Empire probably
    provide the example best known today in the
    West. Others were the Arab conquests of
    Spain, North Africa and Persia, the Turkish
    conquests of the Ottoman Empire, or even
    the Norman Conquest of England.
    In all such cases, the conquered countries
    were originally fully inhabited and the inva
    ders were armies, which ultimately settled
    down and married, and produced new races.
    In our times, there are few nomadic
    conquerors left in the world, who could
    invade more settled countries bringing their
    tents and flocks with them. But ease of travel
    has resulted in an equal, or probably an even
    greater, intermixture of populations. The
    extreme bitterness of modern internal poli
    tical struggles produces a constant flow of
    migrants from their native countries to
    others, where the social institutions suit
    them better.
    The vicissitudes of trade and business
    similarly result in many persons moving to
    other countries, at first intending to return,
    but ultimately settling down in their new
    countries.
    The population of Britain has been
    constantly changing, particularly in the last
    sixty years, owing to the influx of immigrants
    from Europe, Asia and Africa, and the exit of
    British citizens to the Dominions and the
    United States. The latter is, of course, the
    most obvious example of the constant rise of
    new nations, and of the transformation of
    the ethnic content of old nations through this
    modern nomadism.
    20
    The Fate of Empires
    XXXI Decadence of a system
    It is of interest to note that decadence is
    the disintegration of a system, not of its
    individual members. The habits of the
    members of the community have been
    corrupted by the enjoyment of too much
    money and too much power for too long a
    period. The result has been, in the
    framework of their national life, to make
    them selfish and idle. A community of selfish
    and idle people declines, internal quarrels
    develop in the division of its dwindling
    wealth, and pessimism follows, which some
    of them endeavour to drown in sensuality or
    frivolity. In their own surroundings, they are
    unable to redirect their thoughts and their
    energies into new channels.
    But when individual members of such a
    society emigrate into entirely new surroun
    dings, they do not remain conspicuously
    decadent, pessimistic or immoral among the
    inhabitants of their new homeland. Once
    enabled to break away from their old
    channels of thought, and after a short period
    of readjustment, they become normal
    citizens of their adopted countries. Some of
    them, in the second and third generations,
    may attain pre-eminence and leadership in
    their new communities.
    This seems to prove that the decline of any
    nation does not undermine the energies or
    the basic character of its members. Nor does
    the decadence of a number of such nations
    permanently impoverish the human race.
    Decadence is both mental and moral
    deterioration, produced by the slow decline
    of the community from which its members
    cannot escape, as long as they remain in
    their old surroundings. But, transported
    elsewhere, they soon discard their decadent
    ways of thought, and prove themselves equal
    to the other citizens of their adopted country.
    XXXII Decadence is not physical
    Neither is decadence physical. The citizens
    of nations in decline are sometimes
    described as too physically emasculated to be
    able to bear hardship or make great efforts.
    This does not seem to be a true picture.
    Citizens of great nations in decadence are
    normally physically larger and stronger than
    those of their barbarian invaders.
    Moreover, as was proved in Britain in the
    f
    irst World War, young men brought up in
    luxury and wealth found little difficulty in
    accustoming themselves to life in the front
    line trenches. The history of exploration
    proves the same point. Men accustomed to
    comfortable living in homes in Europe or
    America were able to show as much
    endurance as the natives in riding camels
    across the desert or in hacking their way
    through tropical forests.
    Decadence is a moral and spiritual disease,
    resulting from too long a period of wealth
    and power, producing cynicism, decline of
    religion, pessimism and frivolity. The
    citizens of such a nation will no longer make
    an effort to save themselves, because they
    are not convinced that anything in life is
    worth saving.
    XXXII Human diversity
    Generalisations are always dangerous.
    Human beings are all different. The variety
    in human life is endless. If this be the case
    with individuals, it is much more so with
    nations and cultures. No two societies, no
    two peoples, no two cultures are exactly the
    same. In these circumstances, it will be easy
    The Fate of Empires
    21
    for critics to find many objections to what
    has been said, and to point out exceptions to
    the generalisations.
    There is some value in comparing the lives
    of nations to those of individuals. No two
    persons in the world are identical. Moreover
    their lives are often affected by accidents or
    by illness, making the divergences even more
    obvious. Yet, in fact, we can generalise about
    human life from many different aspects. The
    characteristics of childhood, adolescence,
    youth, middle and old age are well known.
    Some adolescents, it is true, are prematurely
    wise and serious. Some persons in middle
    age still seem to he young. But such
    exceptions do not invalidate the general
    character of human life from the cradle to
    the grave.
    I venture to submit that the lives of nations
    follow a similar pattern. Superficially, all
    seem to be completely different. Some years
    ago, a suggestion was submitted to a certain
    television corporation that a series of talks
    on Arab history would form an interesting
    sequence. The proposal was immediately
    vetoed by the director of programmes with
    the remark, \u201cWhat earthly interest could the
    history of medieval Arabs have for the
    general public today?\u201d
    Yet, in fact, the history of the Arab imperial
    age\u2014from conquest through commercialism,
    to affluence, intellectualism, science and
    decadence\u2014is an exact precursor of British
    imperial history and lasted almost exactly
    the same time.
    If British historians, a century ago, had
    devoted serious study to the Arab Empire,
    they could have foreseen almost everything
    that has happened in Britain down to 1976.
    XXXIV A variety of falls
    It has been shown that, normally, the rise
    and fall of great nations are due to internal
    reasons alone. Ten generations of human
    beings suffice to transform the hardy and
    enterprising pioneer into the captious citizen
    of the welfare state. But whereas the life
    histories of great nations show an unex
    pected uniformity, the nature of their falls
    depends largely on outside circumstances
    and thus shows a high degree of diversity.
    The Roman Republic, as we have seen, was
    followed by the empire, which became a
    super-state, in which all the natives of the
    Mediterranean basin, regardless of race,
    possessed equal rights. The name of Rome,
    originally a city-state, passed from it to an
    equalitarian international empire.
    This empire broke in half, the western half
    being overrun by northern barbarians, the
    eastern half forming the East Roman or
    Byzantine Empire.
    The vast Arab Empire broke up in the
    ninth century into many fragments, of which
    one former colony, Moslem Spain, ran its
    own 250-year course as an independent
    empire. The homelands of Syria and Iraq,
    however, were conquered by successive
    waves of Turks to whom they remained
    subject for 1,000 years.
    The Mameluke Empire of Egypt and Syria,
    on the other hand, was conquered in one
    campaign by the Ottomans, the native
    population merely suffering a change of
    masters.
    The Spanish Empire (1500-1750) endured
    for the conventional 250 years, terminated
    only by the loss of its colonies. The homeland
    of Spain fell, indeed, from its high estate of a
    22
    The Fate of Empires
    super-power, but remained as an indepen
    dent nation until today.
    Romanov Russia (1682-1916) ran the
    normal course, but was succeeded by the
    Soviet Union.
    It is unnecessary to labour the point, which
    we may attempt to summarise briefly. Any
    regime which attains great wealth and power
    seems with remarkable regularity to decay
    and fall apart in some ten generations. The
    ultimate fate of its component parts,
    however, does not depend on its internal
    nature, but on the other organisations which
    appear at the time of its collapse and succeed
    in devouring its heritage. Thus the lives of
    great powers are surprisingly uniform, but
    the results of their falls are completely
    diverse.
    XXXV Inadequacy of our historical
    studies
    In fact, the modern nations of the West
    have derived only limited value from their
    historical studies, because they have never
    made them big enough. For history to have
    meaning, as we have already stated, it must
    be the history of the human race.
    Far from achieving such an ideal, our
    historical studies are largely limited to the
    history of our own country during the
    lifetime of the present nation. Thus the time
    factor is too short to allow the longer
    rhythms of the rise and fall of nations even to
    be noticed. As the television director
    indicated, it never even crosses our minds
    that longer periods could be of any interest.
    When we read the history of our own
    nation, we find the actions of our ancestors
    described as glorious, while those of other
    peoples are depicted as mean, tyrannical or
    cowardly. Thus our history is (intentionally)
    not based on facts. We are emotionally
    unwilling to accept that our forbears might
    have been mean or cowardly.
    Alternatively, there are \u2018political\u2019 schools of
    history, slanted to discredit the actions of
    our past leaders, in order to support modern
    political movements. In all these cases,
    history is not an attempt to ascertain the
    truth, but a system of propaganda, devoted
    to the furtherance of modern projects, or the
    gratification of national vanity.
    Men can scarcely be blamed for not
    learning from the history they are taught.
    There is nothing to learn from it, because it
    is not true.
    XXXVI Small nations
    The word \u2018empires\u2019 has been used in this
    essay to signify nations which achieve the
    status of great powers, or super-powers, in
    the jargon of today\u2014nations which have
    dominated the international scene for two or
    three centuries. At any given time, however,
    there are also smaller states which are more
    or less self-contained. Do these live the same
    \u2018lives\u2019 as the great nations, and pass through
    the same phases?
    It seems impossible to generalise on this
    issue. In general, decadence is the outcome
    of too long a period of wealth and power. If
    the small country has not shared in the
    wealth and power, it will not share in the
    decadence.
    XXXVII The emerging pattern
    In spite of the endless variety and the
    infinite complications of human life, a
    general pattern does seem to emerge from
    these considerations. It reveals many
    successive empires covering some 3,000
    years, as having followed similar stages of
    The Fate of Empires
    23
    development and decline, and as having, to a
    surprising degree, \u2018lived\u2019 lives of very similar
    length.
    The life-expectation of a great nation, it
    appears, commences with a violent, and
    usually unforeseen, outburst of energy, and
    ends in a lowering of moral standards,
    cynicism, pessimism and frivolity.
    If the present writer were a millionaire, he
    would try to establish in some university or
    other a department dedicated solely to the
    study of the rhythm of the rise and fall of
    powerful nations throughout the world.
    History goes back only some 3,000 years,
    because before that period writing was not
    sufficiently widespread to allow of the
    survival of detailed records. But within that
    period, the number of empires available for
    study is very great.
    At the commencement of this essay, the
    names of eleven such empires were listed,
    but these included only the Middle East and
    the modern nations of the West. India, China
    and Southern America were not included,
    because the writer knows nothing about
    them. A school founded to study the rise and
    fall of empires would probably find at least
    twenty-four great powers available for
    dissection and analysis.
    The task would not be an easy one, if
    indeed the net were cast so wide as to cover
    virtually all the world\u2019s great nations in 3,000
    years. The knowledge of language alone, to
    enable detailed investigations to be pursued,
    would present a formidable obstacle.
    XXXVIII Would it help?
    It is pleasing to imagine that, from such
    studies, a regular life-pattern of nations
    would emerge, including an analysis of the
    various changes which ultimately lead to
    decline, decadence and collapse. It is
    tempting to assume that measures could be
    adopted to forestall the disastrous effects of
    excessive wealth and power, and thence of
    subsequent decadence. Perhaps some means
    could be devised to prevent the activist Age
    of Conquests and Commerce deteriorating
    into the Age of Intellect, producing endless
    talking but no action.
    It is tempting to think so. Perhaps if the
    pattern of the rise and fall of nations were
    regularly taught in schools, the general
    public would come to realise the truth, and
    would support policies to maintain the spirit
    of duty and self-sacrifice, and to forestall the
    accumulation of excessive wealth by one
    nation, leading to the demoralisation of that
    nation.
    Could not the sense of duty and the
    initiative needed to give rise to action be
    retained parallel with intellectual develop
    ment and the discoveries of natural science?
    The answer is doubtful, though we could
    but try. The weaknesses of human nature,
    however, are so obvious, that we cannot be
    too confident of success. Men bursting with
    courage, energy and self-confidence cannot
    easily be restrained from subduing their
    neighbours, and men who see the prospect of
    wealth open to them will not readily be
    prevented from pursuing it.
    Perhaps it is not in the real interest of
    humanity that they should be so prevented,
    for it is in periods of wealth that art,
    architecture, music, science and literature
    make the greatest progress.
    Moreover, as we have seen where great
    empires are concerned, their establishment
    may give rise to wars and tragedies, but their
    periods of power often bring peace, security
    and prosperity to vast areas of territory. Our
    24
    The Fate of Empires
    knowledge and our experience (perhaps our
    basic human intellects) are inadequate to
    pronounce whether or not the rise and fall of
    great nations is the best system for the best
    of all possible worlds.
    These doubts, however, need not prevent
    us from attempting to acquire more
    knowledge on the rise and fall of great
    powers, or from endeavouring, in the light of
    such knowledge, to improve the moral
    quality of human life.
    Perhaps, in fact, we may reach the
    conclusion that the successive rise and fall of
    great nations is inevitable and, indeed, a
    system divinely ordained. But even this
    would be an immense gain. For we should
    know where we stand in relation to our
    human brothers and sisters. In our present
    state of mental chaos on the subject, we
    divide ourselves into nations, parties or
    communities and fight, hate and vilify one
    another over developments which may
    perhaps be divinely ordained and which
    seem to us, if we take a broader view,
    completely uncontrollable and inevitable. If
    we could accept these great movements as
    beyond our control, there would be no
    excuse for our hating one another because of
    them.
    However varied, confusing and contra
    dictory the religious history of the world may
    appear, the noblest and most spiritual of the
    devotees of all religions seem to reach the
    conclusion that love is the key to human life.
    Any expansion of our knowledge which may
    lead to a reduction in our unjustified hates is
    therefore surely well worth while.
    XXXIX Summary
    As numerous points of interest have arisen
    in the course of this essay, I close with a brief
    summary, to refresh the reader\u2019s mind.
    (a) We do not learn from history because
    our studies are brief and prejudiced.
    (b) In a surprising manner, 250 years
    emerges as the average length of national
    greatness.
    (c) This average has not varied for 3,000
    years. Does it represent ten generations?
    (d) The stages of the rise and fall of great
    nations seem to be:
    The Age of Pioneers (outburst)
    The Age of Conquests
    The Age of Commerce
    The Age of Affluence
    The Age of Intellect
    The Age of Decadence.
    (e) Decadence is marked by:
    Defensiveness
    Pessimism
    Materialism
    Frivolity
    An influx of foreigners
    The Welfare State
    A weakening of religion.
    (f) Decadence is due to:
    Too long a period of wealth and power
    Selfishness
    Love of money
    The loss of a sense of duty.
    (g) The life histories of great states are
    amazingly similar, and are due to internal
    factors.
    (h) Their falls are diverse, because they are
    largely the result of external causes.
    (i) History should be taught as the history
    of the human race, though of course with
    emphasis on the history of the student\u2019s own
    country.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    CLICK HERE TO SEARCH for HISTORY James L. Melton – Favorites \u00b76h \u00b7 (12) Facebook THE FATE OF EMPIRES and SEARCH FOR SURVIVAL Sir John Glubb (The following is the closing summary of Glubb’s fine work.) As numerous points of interest have arisen in the course of this essay, I close with a brief summary, to refresh…
    Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,8,145,126,6,3,101,133,120],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-baptisthistory","category-family","category-government-military-protection","category-history-of-american-liberty","category-bibleprophecy","category-salvation","category-someone-recently-asked-this-question","category-the-crusades-vs-the-inquisitions","category-truth-politics-religion-business-science"],"yoast_head":"\nWHY...? We do not learn from history...? because our studies are brief and prejudiced? - Earnestly Contend For The Faith Jude 3<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"WHY...? We do not learn from history...? because our studies are brief and prejudiced? - Earnestly Contend For The Faith Jude 3\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"CLICK HERE TO SEARCH for HISTORY James L. Melton – Favorites \u00b76h \u00b7 (12) Facebook THE FATE OF EMPIRES and SEARCH FOR SURVIVAL Sir John Glubb (The following is the closing summary of Glubb’s fine work.) 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