The evolution of civilizations
by Carroll Quigley · first published 1961
7mentions
3recommended by
6HN commenters
2009–2025first – last mentioned
50% recommend50% neutral
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The ones that cut through the stale version taught in schools. Mostly Carroll Quigley's works like Tragedy and Hope, Anglo-American Establishment, or The Evolution of Civilizations. Another I consider at the level of Quigley is Anthony Sutton. There are quite a few less academically accurate books that are good eye openers anyway like Howard Zinn's A Peoples History of the United…
on “Ask HN: What are your favorite history books?” ↗…conspiratorial leaning rants on hn come from his very academic and dry but largely unknown analysis of the world power structure). Luckily, some have been made readily available on the internet. Here is The Evolution of Civilizations: An Introduction to Historical Analysis by him, which I think would be one of the best starting points for your type of historical curiosity. http://www.carrollquigley.net/pdf/Carroll-Quigley-TheEvoluti...
on “The Griffin Warrior Tomb Upends What We Know About the Roots of Mycenae” ↗Introducing NLP - Joseph O'Connor, John Seymour, Propaganda - Edward Bernays, Tragedy & Hope - Quigley, Evolution of Civilizations - Quigley, 911: The Road to Tyranny - Alex Jones, New Order of Barbarians, AA-1025
on “Ask HN: What accelerated your understanding of how the world works?” ↗Another book that covers the topic - Quigley's the Evolution of Civilizations. Taken from a summary: "Quigley defines a civilization as “a producing society with an instrument of expansion.” A civilization’s decline is not inevitable but occurs when its instrument of expansion…
on “Institutions try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution” ↗> All in all, once an organization gets big enough, power does what power wants, There is an interesting hypothesis for this in the book "The Evolution of Civilizations" by Carroll Quigley[1]. Basically his idea in the book is that as organizations (or civilizations) get beyond a certain critical mass, people start to lose connection with the collective goals that originally…
on “Thoughts on (Amazonian) leadership” ↗Carol Quigley points out in "Evolution of Civilizations" that institutions over time tend to do the opposite of their initial stated purpose with football being one example: A game called football was invented about 1870 to provide healthful physical exercise…
on “CA Governor Signs Bill Allowing College Athletes to Profit from Endorsements” ↗Political stress because of resentment due to rampant economic inequality. One of the theses of "The Evolution of Civilizations" by Carroll Quigley is that many major civilizations of the past have collapsed because of economic inequality that got too large. We need a Marshall Plan to deal with the underlying causes. Even if…
on ““Political stress” statistic predicts growing US political violence” ↗