ANCIENT Egypt, the Roman Empire, the聽Maya, China鈥檚 Qing dynasty 鈥 these civilisations all shone brightly in their time. Yet, in every case, the glory days were followed by collapse. This seems to be the inevitable trajectory of any culture. What鈥檚 more, it looks like Western civilisation is experiencing this fate right now. Signs of crisis聽are obvious, from rising economic inequality and political polarisation to violent聽conflict and ecological disasters. Many聽see this as a that poses聽a severe, possibly existential, threat to聽contemporary societies.
I predicted this would happen. More than two decades ago, in an attempt to uncover underlying patterns. Using this approach, I discovered that violent political instability follows two cycles, one peaking every 50 years or so, superimposed over another that does so every two or three centuries.
Applying this to the US and western Europe, I was shocked to discover that these societies were well advanced on the road to crisis. In 2010, in Nature, . A decade later, .
You might have come across some of these ideas recently, following the publication of my book . Perhaps unsurprisingly, reviewers used words like 鈥渃ollapse鈥, 鈥渞evolution鈥 or even 鈥渄oom鈥 to describe my聽work. So, it may surprise you to learn that聽I聽don鈥檛 believe collapse is inevitable. In fact, my latest research reveals something fascinating and encouraging: human societies have evolved to become less…