War and Peace and War Quotes

“The collapse of order brings in its wake the four horsemen of the apocalypse - famine, war, pestilence, and death. Population declines, and wages increase, while rents decrease. As incomes of commoners recover, the fortunes of the upper classes hit the bottom. Economic distress of the elites and lack of effective government feed the continuing internecine wars. But civil wars thin the ranks of the elites. Some die in factional fighting, others succumb to feuds with neighbors, and many just give up on trying to maintain their noble status and quietly slip into the ranks of the commoners. Intra-elite competition subsides, allowing order to be restored. Stability and internal peace bring prosperity, and another secular cycle begins. 'So peace brings warre and warre brings peace.”
― Peter Turchin, War and Peace and War: The Rise and Fall of Empires

“Ironically enough, although externally corporations brutally compete in the free market, their internal workings rely not on market forces, but on group solidarity!”
― Peter Turchin, War and Peace and War: The Rise and Fall of Empires

“it is one thing to have a qualitative impression of something, and a very different thing to have a quantitative estimate of the same thing, based on cold, hard numbers. Science thrives on numbers.”
― Peter Turchin, War and Peace and War: The Rise and Fall of Empires

“Randomness is a general model that scientists use for things they do not understand.”
― Peter Turchin, War and Peace and War: The Rise and Fall of Empires

“great empires die not by murder, but by suicide.”
― Peter Turchin, War and Peace and War: The Rise and Fall of Empires

“Imagine hearing on CNN that yesterday yet another American town was wiped out by the “Reds.” (Let’s leave the precise identity of the enemy unspecified.) All men were killed, women raped and then also slain, and those children who were not slaughtered immediately were instead carried away to be sold on the organ black market. Or that the Reds again tortured a U.S. serviceman to death, videotaped it, and showed it repeatedly on the Al Reddiyyah channel. Or perhaps an interview with a ransomed captive about her horrible experiences at the hands of the Reds. You would hear a story of this kind once a week throughout your life; and the same state of affairs was in place when your parents and grandparents grew up. Without doubt, any society subjected to such pressures for generations would be transformed.”
― Peter Turchin, War and Peace and War: The Rise and Fall of Empires

“It is much easier for equals to achieve the unity of purpose and to develop a common course of action. Egalitarianism enables cooperation.”
― Peter Turchin, War and Peace and War: The Rise and Fall of Empires

“in a struggle between two groups of people, the group with stronger norms promoting cooperation and the most people following such norms has a greater chance of winning.”
― Peter Turchin, War and Peace and War: The Rise and Fall of Empires

“Bowling Alone”
― Peter Turchin, War and Peace and War: The Rise and Fall of Empires