THE CYCLES OF HISTORY:

War Ages: 1861---------75 years---------1936----------65 years------2001.

The cycles of History have a surprising regularity around the so called Generational cycle, of approximately 70 years, in which certain attitudes repeat in culture, politics, war, history and the economy, as power switches from a nation to another. In the graph we can see the war years that caused ages of global War in the XIX C. (Secession, Unification of Germany and Italy), in the XX C. (Spanish civil war, Chinese-Japanese war, World War), and now again in the XXI C. ("Semite" wars between Israel and America Vs the Islamic world). Those ages of war and the cycles that cause them are however predictable within the models bio-history... And avoidable if politicians and economists would act as Bio-Historians, as Doctors of History, and took the necessary measures to avoid the causes of those wars... The purpose of this web is to explain those cycles, and the remedies to them.

How far we can accurately predict those cycles? It is not so important to predict them as to know their causes and so to act in advance to avoid them. In that sense if you have entered this web, 4 years ago, when it was hosted at www.bioeconomist.com, you would have found instead of the previous picture this one:

The prediction done on that earlier magazine referred to the beginning of III W.W. and so it still might happen, if the present wars or a future confrontation between China and America takes place. Though we rather prefer our politicians would control history instead of being carried away by it. In any case the distance between the most likely date of 2008 for the beginning of an age of massive war and the 11/9 which can be taken as the beginning of the "Semite Wars", has failed by a margin of 10%, which tends to be the maximum freedom probabilistic cycles have. It is then clear that it does exist a war cycle in history, a pendulum law that moves history from ages of war to ages of peace. It is not the only cycle with periodicity in History, but probably the most decisive for the life and death of civilizations. However to know the existence of those cycles is far less important that to understand its causes.

Why, indeed? What makes nations and people to return cyclically to ages of war and peace?

This has been a very old questions to historians, who have always said, that in History all changes to remain the same. They have considered several reasons, of economical, political, biological and cultural nature.

What matters though to an accurate analysis of the cycles of history is to determine, what of those cycles is the origin and cause of the others. Which cycle is the dominant one in history?

Since we are biological beings, that cycles should be biological. Yet since we live in an economic ecosystems full of machines that we re=produce and consume, as the main task of modern existence, the reasons of the cycles should also be economical. And it is in fact the combination of both cycles, the biological cycle of human beings, and the evolutionary cycles of machines which are in fact synchronous, what allow us to explain the recurrent phenomena of cyclical history.

Let us then consider briefly those two type of cycles and how they intertwine to create the cycles of societies.

When we consider the chain of national power, we find psychological, and socio-economical causes. The biological cause is the generational cycle of a human being, which lives between 70 and 80 years, and during that age goes through 3 reproductive generations, as grandfather, with sons and grand sons So we can in fact divide the generational cycle of a human being in 3 sub-cycles of power, as grandfather, father and son follow each other in the control of industries, aristocracies, and political systems. The cycle of the grandfather or Founding father, is a cycle of hard ethics and work, of invention and discovery in the field of economics, of raise to power and humility as a newcomer in the field of politicos.

The cycle of the son is the cycle of maturity, of consciousness of that power, and global expansion, of enormous influence in all other nations, of leadership.

Finally the cycle of the grandson accustomed to that power, lazy and decadent is the generation that coincides in time, with the demise of the culture, and the raise of a new power, in his founding, ethic, hard working generation. This 3rd age of a nation often ends with the decadent "son" declaring war to the new nation, and loosing it all, due to its arrogance, abuse of power, and tiredness of the world, that backs the new, humble, founding nation...

Of course being humans, free species, the historic cycles lack the accuracy of more simple systems, like those of economics (the evolution of machines), which are far more accurate, or those of chemical and physical particles, so simple that their parameters and accuracy is almost absolute. But in a world of probabilities, and intervals, this should not prevent us from analyzing the regularities of those cultural, historic and political cycles, closely related to the economical cycles, which are the two sides of the World in which we live.

In that sense we can study the birth, raise to power and decadence of modern nations according to the generational cycle. Thus the XIX century was the century of England. At the end of that century and the beginning of the XX century it was Germany who hold global power through 3 generations, and finally in the XX century it would be America, the global power, which now enters into his decadent 3rd generation, as the new power, China starts its foundation age.

If we consider each of those 3 cycles to be a 36 year cycle, is then easy to understand how the generational cycles come one after another. Let us do in that sense a tentative analysis of the generational cycles of power, that brought England, Germany, US, and very likely China to the summit of world nations:

In the graph, a tentative analysis of the 3 generations in power in modern nations, through the age of Industrializations. Great Britain takes the scene, substituting France as the cultural and political nation of reference after the defeat of Napoleon. It is the founding generation, which in the economical world is signaled by the development of the vapor and railroad machines. It follows the imperial age, or Victorian age, which starts in the 1850s, with Disraeli and the founding of the Indian Empire. But the English people become lazy, and arrogant, and try to hold that empire closed to incoming, hardworking nations, such as Germany or America. From free trade England moves into closed Imperialism, and it is challenged by the rising German power, ending in a World war confrontation.

If the world were perfect Germany would have won that war, but England had a twin nation, America, and two strong allies, France and Russia that helped to defeat Germany. Still the attitudes and generations of England are clear, as before England were the generational power of France (XVIII C.), and before France, Holland (XVII C.), and before Holland Spain (XVI C.), and so on...

We thus use the generational power to study bio-history since the beginning of historic records in the Egyptian dynastic age...

Again we can study the 3 generations of Germany, which are clearly shorter than those of England as World defeat, and the incapacity of the Germans to generate sound coalitions, make the "life of Germany" as the world power reference shorter. Still it is obvious that after the Unification wars, Germany becomes the worldwide reference for science and art, and opens the century on its mature age, at the height of its industrial power, leader in the new chemical and automobile, electrical and scientific worlds. However failing to defeat England, by the sheer incapacity of their political leadership, the mature age is aborted in I World war, and the decadent age moves quickly ahead, till nazism ends up the cycle of Germany.

Now the new nation that defeats Germany in that war is America, whose founding Generation can be stretched to 1898 (defeating the very old Spanish power), till II World war, though we could also consider 1917, when America enters in I World Wars as that age of invention of the American world power, which matures after defeating Germany. Now America is the reference of the world in the height of its military and economical power, which however enters in decadence in the 1970s, when the dollar becomes no longer a single world currency, (end of convertibility), the American president, becomes an industrial puppet of mass-media (Watergate scandal), and the attitude of Americans change radically, becoming arrogant, decadent, baroque, and violent as the Germans did before in their fascist age, or the English, in their cynical, aristocratic world empire that oppressed millions in colonies around the world.

And yet we can see as China in his founding fathers, generation (from Deng to the Olympic Games) develops, a new nation of global power. We have considered 2008 the year of the change of global power from America to China, as that is the date of the Chinese Olympic games, and according to most predictions when Chinese GNP will overcome that of America. Unfortunately because those changes of World powers come often with war, as the old nations cannot easily accept the relay... when the fresh runner races ahead, and the old one breathes heavily, we might forecast a probable III World War, between China and America, that only a rational evolution of nations into a Global Government could avoid. But if that doesn't happen, paradoxically America will defy China, and become defeated as Germany before defied America the raising power, and became defeated... It's a deja vu experience, which in European politics we can follow since Spain, on the height of its empire, defied the raising economical power of the Netherlands, and became defeated loosing its sea trade empire to Amsterdam.

You will find in this web, the development of the laws that regulate those cycles of History, and several models that describe historic societies a socio-biological organisms that follow those laws, of which the most important is obviously the Law of the 3 Ages, or Generational law.

One important difference however, between the modern age of economical empires, and the old age of warrior empires, is the periodicity of the cycle. The cycles of history have accelerated. And the creation and destruction of civilizations have followed that acceleration. Which brings us to the fundamental secondary cycle that determines history. Which is no longer biological but economical: the evolution, mass-production and use in war of some basic weapons, that when discovered provoke an entire change of civilizations, raising the hordes that carry the weapon to global power.

Thus in the past as new weapons were invented, those cycles of creation and destruction of civilizations followed each other. And there were an age of bronze weapons, of chariots, of iron weapons, of cavalry, of gunpowder, and since II World War, of digital-researched weapons (A-bombs, planes, robots, etc.) Those periods again have a biological pattern of 10 generational cycles, and so they have a rhythm of around 800 years. For example the cycle of gunpowder in Europe starts in the 1230s with the invention of the cannon and ends in 1945 with the atomic bomb, 710 years latter. But the previous cycle of cavalry starts with the fall of Rome in 456, 774 years before... A remarkable regularity, given the individual errors of leaders, that despite wanting always power, and using mostly weapons to achieve them, are subject to wrong decisions (as those taken by Germany in their alliance to defy the British Empire):

    In that sense the cycles of History were known already in the Greek and Roman age. And so   there have been attempts to create a biological 'Science of History' based in Natural Laws, and recurrent cycles, since the age of Vico, who realized of the repeating process of creation and destruction of human civilizations by weapons. Vico was in fact right, as there is a periodicity in the great Global ages of War determined by the recurrent discovery of new types of weapons, that destroy civilizations word wide. Accordingly since the cycle is produced by advances in technology, the cycle has two clear phases, the old cycle of creation and destruction of civilizations, with a periodicity in the interval of 700 to 800 years.

And the modern cycle of global wars, in the Industrial age of the machine which is parallel to the cycle of evolution of those machines, with a periodicity in the interval of 80 years. Of course because historic civilizations are in fact social organisms, that can be described with the laws of social organisms, the collective mind of those civilizations which is art, also goes through 3 generational cycles of epic, founding artists, realist, classic ones, and decadent, baroque art.

In History of Art this fact was hint at already by German theoreticians, in the XIX and XX C. (Arnold Hauser being the most brilliant of them). In that sense it was proved that at the end of civilizations, those artistic styles enter into "baroque, decadent eras", with similar eclectic, extremely creative but highly cynical styles, and so the existence of artistic cycles, and recurrent fashions were also a noted fact of history. In fact we can widen that concept also to the other two main styles of art, the epic, lineal style, which happens in the youth of civilizations, and the classic, realist style which takes place in the mature age of a culture. Those 3 styles are therefore consecutive, and we talk of the 3 ages of a culture, its youth, its maturity and its baroque age or age of extinction. For example, if we consider the Iron Hoplite Greek empire, that spans from Homer to the Hellenistic period, in which Greece is conquered by Rome (also around 800 years), and the Italian civilization of gunpowder that starts with the sacco di Byzantium by Venice, who invents the first gunboats (lombardas) and ends with the end of Italian economical power to Holland in the XVII C. the parallelism of the 3 ages of art are self-evident:

In the modern age, the same cycles of art, war, and life and death of cultures, are certain, now with a periodicity of around 70 to 80 years.

And so we can for example in the present cycle consider 3 ages for European or American art in the industrial age, till we end in the present age of the American baroque, which probably will end despite the present bonanza of the 90s into an age of warfare like nothing the world has ever seen, unless mankind learns about the cycles of history and creates a global government based in diplomacy and love:

The 3 cycles of the American culture, and the probable future, as America enters in its baroque age.