patrick.net

Sounds like The Muqqadimah by Ibn Khaldun about 1200 AD.

It's a good little book and I'll finish it soon.

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—to 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—the fear of facing up to the
situation.)
Boys’ 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.

Another good quote:

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’ 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-
fishness or human self-dedication, can only
lead to collapse.

XXI Civil dissensions
Another remarkable and unexpected
symptom of national decline is the intensi-
fication 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. ...

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—Persians, 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
The Fate of Empires14
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—bread and
games—is 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.

Finished it. I agree with everything in it, and I think it does indeed recapitulate The Muqaddimah by Ibn Khaldun.

It's also a basic Red Pill teaching and there are a lot of memes about it:










https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/hard-times-create-strong-men/photos

You know, those stages of empire mirror the stages of life:

- illiterate and primitive: youth
- bursts upon the world: young man
- military success: grown man
- commercial success: older man
- decadent: very old man who doesn't give a shit anymore

I'm currently reading this book and have found it quite fascinating. It follows along the same basic lines of work by Sir John Glubb (see original thread above), but goes into much greater detail.

It was published back in 1997, which makes it interesting to see how accurate the author's predictions were. If you are interested, there is a free PDF download here:

The Fourth Turning An American Prophecy What The Cycles Of History Tell Us About Americas Next Rendezvous With Destiny By William Strauss, Neil Howe

https://archive.org/details/the-fourth-turning-an-american-prophecy-what-the-cycles-of-history-tell-us-about

PS: I wish that they had not chosen to use the word 'prophecy' in their subtitle, which gives the impression that this is based upon some type of religious prophecy. It isn't. The book's authors basically interpret historical cycles and trends and uses that information as a guide for what they believe the future is probably going to look like.

Also, check out what Amazon reviewers have to say about it here:

https://www.amazon.com/Fourth-Turning-Here-Seasons-History-ebook/dp/B0BHTNV8HN?ref=ast_author_dp&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.0G9g8qqjBCy0o2es23F0J9eHzc_wAVpaoGwk67mTHeP6A0uyMg6M8PX9YiwzpRn3IW7jxBkdtulZsmkQGn598p063kI2FjIJVLfEE2jNbf6bFP-mwLF1nIM3W03it6oP4k41r9rscgNGyq5XaPc5ZxCM3yczyIpR0lSDF0uCeTiV7-roKucbvBOofwKQ8L5P.n1hCTYDBNZMtbjHJg96gpbKSIgacdVvp18l8-VeRoEM&dib_tag=AUTHOR#customerReviews