What can history teach us about the present?

Is there a science of history? Are there patterns in human affairs that tend to repeat themselves? Can we understand what is happening in our time by studying the past? These are questions that have intrigued me for a long time. Based on my study of systems, networks, political economy, and human behavior, my conclusions tends toward the affirmative in each case.

Based on his book, 1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed, Prof. Eric Cline, in this fascinating lecture, looks back more than 3,200 years to describe the collapse of an earlier “global” civilization.  He presents evidence of an elaborate trading network around the Mediterranean which was composed of what he calls “the G8 of the ancient world.”

Here is a portion of the description from the YouTube channel:
“From about 1500 BC to 1200 BC, the Mediterranean region played host to a complex cosmopolitan and globalized world-system. It may have been this very internationalism that contributed to the apocalyptic disaster that ended the Bronze Age. When the end came, the civilized and international world of the Mediterranean regions came to a dramatic halt in a vast area stretching from Greece and Italy in the west to Egypt, Canaan, and Mesopotamia in the east. Large empires and small kingdoms collapsed rapidly. With their end came the world’s first recorded Dark Ages. It was not until centuries later that a new cultural renaissance emerged in Greece and the other affected areas, setting the stage for the evolution of Western society as we know it today. Professor Eric H. Cline of The George Washington University will explore why the Bronze Age came to an end and whether the collapse of those ancient civilizations might hold some warnings for our current society.”

On the same general topic, Ian Morris, Professor of History at Stanford University, in his lecture Why the West Rules — For Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future, points to the same primary factors that lead to the collapse of civilizations.

Mass migration
Epidemic diseases
State failure
Famine
Climate change

Historically, each collapse had been followed by a “dark age.” Is that what’s in store for us in our time? View the full lecture at https://youtu.be/wnqS7G3LmMo.