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The Causes of Disintegration and Fall of Empires: Sociological and Historical Analyses

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 July 2024

Samuel N. Eisenstadt
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The preoccupation with the causes of fall of Great Empires has been a continuous focus of interest and object of fascination for historians, philosophers of history and social scientists. It was in their dealing with the causes of downfalls of Empires that historians had at least to imply some of their more general assumptions about human nature and about the nature of society, about the moral and natural forces which sustain or break a social and political order. It was here that even the most antiquarian or matter-of-fact historians were often entrapped into discussing such general problems and had to “show their hand” with regard to such more general questions or assumptions.

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 9 , Issue 34 , June 1961 , pp. 82 - 107
Copyright
Copyright © 1961 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

References

1 The following discussion is based on a comparative sociological analysis of historical political systems on which the author has been engaged for several years and which will be published in 1961 by the Free Press, Glencoe, Ill. For some preliminary formulations see: S. N. Eisenstadt, "Political Struggle in Bureaucratic Societies," World Politics, Vol. IX, Oct. 1956, N° 1, pp. 15-37; S. N. Eisenstadt, "Internal Contradictions in Bureaucratic Politics", Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. L, Oct. 1958, No. 1, pp. 50-76.

2 A. H. M. Jones, "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," History, Vol. XL, Oct. 1955, No. 140, pp. 109-277.

3 See N. H. Baynes, "The Decline of the Roman Power in Western Empire," reprinted in Byzantine Studies and other Essays, London 1955, pp. 33-97.

4 A. E. R. Boak, "The Role of Policy in the Fall of the Roman Empire," Michigan Alumnus, Quarterly Review, LVI, 1950, pp. 281-284.

5 B. Lewis, "Some Reflections on the Decline of the Ottoman Empire," Studia Islamica, IX, 1958, pp. 112-127.

6 G. Ostrogorsky, History of the Byzantine State, Oxford 1956, and for more succinct exposition of his analysis of the major trends of development of Byzantine Social and Economic Structure: "Die wirtschaftlichen und sozialen Entwicklungs grundlagen des Byzantinischen Reiches," Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirt schaftsgeschichte, XXII (1929) pp. 129-43; "Die Perioden der Byzantinischen Ge schichte," Historische Zeitschrift, Vol. 163, 1941, pp. 238-254.

7 Cl. Cahen, "L'Histoire Economique et Sociale de l'Orient Musulman Mé diéval," Studia Islamica, Vol. 1, p. 55, pp. 3-116.

Cl. Cahen, Les Facteurs Economiques et Sociaux dans l'Ankylose Culturelle de l'Islam, in R. Brunsvick & G. E. von Grunebaum, Classicisme et Déclin Culturel dans l'Histoire de l'Islam, Paris 1958, pp. 159-217.

Cl. Cahen, Leçons d'Histoire Musulmane, Cours de la Sorbonne (mim.), Paris 1958, Vol. 1-3.

8 The best general survey on the system of sales of offices is K. W. Swart, Sales of Offices in the 17th Century, The Hague, 1949.

9 This term has been often used by F. Altheim in his Studies of Roman and Sassanid History; see for instance, F. Altheim, Gesicht vom Abend und Morgen, Frankfurt, 1955, passim.

10 A much fuller comprehensive analysis will be given in the forthcoming analysis of the social structure of these Empires.