End Times
Elites, Counter-Elites and the Path of Political Disintegration
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4.3 • 3 Ratings
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- £5.99
Publisher Description
THE THOUGHT BOOK OF THE YEAR, THE TIMES
A GUARDIAN BOOK OF THE YEAR
'Game of Thrones-style intra-elite conflict meets big data' TLS
'Extraordinary. . . the culmination of many years of highly original and innovative work' Bloomberg
One of the most iconoclastic thinkers of our time offers a brilliant new theory of how society works
What leads to political turbulence and social breakdown? How do elites maintain their dominant position? And why do ruling classes sometimes suddenly lose their grip on power?
For decades, complexity scientist Peter Turchin has been studying world history like no-one else. Assembling vast databases mined from 10,000 years of human activity, and then developing new models, he has transformed the way we learn from the past. End Times is the result: a ground-breaking account of how society works.
The lessons, he argues, are clear. When the balance of power between the ruling class and the majority tips too far in favour of elites, income inequality surges. The rich get richer, the poor further impoverished. As more people try to join the elite, frustration with the establishment brims over, often with disastrous consequences. Elite overproduction led to state breakdown in imperial China, in medieval France, in the American Civil War - and it is happening now.
But while we are far along the path toward violent political rupture, Turchin's models also light the way to a brighter future. Drawing insight from those occasions in history where the balance was restored, End Times also points towards a different future: an escape from the patterns of the past.
BEST BOOKS OF SUMMER 2023: THE GUARDIAN * THE TIMES * SUNDAY TIMES
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Poverty at the bottom and cutthroat elitism at the top breed disaster, according to this scintillating theory of history. Complexity scientist Turchin (Ages of Discord) deploys "cliodynamics"—the study of historical change—to survey revolutions, civil wars, and other upheavals, and assess the likelihood of such unrest in the U.S. in coming decades. His scholarship involves datasets and mathematical models, but he boils it down to a few lucid principles centered around socioeconomic "wealth pumps" that shunt resources from the working class to the rich, resulting in "popular immiseration" and discontent, along with "elite overproduction" of privileged people squabbling over a finite pie of power and status. Turchin applies this framework to many historical settings, including 14th-century France, as well as contemporary American politics, where he explores the resentments of blue-collar white men with declining incomes; the frustration of swelling numbers of college grads who can't land jobs commensurate with their elite diplomas; and the opportunism of "counter-elite" political entrepreneurs like Donald Trump, who radicalize working-class populists from the right or degree-hoarding progressives from the left. Turchin's elegantly written treatment looks beneath partisan jousting to class interests that cycle over generations, but also yields timely policy insights. It's a stimulating analysis of antagonisms past and present, and the crack-up they may be leading to.
