Though many have tried, no one has yet found a convincing explanation for the rise and fall of empires. At an arbitrary moment of history a people suddenly manifests a surge of energy. Explorers, soldiers, adventurers, priests, organizers, merchants, educators burst out across sea and land. As geographic, political, economic and cultural structure embracing hitherto disparate lands and populations.
Then a generation or a century or at most four or five centuries later – the curve reverses and the cycle is quickly completed. The flag is lowered at the frontier posts. The outriders fall back. The energy dries up. The overriding structures erode, crack and collapse. What brings this fatal change? Perhaps there is no specific answer; perhaps it is merely that all things human change, that living is only another word for dying.
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