Table of Contents

Introduction
"So Peace Brings Warre and Warre Brings Peace"

Part I. Imperiogenesis—The Rise of Empires

1. A Band of Adventurers Defeats a Kingdom
Ermak's Conquering Cossacks

2. Life on the Edge
The Transformation of Russia—and America

3. Slaughter in the Forest
At the Limites of the Roman Empire

4. Asabiya in the Desert
Ibn Khaldun Discovers the Key to History

5. The Myth of Self-Interest
And the Science of Cooperation

6. Born to Be Wolves
The Origins of Rome

7. A Medieval Black Hole
The Rise of the Great European Powers on Carolingian Marches

Part II. Imperiopathosis—The Fall of Empires

8. The Other Side of the Wheel of Fortune
From the Glorious Thirteenth Century into the Abyss of the Fourteenth

9. A New Idea of Renaissance
Why Human Conflict Is Like a Forest Fire and an Epidemic

10. The Matthew Principle
Why the Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Poorer

11. Wheels Within Wheels
The Many Declines of the Roman Empire

Part III. Cliodynamics—A New Kind of History

12. War and Peace and Particles
The Science of History

13. The Bowling Alley in History
Measuring the Decline of Social Capital

14. The End of Empire?
How the Mobile Phone Is Changing Cliodynamics

Notes

Acknowledgments

Index