The End is Always Near Quotes

“A history professor once told me that there are two ways we learn: you can put your hand on the hot stove, or you can hear tales of people who already did that and how it turned out for them.”
― Dan Carlin, The End Is Always Near: Apocalyptic Moments, from the Bronze Age Collapse to Nuclear Near Misses

“History is filled with the sound of silken slippers going downstairs and wooden shoes coming up,' Voltaire reportedly said. The observation refers to the argument that fortunes of nations or civilizations or societies rise and fall based on the character of their people, and this character is heavily influenced by the material and moral condition of their society. The idea was a staple of history writing from ancient Greece until it began to decline in popularity after the middle of the twentieth century.”
― Dan Carlin, The End is Always Near: Apocalyptic Moments, from the Bronze Age Collapse to Nuclear Near Misses

“To imagine the twenty-first-century world being hit with a great plague like the great disease pandemics of the past is fantasy, yet it’s also extremely possible and has happened many times before.”
― Dan Carlin, The End Is Always Near: Apocalyptic Moments, from the Bronze Age Collapse to Nuclear Near Misses

“Without realizing it, the Roman decision makers were parceling out the empire to the people who would eventually run these regions when the central authority fell apart—in effect creating their own successor states. As the historian Roger Collins writes: “What is genuinely striking . . . is the haphazard, almost accidental nature of the process. From 410 onwards, successive Western imperial regimes just gave way or lost practical authority over more and more of the territory of the former Empire. The Western Empire delegated itself out of existence.”
― Dan Carlin, The End Is Always Near: Apocalyptic Moments, from the Bronze Age Collapse to Nuclear Near Misses

“But it's never wise to bet against any of the four horsemen long term. Their historical track record is horrifyingly good.”
― Dan Carlin, The End is Always Near: Apocalyptic Moments, from the Bronze Age Collapse to Nuclear Near Misses

“In war, rational decisions are made for less than rational situations.”
― Dan Carlin, The End Is Always Near: Apocalyptic Moments, from the Bronze Age Collapse to Nuclear Near Misses

“The human ripples of pain are still heartbreaking when made visible to us now. Our friend Agnolo the Fat wrote: “Father abandoned child, wife husband, one brother another; for this illness seemed to strike through the breath and sight. And so they died. And none could be found to bury the dead for money or friendship. Members of a household brought their dead to a ditch as best they could, without priest, without divine offices.” The essence of that account is of an epidemic destroying the very bonds of human society. When was the last time the developed world experienced such a rapid descent into a microbial hell? And if parents abandoning children wasn’t destabilizing enough, other support elements in society were shattered by the justifiable fear of the pestilence. The natural human inclination to seek companionship and support from one’s neighbors was short-circuited. No one wanted to catch whatever was killing everybody. In an era when people congregating together was so much more important than it is in our modern, so-called connected world, people kept their distance from one another, creating one of the silent tragedies of this plague: that they had to suffer virtually alone.”
― Dan Carlin, The End is Always Near: Apocalyptic Moments, from the Bronze Age Collapse to Nuclear Near Misses

“Albert Einstein is supposed to have said that he didn’t know what sort of weapons the Third World War would be fought with, but the one after it would be fought with sticks and stones.”
― Dan Carlin, The End Is Always Near: Apocalyptic Moments, from the Bronze Age Collapse to Nuclear Near Misses

“The historian Gwynne Dyer has said that Sennacherib destroyed Babylon as thoroughly as a nuclear bomb would have. In fact, the only difference between the ancient world and the modern is that it took a lot more human muscle power to accomplish the same thing.”
― Dan Carlin, The End Is Always Near: Apocalyptic Moments, from the Bronze Age Collapse to Nuclear Near Misses

“Could you suggest that child rearing practices could affect a nation's foreign policy? If it seems unlikely, imagine a world where half the adults are child abuse victims, and consider the many strange and unforeseen consequences that might manifest.”
― Dan Carlin, The End is Always Near: Apocalyptic Moments, from the Bronze Age Collapse to Nuclear Near Misses

“If humankind ever spawns another dark age because we engage in a global thermonuclear war, perhaps we will all feel as Charlton Heston did when he screamed, “You maniacs! You blew it up!” But if that is the outcome we get, it won’t be because that’s what anybody wanted at the time.”
― Dan Carlin, The End Is Always Near: Apocalyptic Moments, from the Bronze Age Collapse to Nuclear Near Misses

“Today, when we talk about the two atomic bombs* the United States dropped on Japan, we tend to do so in the context of the morality of dropping them. The truth is, the decision makers almost certainly didn’t have the range of options we often assume (or wish) they had. The idea that President Truman could have done something other than use the atomic bomb on Japan is probably a little out of step with the political realities of the time.* As the historian Garry Wills wrote in his book Bomb Power: “If it became known that the United States had a knockout weapon it did not use, the families of any Americans killed after the development of the bomb would be furious. The public, the press, and Congress would turn on the President and his advisors. There would have been a cry to impeach President Truman and court-martial General Groves. The administration would be convicted of spending billions of dollars and draining massive amounts of brain power and manpower from other war projects and all for nothing.”
― Dan Carlin, The End Is Always Near: Apocalyptic Moments, from the Bronze Age Collapse to Nuclear Near Misses

“The anthropologist Joseph Tainter said that in some regions the Roman Empire taxed its citizens so highly, and provided so few services in return, that some of those people welcomed the “conquering barbarians” as liberators.”
― Dan Carlin, The End Is Always Near: Apocalyptic Moments, from the Bronze Age Collapse to Nuclear Near Misses

“Smallpox is one of the most infamous diseases in history. To give an idea of its virulence, it killed an estimated 300 to 500 million people in the twentieth century alone,* but the disease was eradicated from the planet in 1980*—meaning half a billion people were killed by smallpox in just eight decades.”
― Dan Carlin, The End Is Always Near: Apocalyptic Moments, from the Bronze Age Collapse to Nuclear Near Misses

“Will we ever again have the type of pandemics that rapidly kill large percentages of the population? This was a feature of normal human existence until relatively recently, but seems almost like science fiction to imagine today.”
― Dan Carlin, The End Is Always Near: Apocalyptic Moments, from the Bronze Age Collapse to Nuclear Near Misses

“So, did the Roman Empire “fall” to the “barbarians,” or did it transition to an equal yet more decentralized era, one with a more Germanic flair?”
― Dan Carlin, The End Is Always Near: Apocalyptic Moments, from the Bronze Age Collapse to Nuclear Near Misses

“It is a sign of the insanity of the times that the very people who had designed a precision-oriented air force because public opinion before the war wouldn’t condone the targeting of women and children had by 1944 largely shed those concerns.”
― Dan Carlin, The End Is Always Near: Apocalyptic Moments, from the Bronze Age Collapse to Nuclear Near Misses

“It makes one wonder why our ancestors—many of whom were perfectly smart people—didn’t see how damaging these practices were. Yet perhaps our concept of what constitutes “damage” is different from theirs. They were raising kids to live in their world, a world alien to us. Besides, who knows what child-rearing experts of the future will think about our current practices? Maybe our best practices now will be deemed abusive or damaging to children by future standards. In our defense, we could probably say that we did the best we could knowing what we know now—but that’s also probably what our ancestors would have said.”
― Dan Carlin, The End Is Always Near: Apocalyptic Moments, from the Bronze Age Collapse to Nuclear Near Misses

“As a hurricane precedes, I attacked it, and like a storm, I overthrew it. Its inhabitants young and old I did not spare, and with their corpses, I filled the streets of the city. The town itself and its houses, from their foundations to their roofs, I devastated, I destroyed. By fire, I overthrew in order that in future, even the soil of its temples would be forgotten.”
― Dan Carlin, The End Is Always Near: Apocalyptic Moments, from the Bronze Age Collapse to Nuclear Near Misses

“However, if the Western militaries were forced to fight using the same weapons as the Afghans—AK-47s, rocket-propelled grenades, and IEDs—and they, in turn, used our drones, fighter planes, and cruise missiles, then the question of our toughness versus theirs might be crucial. Remember, the Afghans have been a people at war for forty years, against a multitude of opponents. In some ways, they might be more like our grandparents when it comes to toughness than we are.”
― Dan Carlin, The End Is Always Near: Apocalyptic Moments, from the Bronze Age Collapse to Nuclear Near Misses

“To imagine the twenty-first-century world being hit with a great plague like the great disease pandemics of the past is fantasy,”
― Dan Carlin, The End Is Always Near: Apocalyptic Moments, from the Bronze Age Collapse to Nuclear Near Misses

“It may seem strange to suggest that high levels of illness might make human beings tougher, but the effect on a society of relatively regular and lethal epidemics and the mortality they cause certainly might have created a level of resilience that most of us today probably don't possess.”
― Dan Carlin, The End is Always Near: Apocalyptic Moments, from the Bronze Age Collapse to Nuclear Near Misses

“Со времен возникновения человеческой цивилизации общества «возвышались» и «падали», «добивались прогресса» и «переживали упадок» – или, по крайней мере, именно так утверждалось в письменной истории. Сегодня историки чаще говорят о «переходе», не используя термины поступательного или ретроградного развития.

Согласно этому представлению, малопроизводительные племена извне тянулись внутрь, к богатым (но, скорее всего, слабым) «цивилизованным» народам. Сдержать напор человеческого моря можно было только огромными усилиями. Иногда варварские племена прорывались внутрь и уничтожали какой-то город, регион или даже государство. С этой точки зрения кризис конца бронзового века подобен идеальному шторму, который привел в движение многие внешние народы

Римляне принесли «блага цивилизации» значительной части мира. Но когда римляне возвращались домой, они зачастую забирали свои «блага» с собой. И вот в этот-то момент местная статуя Свободы начинала медленно погружаться в песок.

Через поколение после появления на Западе чумы общество было охвачено глубоким пессимизмом. Став свидетелями эпидемии, которая погубила около семидесяти пяти миллионов человек – более половины населения известного мира, – люди погружались в шарлатанство и мистицизм. Другие начинали жить одним днем. Повсюду царили оргии, насилие, грабежи и убийства. Люди просто считали, что им нечего терять. Четверть тех, кто жил в Англии в XV веке, не вступали в брак. Такова поразительная статистика того времени.

Сочетание эпидемии с началом истинной глобализации было чудовищным.

В апреле 1950 Трумэну представили один из самых важных документов того периода, директиву NSC‑68. В ней цели Соединенных Штатов излагались в терминах поистине апокалиптических. «Перед нами стоят проблемы исключительной важности, – говорилось в документе, – которые грозят уничтожить не только республику, но и саму цивилизацию». Политические рекомендации документа были просто фантастическими, и среди них была рекомендация продолжить работы над водородной бомбой. Кроме того, предлагалось в три раза увеличить расходы на неядерную национальную оборону.

стало очевидно: чтобы Корейская война не превратилась в третью мировую, все крупные державы должны создать правдоподобное отрицание, чтобы никто не решил, что это и есть третья мировая война.

журналист спросил американского президента: «Президент Трумэн, это война? Мы ведем войну?». «Нет, мы войну не ведем», – ответил Трумэн. «Тогда что же это? Это действия по наведению порядка?» – настаивал репортер. «Да, – ответил президент. – Именно так!» И с того времени все стало называться «действиями по наведению порядка»: в войне ядерное оружие использовать можно, в полицейских действиях по наведению порядка – нельзя.”
― Dan Carlin, The End is Always Near: Apocalyptic Moments, from the Bronze Age Collapse to Nuclear Near Misses

“Churchill was also concerned with the loss of European heritage that the bombing was causing. Even after the people being directly affected by the war were dead and gone, their great-great-great-grandchildren would still suffer the loss of their heritage going back to Roman times. Their cultural inheritance was being destroyed by this logical insanity. And it wasn’t just Europe. It was happening in Japan and China and lots of other countries.”
― Dan Carlin, The End Is Always Near: Apocalyptic Moments, from the Bronze Age Collapse to Nuclear Near Misses

“We currently live in an era of human history that some have referred to as the Long Peace. There has not been a war for more than seven decades between great powers such as we’ve seen from Mesopotamia onward—the world wars, the Napoleonic Wars, the Thirty Years’ War, the Hundred Years’ War, the Punic Wars. Large-scale warfare between the most powerful states has been a regular feature of human history right up until about seventy-five years ago—right about the time that humanity’s weaponry made a quantum leap forward in power. This is not to say there haven’t been bloody conflicts—human violence is, alas, ongoing and constant—but we’ve managed to avoid major conflicts between the superpowers. Have we seen the last of the big wars?”
― Dan Carlin, The End Is Always Near: Apocalyptic Moments, from the Bronze Age Collapse to Nuclear Near Misses

“while it goes without saying that wars are bad for those who lose them, in many circumstances, wars can be a negative for all involved. By the last year of the First World War, for example, all the nations that had begun the war four years before had been ground down by it. The economies that were paying for the costs of the conflict were in shambles. The damage the war caused to the global system meant that the conflict was harmful even to nations that were not a part of the fight.”
― Dan Carlin, The End Is Always Near: Apocalyptic Moments, from the Bronze Age Collapse to Nuclear Near Misses

“Our version of Rome could fragment as the Roman Empire did. A pandemic could easily arise and if bad enough could remind us what life was like for human beings before modern medicine. A nuclear war could occur, or environmental disaster could await us. We may yet find ourselves in a reality that future ages read about in books on examples of extreme human experiences or warnings about things to avoid doing. Hubris is, after all, a pretty classic human trait. As my dad used to say, “Don’t get cocky.”
― Dan Carlin, The End Is Always Near: Apocalyptic Moments, from the Bronze Age Collapse to Nuclear Near Misses

“The same sense of hubris affects us today as affected the generation that was blindsided by the Spanish Influenza. A modern epidemic comparable with the great ones of the past is a thing more akin to science fiction to most people living today rather than something seen as a realistic possibility.”
― Dan Carlin, The End Is Always Near: Apocalyptic Moments, from the Bronze Age Collapse to Nuclear Near Misses

“It still can be. The same sense of hubris affects us today as affected the generation that was blindsided by the Spanish Influenza. A modern epidemic comparable with the great ones of the past is a thing more akin to science fiction to most people living today rather than something seen as a realistic possibility.”
― Dan Carlin, The End Is Always Near: Apocalyptic Moments, from the Bronze Age Collapse to Nuclear Near Misses

“To imagine the twenty-first-century world being hit with a great plague like the great disease pandemics of the past is fantasy, yet it’s also extremely possible and has happened many times before. What’s the connection between the factual past and the speculative future?”
― Dan Carlin, The End Is Always Near: Apocalyptic Moments, from the Bronze Age Collapse to Nuclear Near Misses