Dear Mike,

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

> Crisis wars are your own concept, they are not part of S&H's
> saeculum. The saeculum is sort of a social or cultural cycle, not
> a purely political cycle like Toynbee's hundred year cycle of war
> and peace or your own 80 year cycle of crisis wars.

No, that's not true. Maybe you like or prefer your own formulation,
and that's fine, but you won't accomplish anything by making baseless
accusations about other people's work. The crisis war definition not
only completely coincides with S&H's work except for the Glorious
Revolution, it also extends it in a natural way to all times and
places throughout history.

I don't even have any particular quarrel with the "social or cultural
cycle" characterization, nor do I have any quarrel with S&H's "bottom
up" construction of the seculae through generational changes. I
think it's a brilliant piece of work, and thoroughly supported by
hundreds of sources and historical analyzes.

But the problem is that you can't apply for distant historical times,
since there are often no historical records of awakening events. But
there always seem to be historical records of crisis wars. So
we start from the crisis wars, and reconstruct from the social and
cultural cycle from there. If you want to disparage it, think of it
as a cheap methodological shortcut. But it works, and it works very
well.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

> You can talk of how the S&H cycle is related or aligned with
> yours, but it isn't accurate to equate the two. For example, in
> my discussion of the War Cycle I
> http://csf.colorado.edu/authors/Alex.../War-Cycle.htm
> introduce what I call the "national will cycle", which is really
> the saeculum, I simply plot it as a sinusoid with maximum value in
> the midpoint of the High and minimum value in the midpoint of the
> unraveling. I use this construct to compare the War Cycle with the
> saeculum.

For all the fuss and accusations you're making, it's not like our
results are light-years apart. Here's your graph:




Now all my crisis wars fall within your peaks. So why are you in
such a state of high dudgeon?

As I've already said, you and I and the whole community and Strauss
and Howe will all benefit enormously if we can reach agreement on a
set of criteria for defining turnings. So we should be looking for
ways to reach agreement, not treating this like a holy war between
the Sunnis and the Shi'as.

You and I are both building on the ten-year-old work of S&H. Since
that work was developed before 9/11, we have the benefit of a lot
more experience in viewing world events than they did at the time.
Naturally that means there are going to be differences in detail with
their work. But the essence, the underlying body of work, is
unchanged.

So let's try to build on that work and come up with something that
works for both of us, as well as for everyone else.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

> This is very interesting, but you should not think that you are
> describing the same cycle as described by S&H, even though you use
> the same terminology.

Boy, you must really have gotten up on the wrong side of the bed this
morning. I'm describing exactly the same cycle as S&H's, but
I'm building the cycle up from the crisis wars rather than from the
generations. The section of text that you're quoting was an attempt
to integrate them more fully, and to resolve questions like: How long
is a turning if the saeculum is longer than 80 years? Instead of
just dumping on it, it might be better for you and me and everyone if
you thought about how it could be improved.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

> Your cycle is structurally similar to Toynbee's cycle of
> alternating periods of "general war" and "supplementary war". You
> add in the S&H structure as an overlay (something that was not
> avaialbe to Toynbee). Thus you equate the idea of a crisis turning
> with a general war and an awakening turning with a supplementary
> war. You also weave economics into the mix with the idea of
> financial crises playing some role.

Your tone seems to indicate that you're accusing me of something
here, and yet the things you're accusing me of seem all to be good
things. However, I would disagree with your characterization of the
S&H structure as an overlay. It's the other way around: the crisis
war analysis is an overlay on S&H's generational analysis. One can
start from the crisis war structure and drill down into the
generational analysis at any point in history.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

> A major financial crisis often follows about 7-10 years after a
> major war: e.g. War of Spanish Succession ends in 1713 and the
> South Sea bubble collpases in 1720; the Seven Years War ends in
> 1763 and is followed by a crisis in 1772; the War of 1812 ends in
> 1814 and is followed by the Panic of 1819, the American Civil War
> ends in 1865 and is followed by the Panic of 1873, WW I ends in
> 1918 and is followed by the Crash of 1929. These crises are
> sometimes called the "fall from plateau" event in the Kondratiev
> cycle.

OK, I don't follow this. Are you saying that, for every financial
crisis, you can always find a war somewhere that occurred 7 years
earlier? And where is WW II in this scheme?

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

> In the Xenakis scheme, warfare plays a central role in defining
> the Crisis period. In S&H's scheme a Crisis war is simply a war
> that happens to take place during a secular crisis. There doesn't
> HAVE to be a war during the secular crisis. Indeed, the Glorious
> Revolution secular crisis (1675-1692) did not prominently feature
> a major war. The War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1713), which
> is a Crisis War in the Xenakis scheme, occurred well outside of
> the Glorious Revolution secular crisis and long after the "main
> event" in 1688.

How can you possibly believe that the Glorious Revolution was a
crisis period? It was about as religious and spiritual as you can
get, a change of government motivated by a desire to replace a
Catholic monarch with a Protestant monarch. Where was the crisis?
It was no more a crisis than Nixon's resignation.

There is a series of crisis wars -- The 30 years war + English civil
war, war of spanish success, french revolution + napoleonic wars,
wars of german and italian unification and franco-prussian war, world
war ii -- these five wars stand out like a bright-shining beacon of
secular regularity since the 1600s. It's as plain as the nose on
your face.

And Mike, <u>THEY ALL COINCIDE WITH YOUR OWN GODDAM GRAPH THAT'S
DISPLAYED EARLIER IN THIS MESSAGE</u>. So we're not even very apart,
Mike. And that's my point.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

"But if there's anyone around today who thinks we
made a mistake getting involved in WW II, I have yet to meet him."

Virgil Saari and his little seadog come to mind. And there's Jimmy Carter who, according to his "Just War" doctrine, would have ceased fighting after Midway (just six months after Pearl). Plus a whole host of post-modern liberals posting here like Kifflie Scott who, if it were a Republican running the show then, would have... ah, forget it. :wink:

Essentially WWII caused America to become the #1 "power on the block." In hindsight this is wrong according to the post-modern liberal's agenda coz it ain't fair, and violates the unwritten Egalitarian Clause of the global social contract .

So you've made one big "mistake" in your assumption about WWII. It is an assumption largely based in nostalgia for the past, but not in the reality of today. Sure, that generation of heroes like to get all the kudos these days, but according to present-day liberal doctrine, and those who honestly adhere to it, what the Greatest Generation did was every bit as awful as those who fought in WWI and Vietnam.

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

No, that's not true. Maybe you like or prefer your own formulation, and that's fine, but you won't accomplish anything by making baseless accusations about other people's work. The crisis war definition not only completely coincides with S&H's work except for the Glorious Revolution, it also extends it in a natural way to all times and places throughout history.

Don't get so upset! I'm not making any accusations. Your cycle uses warfare as a central component. One of the turnings is specifically called a crisis war. S&H's saeculum isn't explicitly based on war. For example, you write:

And Mike, <u>THEY ALL COINCIDE WITH YOUR OWN GODDAM GRAPH THAT'S DISPLAYED EARLIER IN THIS MESSAGE</u>. So we're not even very apart.

The graph you refer to is a plot of the WAR CYCLE. Is it so surprising that your cycle, in which WAR plays a major role should resemble the war cycle? They are, after all, about the same thing. But they aren't exactly the same cycles because the one I present is related to Toynbee's HUNDRED YEAR cycle of war and peace, whereas you refer to an EIGHTY YEAR cycle of crisis wars. The lengths are different.

Another example you write:

The first problem is that using this paragraph I'm unable to distinguish between WW I and WW II for America. There was 23 years (1918-1941) separating them, which is a generational length period separating them. I actually don't know which of your unrest events applies to either of them - invasions, I suppose. So how does your methodology distinguish between WW I and WW II?

It doesn't. WW I and WW II don't factor at all into my methodology for turning detection. In your methodology, wars are central. They aren't in my method for representing the saeculum. I will try to explain what I am trying to do with the cycles of unrest and religious events. Based solely on the S&H turnings I had a hunch that they were related to Kondratiev economic cycles. I did not have enough saeculae over the 1435-1700 period to compare to get statistical significance, thus I could not establish the relation. The relation between K-cycles and the saeculum changed around 1700 so post-1700 saeculae could not be included in the comparison. David McGuinness listed 5000 years of turnings on the old T4T site over the 1997-2000 period, which provided a source for pre-1435 turnings. My earliest economic data is from 1162 so using Dave's turnings would give me three more saeculae to work with. But Dave was unpublished. S&H claimed in their published work that there were no turnings before 1435. If I were simply to use Dave's results I would be contradicting S&H's results using unpublished results of a internet message board poster as an authority. How do I know that Dave is seeing the same thing that S&H saw, and has seen better than they did, so he can overrule their finding of no turnings before 1435?

I needed to present some evidence, some data, that supported my choice to use Dave's pre-1435 turnings. I needed to find an analytical tool that measured something that correlated well with S&H turnings so that I could show that it measured Dave's pre-1435 turnings also.

My method using religious events was designed to identify the S&H Awakenings. Since Dave's post-1435 turnings are basically the same as those of S&H if my method matched S&H after 1435 they would match Dave's too. Five of the six post-1435 awakenings were correlated with my method, which is 89% significant. If S&H had identified more Awakenings that showed the same 5/6 matching rate as their post-1435 Awakenings did, the significance would rise to exceed the 95% criterion for statistical significance. So how did it work for Dave's Awakenings? I had religious cycles back to the early 600's at this time and 12 out of 14 of them correlated with Dave's Awakenings, an alignment that is 99.35% significant. Dave identified the same Awakenings as S&H did and he identified pre-1435 Awakenings that matched up with my religious cycle as well as S&H's Awakenings did. This is evidence that Dave is "seeing" that same cycle as S&H did and I can then add Daves turnings from 1162 to 1435 onto S&H's turnings and call that the saeculum.

I now had five full saeculae (10 K-cycles) between 1162 and 1700 for comparison and the correlation I had seen between S&H's turnings and the K-cycle between 1435 and 1700 was also shown by Dave's turnings between 1162 and 1435. I had confirmed in my own mind that the K-cycle and saeculum were related and I wrote my second book on this topic.

So we start from the crisis wars, and reconstruct from the social and cultural cycle from there. If you want to disparage it, think of it as a cheap methodological shortcut. But it works, and it works very well.

I am not disparaging it, I am trying to point you in a more fruitful direction. Have you read any of the war cycle literature? Your formulation can bring insight into this cycle tradition by combining generation theory with cycles in war and hegemony. I don?t think that the saeculum cycle tradition is the best ?school of thought? for your ideas.

OK, I don't follow this. Are you saying that, for every financial crisis, you can always find a war somewhere that occurred 7 years earlier? And where is WW II in this scheme?

I was giving a little background on financial crises--it's a side issue.

How can you possibly believe that the Glorious Revolution was a crisis period? It was about as religious and spiritual as you can get, a change of government motivated by a desire to replace a Catholic monarch with a Protestant monarch. Where was the crisis? It was no more a crisis than Nixon's resignation.

Strauss and Howe call the Glorious Revolution a crisis era! In their cycle it IS a crisis era. It is NOT a crisis era in your scheme because your cycle is based on war. The crisis war you use (and it's the right one) occurs after their crisis era. What this means is you and they are looking at cycles in different things.

Boy, you must really have gotten up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. I'm describing exactly the same cycle as S&H's, but I'm building the cycle up from the crisis wars rather than from the generations.

Your cycle is directly related to war, theirs is not. And you don't describe the same cycle as S&H. Your table lists the English Civil War (1642-49) as a Crisis war, S&H have this as an Awakening war. It listed the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1713) as a Crisis war, S&H have it mostly fall into a High. You label the French Revolution/Napoleonic Wars (1789-1815) as a Crisis War. S&H have almost all of it fall into a High. S&H often place turning dividers in the middle of wars. If war factored significantly into their scheme they wouldn't do that.

I am not criticizing you. I am trying to point out that your work is more directly relevant to the work in the war cycles field than it is to the saeculum. What you are doing for war appears to be similar to what I am trying to do for economics: using the saeculum to gain insight into other cycles of interest. I suggest you read some of this literature and you will see what I am getting at.

There is a series of crisis wars -- The 30 years war + English civil war, war of Spanish succession, French revolution + Napoleonic wars, wars of German and Italian unification and Franco-Prussian war?-- these five wars stand out like a bright-shining beacon of secular regularity since the 1600s. It's as plain as the nose on your face.

Yes, this is the war cycle:

War of the Holy League ended in 1514
Franco-Spanish War ended in 1559 - 45 years spacing
War of the Armada ended in 1604 - 45 years spacing
Thirty Years War ended in 1648 - 44 years spacing
War of Spanish Succession ended in 1713 - 65 years spacing
Seven Years War ended in 1763 - 50 years spacing
Napoleonic Wars ended in 1815 - 52 years spacing
Franco-Prussian War ended in 1871 - 56 years spacing
WW I ended in 1918 - 47 years spacing
Average spacing 51 years with standard deviation 7 years.

Two of them make one of Toynbee's "hundred year cycles" of war and peace, also known as the hegemony cycle as follows:

1514-1604 90 years, Iberian hegemony
1604-1713 109 years, Dutch hegemony
1713-1815 102 years, British hegemony
1815-1918 103 years, British hegemony
1918-XXXX XXX years American hegemony

Note this is not MY cycle so don't criticize me, I am just presenting the literature. You can read a good literature review of this sort of thing in

Goldstein, Joshua S. Long Cycles, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988 and

Modelski, George and William Thompson, Leading Sectors and World Powers: The Coevolution of Global Politics and Economics, University of South Carolina Press, 1996.

Let us define it as the early, pre-bubble phase of the Unraveling. In hindsight, the malaise makes sense because both the spiritual euphoria and the post-WWII economic boom had faded.

Of course, an implication is that Jonesers' coming-of-age experience would not have been sanctifying. (For a Nomad it should have been alienating). Could that be significant in the scheme of things?

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

As my mind runs through some of the major wars -- 9/11 attack, Afghan war, Iraq War, Gulf War, Vietnam, WW II, WW I -- it seems to work.

Here you mention the War in Afghanistan as a major war. Here is a list of America armed conflicts. In parentheses are what they call losses on this site. I am guessing they include all deaths (not just KIA) and all wounded. I labeled in bold all the wars that are treated in history books as major US wars since 1800 (when the database begins). They show up as the biggest wars on this list. I also include two other non-wars: regime change in Iran (which has similar result as the Iraq was) and the Cuban Missile Crisis (which could have been very very serious).

Iraq and Afghanistan (in italics) aren't up at the top, yet are considered major by your criteria. Now if you combine Iraq, Afghanistan and 911 into one War on Terror (WOT) then the losses are about 8000+ and this combo comes close in absolute numbers to major status, although it is still pretty small when normalized to the size of the country today.

American Civil War 1861-65 (1000000+)
World War II 1941-45 (1000000+)
World War I 1917-18 (320000)
Vietnam War (1964-73) (210000)
Korean War 1950-53 (140000)
Spanish-American War (incl Phillipines) 1898-1902 (12500)
War of 1812 (12000)
Mexican-American War 1846-48 (11000)
Second Seminole War 1835-43 (10000)
WOT (8000+)
Tripolitan War 1801-05 (5000)
Tecumseh's War 1811 (5000)
Iraq War 2003- (4600)
First Seminole War 1817-18 (3000)
Black Hawk's War 1832 (3000)
Texan Independence War 1835-36 (1000)
Panamanian Secession 1903 (1000)
Russian Civil War 1918-20 (900)
Persian Gulf War 1990-91 (800)
Afghanistan War 2001- (350)
Modoc War 1872-3 (300)
Sioux War 1876-77 (300)
Anglo-American Plot: Iran 1953
Cuban Missile Crisis 1962

Nevertheless, some of the early Indian wars are "WOT-sized", especially when you consider the relative sizes of the US then and now. How do you deal with some of the early Indian wars that expanded our territory like the Mexican and Spanish wars did. Indian fighters were pretty ruthless and energetic about conquering Indian nations and were considered in their day as major war heroes to win the Presidency like William Harrison.
The US was pretty energetic about carving out a big chunk of Mexico also.

How is it big wars (compared to the WOT) like the early Indian wars, the War of 1812 and the Mexican war aren't crisis wars while the WOT is? You can say the US was attacked, but we were invaded and our capital city captured by the enemy in the War of 1812, without that being a Crisis War. I'm guessing that the WOT looms larger in your mind because you are living through it.

Dear Mike,

I'm disappointed in your answers. I was hoping for something better.
I was hoping you might think about cooperating to find common
definitions.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

> Strauss and Howe call the Glorious Revolution a crisis era! In
> their cycle it IS a crisis era. It is NOT a crisis era in your
> scheme because your cycle is based on war. The crisis war you use
> (and it's the right one) occurs after their crisis era. What this
> means is you and they are looking at cycles in different things.

Strauss and Howe made a mistake calling the Glorious Revolution a
crisis era. The reason they did that is because they had to fit
something between the Spanish Armada crisis and the Revolutionary War
crisis and still maintain their cycle length, and they only way they
could make it fit was by sticking the Glorious Revolution in as a
fourth turning.

I resolved this error by advancing their theory in two directions:
the Principle of Localization, which explains why different regions
have different timelines, and the use of merging timelines, which
explains the variation in cycle lengths. That also allows America to
have a Revolutionary War Fourth Turning and Europe to have a
Napoleonic War Fourth Turning.

In Generational Dynamics I extended S&H's cycle, making
the one correction for the Glorious Revolution. I am using the
same cycles as S&H, except for the extensions and the one
correction.

OK?

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

> S&H often place turning dividers in the middle of wars. If war
> factored significantly into their scheme they wouldn't do that.

This makes no sense at all. What wars are you talking about?

If you look at page 123 of The Fourth Turning, you'll see that
they refer to the "Anglo-American Saeculum." If a turning divider
takes place in the middle of a European war or a Chinese war, then
it's because those other wars are not being considered by this book.

The generational methodology is completely useless, except as an
amusing artifact on the level of astrology, unless it applies to all
places and times. If the generational methodology is to apply to be
considered credible, then it has to account for crisis and awakening
periods in other places besides England and America. And that's what
I've done in Generational Dynamics.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

> It doesn't. WW I and WW II don't factor the into my methodology
> for turning detection at all. In your methodology, wars are
> central.

All right, let's review.

You told me that I was wrong to identify Rome 40s BC period as an
awakening period, and Caesar's civil war as an awakening event.

I asked you for your criteria, and for your analysis of the 80s BC
civil war.

You gave me your criteria.

I applied your criteria to the WW I period and the WW II period and
found that I couldn't use your criteria to distinguish where these
two periods were an awakening period or crisis period. (Notice I'm
carefully referring to "periods" rather than "wars" to avoid your
insistence on not referring to crisis wars. However, the issue is
the same, whether it's wars or periods.)

Now you're saying, "Oh I didn't mean THOSE periods. I have my own
cycle and it has nothing to do with anyone else's cycle, and by the
way neither does yours. We're all God's children, and we all have
our own cycles, so don't bother trying to compare them because
they're all different, and there's no accountability." That IS what
you said, isn't it?

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

> Yes, this is the war cycle:

> War of the Holy League ended in 1514
> Franco-Spanish War ended in 1559 - 45 years spacing
> War of the Armada ended in 1604 - 45 years spacing
> Thirty Years War ended in 1648 - 44 years spacing
> War of Spanish Succession ended in 1713 - 65 years spacing
> Seven Years War ended in 1763 - 50 years spacing
> Napoleonic Wars ended in 1815 - 52 years spacing
> Franco-Prussian War ended in 1871 - 56 years spacing
> WW I ended in 1918 - 47 years spacing
> Average spacing 51 years with standard deviation 7 years.

Are you saying that Toynbee came up with this? This is complete
garbage. Where's St. Bartholomew's Night Massacre (1572) and its
aftermath? Where's the Ottoman war with the Habsburgs (1593-1606) and
then the Ottoman war with the Holy League (1683-89), which were
monumental events that resolved the control of Eastern Europe?

I suppose you think (or Toynbee thinks or whoever thinks) that the
Seven Years War should be included, even though it takes place in
faraway North America and India, and yet the Ottoman vs Holy League
war takes place right in Europe and is not included.

This is the whole credibility problem, Mike. The list above makes no
sense whatsoever. It's obviously been put together by cherry-picking
wars to get a predetermined cycle. It's garbage.

But please don't associate Toynbee's garbage "war cycle" with me. I
don't cherry-pick wars. I've provided a list of criteria to identify
crisis wars. I know from having applied these criteria hundreds of
times that they work, even if I haven't described them as clearly as I
should have - which is something I'm correcting now.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

> My method using religious events was designed to identify the S&H
> Awakenings. Since Dave's post-1435 turnings are basically the same
> as those of S&H if my method matched S&H after 1435 they would
> match Dave's too. Five of the six post-1435 awakenings were
> correlated with my method, which is 89% significant. If S&H had
> identified more Awakenings that showed the same 5/6 matching rate
> as their post-1435 Awakenings did, the significance would rise to
> exceed the 95% criterion for statistical significance. So how did
> it work for Dave's Awakenings? I had religious cycles back to the
> early 600's at this time and 12 out of 14 of them correlated with
> Dave's Awakenings, an alignment that is 99.35% significant. Dave
> identified the same Awakenings as S&H did and he identified
> pre-1435 Awakenings that matched up with my religious cycle as
> well as S&H's Awakenings did. This is evidence that Dave is
> "seeing" that same cycle as S&H did and I can then add Daves
> turnings from 1162 to 1435 onto S&H's turnings and call that the
> saeculum.

I think this is great, Mike, but whose awakenings are you referring
to? England's? Rome's? Western Europe's? All of Europe's? The
Northern Hemisphere's? The whole world's? Can I use your
methodology in China?

Let me assure you that you can use my methodology in China. And it
works 100% of the time, subject to the complications of dealing with
merging timelines in earlier times when few historical records are
available.

And not only that, but I've been using my methodology since 2002 to
make predictions about places around the world, including Iraq,
Iran, Haiti, Korea, China, Taiwan, and other places. I've really put
myself out on the line, and I've had a very high record of success
(especially with regard to the Iraq war).

Don't you understand, Mike? My results don't conflict with yours,
except that your methodology applies to a single region and my
methodology applies to multiple regions.

And if your methodology could be found to support my methodology when
restricted to a single region, then that would be a very
powerful result for both of us.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

> I am not disparaging it, I am trying to point you in a more
> fruitful direction. Have you read any of the war cycle literature?
> Your formulation can bring insight into this cycle tradition by
> combining generation theory with cycles in war and hegemony. I
> don't think that the saeculum cycle tradition is the best "school
> of thought" for your ideas.

That's exactly what I've done, Mike. I've brought "insight into the
cycle tradition" by means of the "Principle of Localization" and
study of merging timelines.

That's what makes Generational Dynamics so different from these "war
cycles." Having a single "war cycle" that applies to Europe and
Africa and China and the whole world is so totally moronic that I
can't believe that Toynbee really ever supported it. But if you look
at regions with a "common cultural memory," and you look at cycles
<u>within each such region</u>, and trace what happens as regions
merge over time, then you get a robust explanation of history that
works in all places and all times.

And nothing I've written requires cherry-picking wars to make them
fit a schedule. Most cycles are 70-90 years long, but I can handle
longer cycles (though I believe that more theoretical work has to be
done with them), and I was prepared to handle much shorter cycles,
except that they've never occurred in the sense that I've never seen
a mid-cycle period shorter than 50 years. So I can't be accused of
cherry-picking wars, because I never do it.

So, let me summarize where we are: Strauss and Howe have developed a
generational "Anglo-American Saeculum" theory, covering on those
regions. I've developed Generational Dynamics which extends
S&H's theory to cover all regions and times, and in doing so I
corrected one error having to do with the Glorious Revolution. As part
of this, I developed (and am updating) a list of crisis war criteria,
so that there's no credibility-damaging cherry-picking of wars.
You've developed a theory which identifies awakenings in a single
region -- I assume Western Europe -- and you haven't discussed how you
would extend your theory to other regions.

That's how things stand as I see it. And an effort to combine these
theories into a single theory that we could all agree on -- and this
would have to be done by using the crisis war criteria to identify a
"crisis war template" from which it would be possible to drill down
into the other theories at any particular region and time -- would
benefit me, would benefit you, and would benefit the entire
community, including Strauss and Howe, because it would turn the
generational paradigm from a cherry-picking exercise into a credible,
unified theory supported by several different doctrines.

If you'd like to really accomplish something, that's the way we
should go.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

P.S.: I just saw your new message, which I'll answer later, but I
just want to mention: I included the Afghan war in the list because
it's part of the current crisis period. The Afghan war is a blip by
itself, of course, but I expect it to end up as one battle in the
"clash of civilizations." I didn't mean anything more than that.

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

This is a remarkable piece of analysis and discovery, but I just don't see how you can go so quickly to your conclusion. One concern has to do with regionalization. What was the regional distribution of these births? If they were uniform throughout Europe, could there be some other explanation - such as an oscillation within the Catholic Church, rather than the general populace? Do your spiritual people include Muslims, Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Confucians, and if so, what was the contribution of each religion?

Why is regionalization a concern? If all regions move together then why bother considering them separately? It seems to me that one needs to worry about regional distribution only if different regions do not move together. Do you agree?

Assume that different regions move separately and I have thrown event from different regions together in my analysis. What would be the effect? Wouldn't mixing the different cycles together result in them partially canceling each other out? Wouldn't the result of such a mixed-region analysis be to show weak or non-existent cycles?

In practical terms one has to use events from a broad area or you won't have enough events to do the analysis (you won't see any cycles because your record of events is too thin). My methods are less subjective, but they suffer from low resolving power.

By adding events from an ever wider region I improve resolving power (assuming the events follow roughly similar cycles) but I take a risk of selecting events that run on different cycles. If this cycle issue arises the observed result is the addition of extra events does not bring the cycles into any sharper focus. When this happens you know that you have gone too far. For example inclusion of Chinese events does not improve the resolution of Western event cycles in Roman or Medieval times. This makes sense as there were few interactions between China and the West at that time. Muslim events help some for Medieval times. Apparently the extra events they add outweigh the cycle differences that might be present. Note this does not say that the Muslims are on the same cycle as the West (they probably aren't) only that they aren't too out of sync, or the Muslim events would make things worse.

My methods are numerical. I consider periods with lots of events of a particular time different from adjacent period with few events of the same time. For example a period when there were relatively many people who were later cannonized as Roman Catholic saints is a potential candidate for a "relgious period". Similarly a period that sees lots of Apparitions of the Virgin Mary compared to other adjacent periods would also be a "religious" period. The same is true for when new religious sects or orders are founded. Each type of event "casts votes" for which periods are more religious than others, Taken together they will either show a consensus non-Slutsky cycle (if religious behavior really is cyclical) or they will show a Slutsky (random) cycle that means they are randomly distributed. One can devise tests for this.

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

Dear Mike,

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

S&H often place turning dividers in the middle of wars. If war factored significantly into their scheme they wouldn't do that.

This makes no sense at all. What wars are you talking about?

The 1594 Crisis/High turning divider is in the middle of the Armada war (1585-1604). The 1704 Crisis/High turning divider is in the middle of the War of Spanish Succession (1701-1713).

My main point is that the first thing one normally does when starting a scholarly or scientific investigation is to familiarize himself with the literature. I don't think you have done that. There is much more to this cycle business than just Strauss and Howe's books.

Dear Mike,

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

> Why is regionalization a concern? If all regions move together
> then why bother considering them separately? It seems to me that
> one needs to worry about regional distribution only if different
> regions do not move together. Do you agree?

OK, let's take an example - in Western Europe, which is your focus.

The religious wars in Germany raged during the 1540s and 50s, and
were resolved in 1555 by the Peace at Augsburg.

The religious wars in France began in 1562, and climaxed with the
St. Bartholomew's Night Massacre in 1572.

In Spain, following the Reconquest crisis climaxing in 1492, the next
cycle of religious wars in Spain began in 1568, and climaxed with the
Armada war with England in 1688.

(You can focus on the preceding awakenings on a regional basis as
well. The German awakening appears to have been in the 1510s, lead
by Martin Luther, and the French awakening appears to have been in
the 1530s, led by John Calvin. England's awakening also appears to
have been in the 1530s. But I haven't really looked closely at these
dates.)

Now move ahead to the 30 years war.

It began in Germany in 1618, 63 years after the Peace at Augsburg.

France entered the war in 1635, 63 years after the St. Bartholomew's
Night Massacre.

England had its civil war starting in 1640, 52 years after the Armada
crisis.

You see, Mike? You say that these events (and you can look at the
corresponding awakening events and get similar results) all occur at
the same time, but if you look at the regions in detail, they're all
on different timelines.

Now move ahead to the War of Spanish Succession, and all the
timelines merge.

And this all works like clockwork, Mike. I didn't cherry-pick any
wars. I simply applied the criteria for crisis wars that I outlined
in my book. It's simple, it's elegant, and it works for all times
and all places.

Now, you've got some data that I don't completely understand that
fits into the above template. You're looking at things at a
different level, in a different layer.

Both analyses are valid, but the two analyses have to integrated so
that they provide a fuller picture of what's really going on.

Here's a guess: One possibility, for example, is that there's more
flexibility in the awakening periods. I've previously said that I
consider unraveling to be a continuous process that begins with early
in the austerity ("high") period, continues through the awakening and
unraveling periods, until the next crisis war. That makes the
awakening period a lot more flexible than the crisis war period.

Maybe the data that you're seeing is a flexible awakening period,
while the methodology that I'm using identifies a far less flexible
crisis period.

If that speculation is correct, then it would integrate both our
theories together so that they would support each other rather than
contradict each other.

What do you think?

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

OK, let's take an example - in Western Europe, which is your focus.

The religious wars in Germany raged during the 1540s and 50s, and
were resolved in 1555 by the Peace at Augsburg.

The religious wars in France began in 1562, and climaxed with the
St. Bartholomew's Night Massacre in 1572.

In Spain, following the Reconquest crisis climaxing in 1492, the next
cycle of religious wars in Spain began in 1568, and climaxed with the
Armada war with England in 1688.

Here is where I am confused. I don't consider external wars like WW I or WW II in my thinking, its all internal stuff. On the other hand, you do consider external wars. So I don't see why the religious strife in France in the 1560-1572 period should count as a crisis war, when the series of four substantial wars between France and Spain from 1536-1559 aren't. War casualities were maximum over 1537-1562, (see my figure you posted) which corresponds to this period. There was 30 years of peace between the two nations adter 1559. Why aren't these crisis wars? You use the War of the Spanish Succession as a crisis war, which was a very big war that shows up in the 1688-1713 peak casuality period and which was followed by decades of peace.

So this specific example does look like picking one set of conflicts, that from 1560-1572, instead of another the 1536-59 set, so that it falls the right number of years before the next big war from 1635-1648. I'm not saying you do that, but it looks like it.

You also aren't clear at all about Spain. Which are the 16th century crisis wars?

My approach is different. I also see the the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre as significant. I do so because I focus on internal strife such as civil wars as one marker for social moments. I also use labor unrest, crime, and alcohol/drug consumption as markers (when I can find the data). I look at economic drivers such as price trends that affect purchasing power, causing real hardship that leads to deviant or violent behavior.

For example: prices rose about 50% from the the 1570's to the 1590's in the South of England, while wages rose only 20%, resulting in a 30% loss of purchasing power. Rising prices of foodstuffs creates hardship. Hardship leads to increased unrest and crime. So we see that total crimes in Sussex, Essex and Hertfordshire counties in the 1590's were about 60% higher than they were 20-30 years earlier and 25% higher than they would be 20 years later. The murder rate per 100,000 in Kent rose from 3.8 in the 1570's to 6 in the 1590's and back to 2.5 in the 1620's. Thus we have an increasing trend towards lawlessness in the late 16th century as prices rises. This trend is reversed as the adverse price trend stops.

In France wheat prices doubled over the same time. In Germany they increased about 50%. So all three countries show the same adverse price trends in the late 16th century--implying hard times. For Western Europe I count 6 unrest events between 1572 and 1598 (0.22/yr) 2 between 1550 and 1571 (0.09/yr) and 3 between 1599 and 1618 (0.15/yr). This suggests more internal unrest in Europe when the adverse price trends are in effect.

All these bit and pieces of evidence suggest hard times for ordinary folks in the late 16th century with rising crime and more unrest. This is the sort of eventful times that S&H consider a social moment, and indeed they label this period as a social moment.

Dear Mike,

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

> Here is where I am confused. I don't consider external wars like
> WW I or WW II in my thinking, its all internal stuff. On the other
> hand, you do consider external wars. So I don't see why the
> religious strife in France in the 1560-1572 period should count as
> a crisis war, when the series of four substantial wars between
> France and Spain from 1536-1559 aren't. War casualities were
> maximum over 1537-1562, (see my figure you posted) which
> corresponds to this period. There was 30 years of peace between
> the two nations adter 1559. Why aren't these crisis wars? You use
> the War of the Spanish Succession as a crisis war, which was a
> very big war that shows up in the 1688-1713 peak casuality period
> and which was followed by decades of peace.

I haven't looked at 16th century Europe in a very long time now, so I
went back to some of the original sources that I used at the time.

First, let me say that I'm not playing any games here, Mike. If I
had found a crisis war between France and Spain in the mid 1500s I
would have said so, and I would say so now. In fact, since this was
one of the first periods that I researched, if I had found a crisis
war between France and Spain in the mid 1500s I would have dropped the
whole project, since it would have been an event that disproves much
of what I now call "generational dynamics."

I don't understand why you aren't considering civil wars as
important. What would be the difference between a war between
Protestants and Catholics in one country or in separate countries?
S&H have civil wars on their timeline -- the War of the Roses and the
American Civil War. The American Revolutionary War could also be
considered a civil war.

As you know, when I look for crisis wars, I look for "energy,"
meaning genocidal energy. For France, the year 1572 was clearly in
that category, with some 10,000 to 100,000 Huguenot Protestants
massacred within two months by the Catholics, and another half a
million forced to flee to other countries. (Note to self: Add mass
fleeing to another country to the list of "(+)" indicators.) So the
civil war from 1562-72 was very clearly and unambiguously a crisis
war. (As I've previously mentioned, I've never had any trouble
applying the "energy" criteria unambiguously; it's always very
apparent which way they're going.)

Now, as for earlier wars between France and Spain, checking my
sources, I find them hard to even find. One source referred to them
vaguely, and two others didn't mention them at all.

Just to give you an example, let me quote a little of Stearns'
Encyclopedia of World History, which is an excellent book because it
has everything, and because the entire text of the book comes with an
enclosed disk which is wonderful.

If I look under France in the 1500s, here's what I find about Spain:

Originally Posted by Stearns

> 1511 - France concluded peace with Spain.

> 1552-59 - Intermittent War with Spain. The French were defeated by
> the Spaniards, who were supported by the English, in the Battle of
> St. Quentin (1557) and by Egmont at Gravelines (1558).

There's just no energy there.

If I look under Spain in the 1500s, here's what I find out about
France:

Originally Posted by Stearns

> 1511 - The Holy League (the pope, Ferdinand, and Venice) against
> France and the Empire.

> 1521-29 - War between France and Spain, the result of French
> support of the comuneros and French designs on Navarre. The
> French took Pampeluna and Fontarabia, but Charles, supported by
> the pope, Florence, and Mantua, expelled the French from Milan
> (1522). In 1524 the Spanish commanders, the Constable de Bourbon
> and the Marqu?s de Pescara, invaded Provence and advanced to
> Marseilles. Francis I was decisively defeated and captured at the
> Battle of Pavia (Feb. 24, 1525) and in captivity at Madrid was
> obliged to sign the Treaty of Madrid, by which he abandoned his
> Italian claims and ceded Burgundy. On his release he violated his
> promises and the war was resumed. By the Treaty of Cambrai (1529),
> Charles was obliged to renounce Burgundy, while Francis once more
> abandoned his claims to Naples.

> 1535-38 - Another war with France, arising from the succession to
> Milan [>], led to another invasion of Provence (1536) and to the
> inconclusive Treaty of Nice (1538).

> 1551-59 - The last war between Charles and the French kings,
> ending in the Treaty of Cateau-Cambr?sis (April 3, 1559) [>].

There's a little more energy here, but not much more.

There's a little bit of judgment here, but not much. Mid-cycle wars
occur all the time - like our own Vietnam war - and very often the
description looks like a bunch of people were pissing around shooting
at each other. I don't see a single thing here to indicate "energy"
or anything else that hints at a crisis war. Also, as I said, other
books I looked at don't even mention these wars, so by the criteria I
established these must be mid-cycle wars.

Why were war casualties at a maximum over 1537-1562? I can only guess
that it had to do with other wars. I know that there were wars going
on with the Ottomans at the time, but I don't know how bad they were.
It's also possible that the Spain-France wars mentioned above caused
a lot of casualties even though they weren't crisis wars (like WW I
for America).

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

> So this specific example does look like picking one set of
> conflicts, that from 1560-1572, instead of another the 1536-59
> set, so that it falls the right number of years before the next
> big war from 1635-1648. I'm not saying you do that, but it looks
> like it.

All I can tell you is that I'm not playing games, and there's nothing
about the text I quoted above from Stearns (or from other sources I
reviewed this evening) that would cause me to change my mind. I'm
not cherry-picking wars; I'm just saying that the mid-1500s wars come
out very clearly as mid-cycle wars under my criteria, and the civil
war from 1562-72 comes out very clearly as a crisis war.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

> You also aren't clear at all about Spain. Which are the 16th
> century crisis wars?

Since I covered Spain at length in my book, I'll insert the text
from my book here:

Originally Posted by I

> Spain provides a good, clear example of generational timelines
> during the medieval period, and it's an interesting example at
> that.

> Spain is a good example for another reason: The Golden Age of
> Spain provides some interesting lessons for America today.

> Spain's Anti-Jewish Pogroms of the 1390s

> In many cases, a crisis war is a violent civil war (like
> America's Civil War, the bloodiest war in America's history).

> The 1390s civil war in Spain was marked by especially violent
> anti-Jewish pogroms that were triggered by a serious financial
> crisis for which the wealthy Jews were blamed. Almost every crisis
> war ends with some sort of imposed compromise that unravels 80
> years later, leading to the next crisis war.

> The compromise that ended the 1390s civil war was an interesting
> one: The Jews would convert to Catholicism, or else would be
> expelled. During the next few decades, over half of the 200,000
> Jews on the peninsula formally converted to Catholicism.

> Compromises of this sort only work for so long, but the failure
> of this compromise was especially ironic. The Conversos, as the
> converted Jews were called, were now officially Christian,
> bringing them further wealth and status. A large part of the
> Castilian upper class consisted of Jews and Conversos, naturally
> generating a great deal of class jealousy among the lower classes.
> It's typical for riots and demonstrations to occur during an
> "awakening" period, midway between two crisis wars, and that's
> what happened here. The riots against the Conversos began in
> 1449, and became increasingly worse as the old compromise began to
> unravel. Thus, an old fault line between the Catholics and the
> Jews was replaced by a new fault line between the old line
> Catholics and the Converso Catholics.

> Those who remember America's most recent "awakening" period in
> the 1960s and 70s will remember the fiery rhetoric that
> demonstrators used in the antiwar movement at that time. Johns
> Hopkins University professor David Nirenberg found that the
> "anti-Converso movement" rhetoric of 1449 and beyond was just as
> heated: "The converts and their descendants were now seen as
> insincere Christians, as clandestine Jews, or even as hybrid
> monsters, neither Jew nor Christian. They had converted merely to
> gain power over Christians. Their secret desire was to degrade,
> even poison, Christian men and to have sex with Christian women:
> daughters, wives, even nuns."

> This is exactly what Generational Dynamics is all about. The
> generation of kids who grew up during the 1390s pogroms became
> risk-aversive adults who were willing to look for compromises to
> avoid new bloody violence. Thus, there were anti-Converso riots
> during the 1450s and after, but that risk aversive generation
> that grew up in the 1390s were still around to contain the
> problem, and look for compromises, to keep things from getting too
> far out of hand, despite the heated rhetoric. When that
> generation died, no one was left to look for compromises, and new
> pogroms began in the 1480s.

> The Spanish Inquisition and the Reconquest --
> 1480s-1490s

> As the old compromise unraveled completely, the riots against the
> Conversos got worse, and a common charge against the Conversos
> was that they were "false Christians." The most common charge
> against Conversos was that of "Judaizing," that is, of falsely
> pretending conversion and secretly practicing Jewish rites.

> This is what gave rise to the Spanish Inquisition. The idea was
> to have an official body empowered to determine whether those who
> had claimed to convert to Catholicism had really converted. As
> new pogroms began in the 1470s and 1480s, the Inquisition was
> particularly targeted to find the "Judaizers." At first, the
> Inquisition was directed specifically at Conversos, but later was
> extended to unconverted Jews. Thousands of Conversos and Jews
> were executed under the Inquisition, and entire Jewish communities
> were eliminated.

> The new crisis war reached its climax in the year 1492, when
> three different things happened that affected Spain for the entire
> next 80-year cycle:

• > (*) A final decree was issued, expelling all Jews who
  > refused to convert. Hundreds of thousands of Jews were forced to
  > leave the country.
  
  > (*) Christopher Columbus left Spain and discovered the New World.
  
  > (*) The Reconquest of Spain from the Muslims was completed, with
  > the expulsion of the Muslims from Grenada.

> With regard to the last point, Muslims had crossed over to
> southern Spain from Africa as early as the 700s, and had conquered
> almost all of Spain. The Catholics had dreamed of reconquering
> Spain from the Muslims for centuries. The Reconquest was finally
> completed in 1492.

> The Golden Age of Spain and Manifest
> Destiny

> We now need to step back and look at the reasons why Spain became
> the most powerful nation in Europe during the 1500s.

> For two very important reasons, Spain is unique among the West
> European countries:

• > (*) It's somewhat geographically isolated from the rest of
  > Europe, on the Iberian Peninsula. Geographic isolation affected
  > Spain almost as much as it affected Britain.
  
  > (*) It was occupied by Muslims for eight centuries, from the 700s
  > to the 1400s.

> Throughout history, some invasions are acceptable to the people
> being invaded and some are not. When the Romans conquered Spain
> in the second century BC, the Spanish initially resisted, but
> later adopted the Romans' cultural characteristics of family,
> language, religion, law and municipal government.

> However, things were not so easy for the Muslims, when they
> conquered Spain in the early 700s. By that time, Spain was a
> clearly Christian society, and had no desire to convert to Islam.

> Islam began in the Mideast in the early 600s. The Muslims spread
> rapidly all across Northern Africa, jumped the Strait of Gibraltar
> in 711, and soon conquered almost all of Spain.

> Spain flourished under the Muslims, who built schools and
> libraries, cultivated mathematics and science, and developed
> commerce and industry.

> But the desire for "Reconquest" by the Christians was always
> foremost in the minds of the Spanish people. The Christians
> reconquered bits and pieces of Muslim-occupied territory over the
> centuries.

> In 1469, Spain was united by the marriage of Isabella and
> Ferdinand, the Catholic Monarchs of two Spanish kingdoms, Castile
> and Aragon, respectively. Thus, the crisis war we described
> above, triggered by rioting against upper class Conversos and
> unconverted Jews, also had another component: there was to fierce
> infighting among other royal relatives of the two Monarchs. But
> Spanish unity prevailed, and in 1478, the Spanish Inquisition was
> authorized, with the purpose of investigating the sincerity of
> Muslims and Jews who claimed conversion to Christianity. In 1492,
> the Catholics were able to complete the Christian Reconquest of
> Spain from the Muslims.

> As we've pointed out, a bloody, violent crisis war changes the
> character of a nation, and the nation retains that character
> throughout the next 80-year cycle. That's what happened with the
> 1480s civil war. Spain saw itself as the home of true
> Catholicism, and saw itself as having the duty to spread
> Catholicism throughout Europe. Thus, the crisis war that climaxed
> with the Reconquest and the expulsion of the Jews in 1492 resulted
> in a new Catholic Spain. "It was at this moment that the concept
> of manifest destiny - so easy to take hold in any country at the
> height of its power - sank deep into the Spanish conscience," says
> Manuel Fernandez Alvarez of the University of Salamanca. "The
> Spaniard felt he had a godly mission to carry out, and this was to
> make it possible for him to withstand bitter defeats in later
> years."

> During the 1500s, there were three factors that fed into this
> sense of manifest destiny:

• > (*) The Muslims had recently (in 1453) captured
  > Constantinople, destroying what was left of the original Roman
  > Empire (see chapter [wbkeeur]). Spain actively defended against
  > further Muslim incursions into Europe.
  
  > (*) Beginning with Martin Luther's challenge to the Catholic
  > Church in 1517, the Protestant Reformation was challenging the
  > Catholic Church throughout Europe. The Spanish Monarchs felt they
  > could play a key role in stopping the Protestants.
  
  > (*) There were other worlds to explore, particularly the New
  > World. The Spaniards initiated active development of the New
  > World, with the intention of colonizing and spreading
  > Christianity.

> Immediately after the Reconquest, Spain sent Columbus to find a
> new route to East Asia, and Columbus discovered America in 1492.

> New discoveries and conquests came in quick succession. Vasco
> Nunez de Balboa reached the Pacific in 1513, and the survivors of
> Ferdinand Magellan's expedition completed the circumnavigation of
> the globe in 1522. In 1519, the conquistador Hernando Cortes
> subdued the Aztecs in Mexico with a handful of followers, and
> between 1531 and 1533, Francisco Pizzaro overthrew the empire of
> the Incas and established Spanish dominion over Peru.

> These were heady discoveries in the days following the
> Reconquest, and yet Spain's "manifest destiny" plans might have
> led to nothing except for something that Spain itself considered
> to be a gift from God to help them achieve that destiny: The
> Spaniards were able to bring thousands of tons of silver and gold
> from the New World back to Europe.

> This was Spain's Golden Age. Spain became wealthy, and led Europe
> in music, art, literature, theater, dress, and manners in the
> 1500s. It exercised military strength throughout Europe, and led
> the fight against the Protestant Reformation.

> However, problems arose. Spain's imported wealth was wasted on
> consumption, with nothing saved or invested. The precious metals
> created price inflation throughout Europe. Once again, as
> usually happens in any society's generational cycle, the controls
> and restrictions that are imposed just after a crisis war become
> unraveled late in the cycle. Money was used to paper over Spain's
> own internal divisions, and to fund more military adventures.

> In 1568, with the Inquisition becoming ever more intrusive,
> serious rebellions broke out among the Muslims who had remained in
> Spain after the Reconquest. This led to mass expulsions
> throughout Spain of Muslims, leading to exodus of hundreds of
> thousands of Muslims, even those who had become devout
> Christians.

> In the midst of the increased turmoil, Spain attempted to continue
> to serve God with its military might.

> Disaster came in 1588 when Spain decided to invade England, which
> had succumbed to the Reformation in 1533. The plan was to
> overthrow the Protestant Queen Elizabeth and install a Catholic
> King. Spain's huge Invincible Armada sailed up the English
> Channel and waited to be joined by transports with invasion
> soldiers. The soldiers never arrived. The English fleet trapped
> the Armada and scattered it. The Armada fled into the open sea,
> where a storm drove the ships into the rocks on the shores of
> Scotland.

> The crisis war ending in England's defeat of the Spanish Armada
> was an enormous victory that signaled the decline of Spain as the
> leading military power in Europe.

> This provides an important lesson for America today. Since World
> War II, this has been the Golden Age of America, and just as Spain
> felt obligated to spread Catholicism around Europe, we feel
> obligated to spread democracy around the world. Spain was too
> ambitious, and came to disaster; America may do so as well.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

> My approach is different. I also see the the St. Bartholomew's Day
> massacre as significant. I do so because I focus on internal
> strife such as civil wars as one marker for social moments. I also
> use labor unrest, crime, and alcohol/drug consumption as markers
> (when I can find the data). I look at economic drivers such as
> price trends that affect purchasing power, causing real hardship
> that leads to deviant or violent behavior.

If St. Bartholomew had just been riots and demonstrations, as
happened in America in the 60s (or in Iraq today), then I would have
called it an awakening war. But not with the massive bloodletting
that occurred. That can't happen during an awakening.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

> For example: prices rose about 50% from the the 1570's to the
> 1590's in the South of England, while wages rose only 20%,
> resulting in a 30% loss of purchasing power. Rising prices of
> foodstuffs creates hardship. Hardship leads to increased unrest
> and crime. So we see that total crimes in Sussex, Essex and
> Hertfordshire counties in the 1590's were about 60% higher than
> they were 20-30 years earlier and 25% higher than they would be 20
> years later. The murder rate per 100,000 in Kent rose from 3.8 in
> the 1570's to 6 in the 1590's and back to 2.5 in the 1620's. Thus
> we have an increasing trend towards lawlessness in the late 16th
> century as prices rises. This trend is reversed as the adverse
> price trend stops.

> In France wheat prices doubled over the same time. In Germany they
> increased about 50%. So all three countries show the same adverse
> price trends in the late 16th century--implying hard times. For
> Western Europe I count 6 unrest events between 1572 and 1598
> (0.22/yr) 2 between 1550 and 1571 (0.09/yr) and 3 between 1599 and
> 1618 (0.15/yr). This suggests more internal unrest in Europe when
> the adverse price trends are in effect.

> All these bit and pieces of evidence suggest hard times for
> ordinary folks in the late 16th century with rising crime and more
> unrest. This is the sort of eventful times that S&H consider a
> social moment, and indeed they label this period as a social
> moment.

The price inflation that occurred in Europe occurred because of
Spain's importation of large amounts of gold and silver from the New
World, but those sources were petering out later in the century,
which is why the "bubble burst." But it's hard for me to see any
generational connection to this.

I might also mention here a bit of speculation: In an earlier
message I described an "investment bubble" cycle theory, starting
with the Tulipomania bubble crash in 1637. If I were to take a
guess, the guess would be that there was a previous investment bubble
of some kind in the 1550s. If you happen to stumble across anything
like that, please let me know.

I hope I've been able to convince you that I developed the
generational dynamics methodology honestly and legitimately, and that
the crisis wars that I identified for the religious wars are valid.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

John, your comment about "genocidal energy" indicates something Darwinian about your ideas. Is there an element of natural selection involved?

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

I don't understand why you aren't considering civil wars as important.

I do. But you consider the War of Spanish Succession as a crisis war. It was not a genocidal civil war. Why is that a crisis war? How is the War of Spanish Succession different from the 1536-1559 Fraco-Spanish Wars? Both are casuality-intensive territorial wars between the great powers.

The contrast isn't between 1536-59 and 1572, its between 1572 and 1701-13. I see 1572 as qualitiatively different from 1701-13. I see 1536-59 as similar to 1701-1713.

The War of Spanish Succession is not a genocidal civil war. It is a territorial war between great powers. In this, it is like 1536-59 and NOT like 1572. Yes there are a lot of casualities in the 1701-13 war, relative to the surrounding period, but so were there in the 1536-72. Both form the apex of the "war peaks" in my graph.

This is where the appearrance of cherry picking comes. If you choose 1701-13 as a prototype crisis war, then the great power wars from 1635-48 and 1536-59 fit best. They are all territorial great power wars involving French forces with big casualties.

If you choose 1572, the civil war starting in 1789 also fits for a French crisis war. Both of these are culture clashes and fit together. But there is a big gap between 1572 and 1789.

One would like to call 1701-13 a crisis war like 1572 and 1789, but it doesn't really seem to fit as a genocidal civil or religious war.

One would like call 1635-48 as crisis war like 1572 and 1789. It was a religious war, but so were three of the four wars in 1536-59. When I talk about the four wars between 1536-1559 I am speaking of the third, fourth and fifth wars of Charles V and the Franco-Spanish war that ended in 1559.

When you talk about the crisis wars in Germany that ended in 1555, you are talking about the third, fourth, and fifth wars of Charles V (that is, three of four of the wars in the 1536-59 period). Charles V was fighting on two fronts, against German Protestants and the French. France supported the German Protestants financially as well as fighting Charles directly in Italy. The German conflict came to an end in 1555, as you pointed out. Charles then abdicated and his son Philip fought yet another war with France, and ended the Italian question on generally favorable terms in 1559.

Dear Vince,

Originally Posted by Vince Lamb '59

> John, your comment about "genocidal energy" indicates something
> Darwinian about your ideas. Is there an element of natural
> selection involved?

Yes. I became convinced late in 2002 that the generational paradigm
was heavily related to evolution of intelligence in human beings, and
in particular to the evolution of the 80-year lifespan. To put it
another way, the generational paradigm was part of the Darwinian
evolution of man.

This conclusion was initially based on the following observations:

• (*) The 80-year maximum lifespan has evidently not changed
  throughout human history. 80 years appears to be an almost immutable
  constant. It's true that the average lifetime has increased (because
  of reduced infant mortality, for example), but the maximum life span
  seems to have been relatively constant throughout history, and there
  have always been people who were active as leaders into their 70s.
  For example, during the Golden Age of Greece, Pericles lived 66 years,
  and Aristides lived 72 years. Today, Donald Rumsfeld is an obvious
  example of a leader in his 70s.
  
• (*) On the other hand, it's almost impossible to find a leader
  older than 80. People who live past 80 become too forgetful or too
  frail to remain important leaders.
  
• (*) The generational paradigm, in terms of violent crisis wars
  occurring roughly every 80 years, has been illustrated with hundreds
  of examples and no counterexamples, and also appears to be an
  immutable part of human beings.

Thus, human beings appear to be hard-wired to have active lives of at
most 80 years, and this same 80 years is the cycle length for crisis
wars.

These observations lead to the following hypothesis, which integrates
generational dynamics with Darwinism at the individual and group
levels: That the evolution of intelligence is closely tied in to the
80-year cycle and to the 80-year life span. As intelligence evolved
over eons of time and nature "experimented" with different life
spans, 80 years (three to four generations) turned out to be long
enough for the development of wisdom, but still short enough so that
not too much bureaucracy engulfs a tribe. The fact that major "crisis
wars" occurred in the same 80 year cycle guaranteed that old
bureaucracies would be destroyed, while wisdom would be preserved by a
few survivors and written records.

I actually wrote about all this early in 2003 in an essay on
"Population Studies," where I tried to develop a kind of mathematical
model of individual and group evolution tying all this together. It
didn't go very far, but it's still online. Look for "A note to
evolutionary experts" on the page with this url:
http://www.generationaldynamics.com/...0.r.population

Since that time, I've advanced it some more by looking at the causes
of crisis wars. I discussed this work in the forum topic The
Causes of the American Civil War at url
http://www.fourthturning.com/forums/...pic.php?t=1261

I concluded that the cause of the civil war -- the reason that the
South felt it had to secede knowing that war would result -- is
because of a "visceral fear and fury" of servile insurrection, which
Southerners believe was being encouraged and supported by
Northerners.

I've come to see this kind of "visceral fear and fury" as an integral
part of every crisis war, and it creates the "genocidal energy" that
fuels the crisis war.

This "visceral fear and fury" itself occurs in 80 year cycles. We
saw it in America after 9/11. It could not have occurred earlier,
since people who lived through the last crisis war are immune to it,
having suffered through 9/11-type traumas on a daily basis.

The visceral fear and fury can occur for many reasons, but I believe
that the most frequent reason has to do with the Malthus Effect, a
phrase that I use to refer to the fact that population grows faster
than the food supply. (My estimates indicate that the food supply
grows at 0.96% per year, whilc population grows at 2-4% per year.)

The Malthus Effect is a perpetual, invidious factor in human life.
Unless population is reduced by war (or, less often, by disease or
famine), the Malthus Effect gets worse every hour, every day, every
month, every year, with the per capita food supply continually
falling.

In a typical case, the Malthus Effect leads to cyclic generational
crisis wars as follows: After a crisis war, population is reduced to
the point where there is plenty of food for everyone, and so food is
relatively cheap. In every society, the "rich people" promise to
make sure that the "poor people" are fed, because it doesn't cost
much then. As time goes on, the Malthus Effect makes food relatively
scarcer, and so increases the price of food. As the price of food
increases, overall poverty increases. The rich people can no longer
guarantee to feed everyone, because it's too expensive to feed all
the poor people. This leads to low-level violence and looting by the
poor people, and the rich people handle it by ordinary police
methods. However, once the people who remember the last crisis war
all retire or die, all at the same time (the Fourth Turning),
something different happens. The low-level violence that the rich
people could previously shrug off now, suddenly, starts to cause
"visceral fear and fury." One thing leads to another, one act of
brinksmanship leads to the next, and eventually full-scale war
ensues.

If you look at everything that I've discussed in this message, you'll
see that there are several things that are "wired into humans," and
these are the things that evolution wired into us: (1) the 80-year
maximum lifespan, (2) the Mathus Effect which causes population to
grow faster than the food supply, and (3) the "visceral fear and fury"
that happens to humans only once in their lifetime.

These are the three natural factors that evolved in human beings to
make the generational paradigm part of human life, and this is why
crisis wars are necessary and cannot be prevented by the United
Nations or anyone else.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

Maximum human life span includes centenarian survivors.

Interesting comment that humanity seems to have a maximum active period of about 80 years. Gregory Benford described 80 years of age as the "fragility barrier."

I propose to label the first 80 years as the Maximum Active Period.

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

The price inflation that occurred in Europe occurred because of Spain's importation of large amounts of gold and silver from the New World, but those sources were petering out later in the century, which is why the "bubble burst." But it's hard for me to see any generational connection to this.

The price inflation ended in ca. 1650, not 1600. There were periods of faster or slower price inflation during the entire price rise from the early 1500's to 1650. We are currently in a price revolution like that in the 16th cnetury that began in 1932. We too see periods of faster (the 1970's) and slower inflation (the 1990's) just like then. The 1570's to ca. 1600 was a period of faster rise (like the 1970's). it was followed by a period of flattish prices and then another spurt of inflation from the 1620's to ca. 1650. The generational connection with price inflation is given here (this is an early version, written in 2000).

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

Dear Mike,

First, let me say that I'm not playing any games here, Mike.

I never said you were playing games. You are quick to dismiss though. You simply assert that S&H got the Glorious Revolution wrong. How can they get it wrong?. Their cycle isn't about crisis wars, its about generational archetypes. And their cycle has the glorious revolution where it is because that is what the archetypes say. You claim there is no Glorious Revolution, because it doesn't fit in with your concept of crisis wars.

Has it ever occurred to you that the saeculum (as conceived by S&H) may have absolutely nothing to do with crisis wars?

As you know, when I look for crisis wars, I look for "energy,"
meaning genocidal energy.

Now, as for earlier wars between France and Spain, checking my
sources, I find them hard to even find. One source referred to them
vaguely, and two others didn't mention them at all.

Just to give you an example, let me quote a little of Stearns'
Encyclopedia of World History, which is an excellent book because it
has everything, and because the entire text of the book comes with an
enclosed disk which is wonderful.

If I look under France in the 1500s, here's what I find about Spain:

Originally Posted by Stearns

> 1511 - France concluded peace with Spain.

> 1552-59 - Intermittent War with Spain. The French were defeated by
> the Spaniards, who were supported by the English, in the Battle of
> St. Quentin (1557) and by Egmont at Gravelines (1558).

There's just no energy there.

If I look under Spain in the 1500s, here's what I find out about
France:

Originally Posted by Stearns

> 1511 - The Holy League (the pope, Ferdinand, and Venice) against
> France and the Empire.

> 1521-29 - War between France and Spain, the result of French
> support of the comuneros and French designs on Navarre. The
> French took Pampeluna and Fontarabia, but Charles, supported by
> the pope, Florence, and Mantua, expelled the French from Milan
> (1522). In 1524 the Spanish commanders, the Constable de Bourbon
> and the Marqu?s de Pescara, invaded Provence and advanced to
> Marseilles. Francis I was decisively defeated and captured at the
> Battle of Pavia (Feb. 24, 1525) and in captivity at Madrid was
> obliged to sign the Treaty of Madrid, by which he abandoned his
> Italian claims and ceded Burgundy. On his release he violated his
> promises and the war was resumed. By the Treaty of Cambrai (1529),
> Charles was obliged to renounce Burgundy, while Francis once more
> abandoned his claims to Naples.

> 1535-38 - Another war with France, arising from the succession to
> Milan [>], led to another invasion of Provence (1536) and to the
> inconclusive Treaty of Nice (1538).

> 1551-59 - The last war between Charles and the French kings,
> ending in the Treaty of Cateau-Cambr?sis (April 3, 1559) [>].

So you consult a few lines in an encyclopedia and from that you just dismiss Charles V?

Why were war casualties at a maximum over 1537-1562? I can only guess that it had to do with other wars. I know that there were wars going on with the Ottomans at the time, but I don't know how bad they were.

It's also possible that the Spain-France wars mentioned above caused
a lot of casualties even though they weren't crisis wars (like WW I
for America).

It seems from this that you don't know all the French wars during this period and their casualities. Have you read any detailed histories describing the world of Charles V and Phillip II? Just because you know little about the conflicts doesn't mean they were desultory affairs. They weren't important in that they had little long-term consequence (and hence get little attention by historians) but that doesn't mean they weren't energetically contested.

In 1568, with the Inquisition becoming ever more intrusive,
> serious rebellions broke out among the Muslims who had remained in
> Spain after the Reconquest. This led to mass expulsions
> throughout Spain of Muslims, leading to exodus of hundreds of
> thousands of Muslims, even those who had become devout
> Christians.

Why isn't this a crisis like 1572 in France. It's religious, there's civil war, and it has the right timing, 76 years after the last time Muslims got the boot.

Disaster came in 1588 when Spain decided to invade England, which had succumbed to the Reformation in 1533.

What makes the Armada campaign more of a crisis than all the other innumerable campaigns before it?

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

....massive bloodletting.... That can't happen during an awakening.

Sure it can, the English Civil War is an awakening event in S&H's scheme.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

....massive bloodletting.... That can't happen during an awakening.

Sure it can, the English Civil War is an awakening event in S&H's scheme.

Not to mention Vietnam, Cambodia, Afghanistan and the Iran/Iraq War of the past Awakening. Have I missed some? What about Jonestown, our modern-day eqivalent to Martin Luther's Munster madness? How many premature dead bodies does it take before the pile is defined as "massive" anyway? Would Pol Pot's three million qualify?

This "massive bloodletting... can't happen during an awakening" statement is pretty odd. Almost as odd as claiming that WWII was a merely a single "conservative" event that occured during a "Liberal Era." :wink:

p.s. My apologies to the threadmaster, I have obviously wandered "off topic," here.

Dear Mike,

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

> But you consider the War of Spanish Succession as a crisis war. It
> was not a genocidal civil war. Why is that a crisis war? How is
> the War of Spanish Succession different from the 1536-1559
> Fraco-Spanish Wars? Both are casuality-intensive territorial wars
> between the great powers.

There are two separate questions here, one having to do with the War
of Spanish Succession and one having to do with the Franco-Spanish
war.

I didn't evaluate wars by picking the ones I liked best. I looked at
each one separately, on its own, and made an evaluation.

A crisis war doesn't have to be a civil war. Did you really not know
that?

War of Spanish Succession

This was one of the first wars that I looked at, because I knew I
could never feel comfortable with the generational paradigm until I
resolved the Glorious Revolution anomaly.

With regard to the War of Spanish Succession, I checked several
sources at the time.

Let me give you the description of this war as provided in J. M.
Roberts' History of the World:

Originally Posted by Roberts page 584

> A Grand Alliance of Emperor, United Provinces and England was
> soon formed, and there began the War of the Spanish Succession,
> twelve years' fighting, which eventually drove Louis to terms. By
> treaties signed in 1713 and 1714 and called the Peace of Utrecht,
> the crowns of Spain and France were declared forever incapable of
> being united. ... These important facts assured the virtual
> tabilization of western continental Euirope until the French
> Revolution seventy-five years later. Not everyone like it (the
> emperor refused to admit the end of his claim to the throne of
> Spain) but to a remarkable degree the major definitions of western
> Europe north of the Alps have remained what they were in 1714.

Roberts goes on at length to describe the importance of this
agreement, and concludes:

Originally Posted by Roberts page 586

> Western political geography was thus set for a long time.
> Immediately, this owed much to the need felt by all statesmen to
> avoid for as long as possible another conflict such as that which
> had just closed. For the first time a treaty of 1713 declared the
> aim of the signatories to be the security of peace through a
> balance fof power. So practical an aim was an important
> innovation in political thinking. There were good grounds for
> such realism; wars were more expensive than ever and eve Great
> Britain and France, the only countries in the eighteenth century
> capable of sustaining war against other great powers without
> foreign subsidy, had been strained. But the end of the War of the
> Spanish Succession also brought effective settlements of real
> problems. a new age was opening. Outside Italy, most of the
> political map of the twentieth century was already visible in
> western Europe. Dynasticism was beginning to be relegated to the
> second rank as a principle of foreign policy. The age of
> national politics had begun, for some kings, at least, who could
> no longer separate the itnerests of their house from those of
> their nation.

Other sources I read at the time weren't as long-winded, but they all
confirmed the importance of this war, and Roberts makes it clear that
this was a very important war in the history of western
Europe. He doesn't use the word "genocidal," but he refers to the
great expense of the war and "to the need felt by all statesmen to
avoid for as long as possible another conflict such as that which had
just closed."

Whenever I've evaluated any war as crisis versus mid-cycle, I've
always pursued an honest evaluation of the war according a feeling of
"energy," as I've said, and get a feeling of truly huge impact
from this war. I have no misgivings whatsoever in saying that this
is unambiguously a crisis war.

Franco-Habsburg War, 1521-29

When I did this research originally in 2002, I never focused on this
war, since none of the books I looked at mentioned it, or mentioned it
only vaguely. I didn't even know that this war had a name until you
mentioned that it was called the "Franco-Spanish war," but when I just
googled that name, I got the Franco-Spanish war of the mid-1600s.
Apparently the war you're talking about has the preferred name of the
Franco-Habsburg War.

When I look in Roberts' coverage of this period, I find:

Originally Posted by Roberts page 580

> A series of Habsburg-Valois wars in Ialy began in 1494 with a
> French invasion reminiscent of medieval adventuring and raiding,
> and lasted until 1559.

Roberts then goes on to describe this period of time, but his
description is entirely political. He never once mentioned the war
as an important factor.

I'm really perplexed as to why you consider this such an important
war. I can't find any evidence anywhere that attaches any special
importance to it, beyond the minimal importance that would be
assigned to any war that killed people.

You say that this war was "casualty-intensive," but I haven't seen
your evidence for that. The evidence that you have given me seems to
contradict it.




In the above graph, there's a fairly low hump corresponding to the
years 1537-62, but those years don't even correspond to the main
years of the war, 1521-29. And a later continuation of this war,
1552-59, is described by Stearns as an "intermittent war." I'm
sorry, but crisis wars are not intermittent.

So not only can I not find any evidence to support your cheerleading
for the 1521-29 war as a crisis war, your own evidence appears to
contradict it.

Are you really certain that even the small hump in your graph
corresponds to casualties in the war between France and Spain? I
know that there were other wars going on at this time -- the German
religious wars, wars with the Ottomans, and, starting in 1557, the
Livonian war, pursued by Russia's Ivan the Terrible, a war which drew
in Poland, Sweden and Denmark. Perhaps those are the wars that caused
the casualties that you're seeing in the 1537-62 hump.

As for myself, I've checked and rechecked the evidence now, and I
can't even imagine any reason why I would reclassify either of these
wars. There's simply no evidence to support it.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

> The contrast isn't between 1536-59 and 1572, its between 1572 and
> 1701-13. I see 1572 as qualitiatively different from 1701-13. I
> see 1536-59 as similar to 1701-1713.

They are qualitatively different. One was a regional civil
war (in the 1570s, when regions were smaller), and one was a
pan-European international "world war" (in the 1700s, when smaller
regions had merged into a large region). But both of them are crisis
wars.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

> This is where the appearrance of cherry picking comes. If you
> choose 1701-13 as a prototype crisis war, then the great power
> wars from 1635-48 and 1536-59 fit best. They are all territorial
> great power wars involving French forces with big casualties.

I wouldn't call 1701-13 as a "prototype," but it is a crisis war. I
do indeed identify 1635-48 as a crisis war. But 1536-39 is nothing,
based on my research, and, frankly, based on your evidence as well. I
did no cherry-picking. I evaluated each of the wars individually,
and my evaluations stand.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

> When you talk about the crisis wars in Germany that ended in 1555,
> you are talking about the third, fourth, and fifth wars of Charles
> V (that is, three of four of the wars in the 1536-59 period).
> Charles V was fighting on two fronts, against German Protestants
> and the French. France supported the German Protestants
> financially as well as fighting Charles directly in Italy. The
> German conflict came to an end in 1555, as you pointed out.
> Charles then abdicated and his son Philip fought yet another war
> with France, and ended the Italian question on generally favorable
> terms in 1559.

When I look in Geoffrey Parker's Compact History of the World,
under 1440-1789, "The expansion of France" (p. 82), it lists these
two entries in the timeline: "1491 - French annexation of Brittany,"
and "1562-98 & 1621-29 French Wars of Religion." There's nothing
about the Franco-Habsburg war.

When I look in Smith & Smith's Essentials of World History, p.
81, under "Wars of Religion," I find:

Originally Posted by Smith & Smith

> From the middle of the sixteenth century to the middle of the
> seventeenty century, wars raged in Europe; these were often
> referred to as the "wars of religion," although in most cases the
> motives were basically political and economic.

> France from 1562 to 1595 was engaged in a civil war between
> Catholics and Huguenots.

> War broke out in Germany (the Holy Roman Empire) in 1546 between
> the Lutheran princes and the Emperor, Charles V. In 1555 the
> Peace of Augsburg was concluded, recognizing the reglisous
> stalemate and giving each iindividual prince the right to decide
> whether his territory would be Lutheran or Catholic.

Here's what the Library of Congress country studies (
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/cshome.html ) for Germany says:

Originally Posted by Library of Congress

> Resistance to Lutheranism

> Although Lutheranism had powerful supporters, its survival was by
> no means certain. Its main opponent was the Habsburg emperor
> Charles V, who had inherited Spain, the Netherlands, southern
> Italy, Sicily, and the Austrian lands as patrimony and who hoped
> to restore the unity of the German Empire by keeping it Roman
> Catholic. Charles had been out of Germany between 1521 and 1530,
> and when he returned he found that the new religion had won too
> many adherents to be easily uprooted. In addition, he could not
> devote himself single-mindedly to combating it but also had to
> struggle with powerful external enemies. One was Francis I (r.
> 1515-47) of France, who attacked the empire from the west, having
> resolved to destroy the power of the Habsburgs. Another threat was
> posed by the Turks, who were attacking the empire from the east.
> Even the papacy at times conspired against its coreligionist
> because it feared Charles was becoming too powerful.

> Within Germany, forces were also arrayed against Charles. In 1531
> Protestant leaders created the League of Schmalkalden to oppose
> him. By 1545 northeastern and northwestern Germany and large parts
> of southern Germany had become Protestant. Despite the
> significant victory over the Protestants at the Battle of M?hlberg
> in 1547, Charles still was not powerful enough to impose his will
> on the German princes.

> The Peace of Augsburg

> By the early 1550s, it was apparent that a negotiated settlement
> was necessary. In 1555 the Peace of Augsburg was signed.The
> settlement, which represented a victory for the princes, granted
> recognition to both Lutheranism and Roman Catholicism in Germany,
> and each ruler gained the right to decide the religion to be
> practiced within his state. Subjects not of this faith could move
> to another state with their property, and disputes between the
> religions were to be settled in court.

Beyond that, I don't have a really clear picture of Germany in the
1540s, and it could stand with some more research.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

Dear Mike,

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

> The price inflation ended in ca. 1650, not 1600. There were
> periods of faster or slower price inflation during the entire
> price rise from the early 1500's to 1650. We are currently in a
> price revolution like that in the 16th cnetury that began in 1932.
> We too see periods of faster (the 1970's) and slower inflation
> (the 1990's) just like then. The 1570's to ca. 1600 was a period
> of faster rise (like the 1970's). it was followed by a period of
> flattish prices and then another spurt of inflation from the
> 1620's to ca. 1650. The generational connection with price
> inflation is given here (this is an early version, written in
> 2000).

I won't comment on this in general, since I have yet to do the
research I want to do surrounding the Panic of 1857, though I would
note here that the secular financial bubbles theory that I was
proposing does not contradict anything you say here.

Interestingly, your graph shows a huge peak in 1560, which
corresponds to the theory I proposed yesterday that there would have
to have been some sort of investment bubble in the 1550s. On the
other hand, your graph doesn't show the Tulipomania bubble that burst
in 1537. However, all this is for another day.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

Dear Mike,

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

> I never said you were playing games. You are quick to dismiss
> though. You simply assert that S&H got the Glorious Revolution
> wrong. How can they get it wrong?. Their cycle isn't about crisis
> wars, its about generational archetypes. And their cycle has the
> glorious revolution where it is because that is what the
> archetypes say. You claim there is no Glorious Revolution, because
> it doesn't fit in with your concept of crisis wars.

> Has it ever occurred to you that the saeculum (as conceived by
> S&H) may have absolutely nothing to do with crisis wars?

I guess I'm getting used to your moods. As you well know, I don't
quickly dismiss anything. It took me literally months to deal with
the Glorious Revolution. And I told you how they got it wrong. They
had the Armada crisis period and the Revolutionary War crisis period,
and needed to fit one in between. They cherry-picked the Glorious
Revolution and fudged in the generational archetypes to justify their
timeline, when obviously that's an awakening event, while the actual
crisis periods are the English civil war and the War of the Spanish
Succession. As for myself, I've fully justified all of my choices, at
length, several times. And yes, everything has occurred to me, but I
believe I've demonstrated valid reasons for my conclusions.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

> So you consult a few lines in an encyclopedia and from that you
> just dismiss Charles V?

No, Mike. Oh, for heaven's sakes. As you well know, I consult several
sources.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

> It seems from this that you don't know all the French wars during
> this period and their casualities. Have you read any detailed
> histories describing the world of Charles V and Phillip II? Just
> because you know little about the conflicts doesn't mean they were
> desultory affairs. They weren't important in that they had little
> long-term consequence (and hence get little attention by
> historians) but that doesn't mean they weren't energetically
> contested.

Well, I've consulted a number of sources now, and as I said, your own
data contradicts your claims. If you have other evidence, by all
means let me know.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

> Why isn't this a crisis like 1572 in France. It's religious,
> there's civil war, and it has the right timing, 76 years after
> the last time Muslims got the boot. ... What makes the Armada
> campaign more of a crisis than all the other innumerable campaigns
> before it?

It was. The crisis period ran from 1568 to 1588.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

> Sure it can, the English Civil War is an awakening event in S&H's
> scheme.

That's another reason why the Glorious Revolution anomaly was simply
a mistake.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

Dear Marc,

Originally Posted by Devil's Advocate

> Not to mention Vietnam, Cambodia, Afghanistan and the Iran/Iraq
> War of the past Awakening. Have I missed some? What about
> Jonestown, our modern-day eqivalent to Martin Luther's Munster
> madness? How many premature dead bodies does it take before the
> pile is defined as "massive" anyway? Would Pol Pot's three million
> qualify?

This is all jumbled up. For example, the Iran/Iraq war was a crisis
period. Iran and Iraq today are in awakening periods.

The Vietnam war was an awakening event for America, but was a crisis
war for Vietnam and Cambodia, for reasons that you've so vividly
pointed out.

With regard to Jonestown, remember this: Generational Dynamics
explains and forecasts the actions and attitudes of large masses of
people, not individuals or small groups of people. Thus, the Boston
Strangler was not a one-man crisis war, and neither was Jonestown.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

Other sources I read at the time ... all confirmed the importance of this war. He doesn't use the word "genocidal," but he refers to the great expense of the war and "to the need felt by all statesmen to avoid for as long as possible another conflict such as that which had just closed."

WW I was an important and expensive and afterward there was a great need felt to avoid another conflict like it. But WW I wasn't a crisis war. What about the War of the Spanish Succession is different from WW I that make the former a crisis war and the latter not?

Franco-Habsburg War, 1521-29

I spoke about the cluster of wars from 1536-1559 that formed the peak in my graph--why are you talking about a war from 1521-29?

I don't base my cycle analysis on wars. I have written several chapters (and on online article) on the War Cycle. As part of the research used to construct the war casuality graph I need a list of wars and their associated numbers killed as a measure of the "intensity" of the war. Here is a portion of the list dealing with the 16th century wars involving France. The number of casualities appears at the end of the line.

Neapolitan War (1501-1504) -- 18 thousand
War of the Cambrian League (1508-1509) -- 10 thousand
War of the Holy League (1511-1514) -- 18 thousand
Second Milanese War (1515-1515) -- 3 thousand
First War of Charles V (1521-1526) -- 30 thousand
Second War of Charles V (1526-1529) -- 18 thousand
Third War of Charles V (1536-1538) -- 32 thousand
Fourth War of Charles V (1542-1544) -- 47 thousand
Seige of Boulogne (1544-1546) -- 8 thousand
Arundel's Rebellion (1549-1550) -- 6 thousand
Fifth War of Charles V (1552-1556) -- 51 thousand
Franc-Spanish War (1556-1559) -- 24 thousand
Scottish War (1559-1560) -- 6 thousand
First Huguenot War (1562-1564) -- 6 thousand
War of the Three Henries (1589-1598) -- 16 thousand
Franco-Savoian War (1600-1601) -- 2 thousand

Between 1536 and 1559 there a total of six French wars with a combined death total of 168,000, (92% of these deaths come from the four wars with Spain). This is the largest concentration of casualities from French wars in the 16th century and makes up more than half of that peak around 1560.

This cluster of wars is the closest thing to a 16th century "mega war" like the War of Spanish Succession and Napoleonic Wars are "mega wars".

In the above graph, there's a fairly low hump corresponding to the
years 1537-62, but those years don't even correspond to the main
years of the war, 1521-29.

See above.

So not only can I not find any evidence to support your cheerleading for the 1521-29 war as a crisis war, your own evidence appears to contradict it.

Quote me where I was cheerleading about a war in 1521-29.

I know that there were other wars going on at this time -- the German religious wars

Can you supply a list of the German religious wars showing beginning and ending dates, like I did above for French Wars?

I wouldn't call 1701-13 as a "prototype," but it is a crisis war. I
do indeed identify 1635-48 as a crisis war. But 1536-39 is nothing,
based on my research, and, frankly, based on your evidence as well.

The date is 1636-59. This "nothing" are simply the French wars that had the largest casualties of the era. I will point out that the French allied themselves with the Ottomans in 1536, who then fought against the Hapsburgs over 1537-47. This war at 97 thousand adds to the 154 thousand casualties from the four French wars, creating a coalition war with 251 thousand casualties: French+Ottoman vs. Hapsburgs.

I evaluated each of the wars individually, and my evaluations stand.

To answer the detailed questions you provided earlier requires detailed knowledge of each war. Yet you seem to be unaware of the existence of many wars.

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

I guess I'm getting used to your moods. As you well know, I don't quickly dismiss anything.

This sounds like a dismissal to me:

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

This is complete garbage. Where's St. Bartholomew's Night Massacre (1572) and its aftermath? Where's the Ottoman war with the Habsburgs (1593-1606) and then the Ottoman war with the Holy League (1683-89), which were monumental events that resolved the control of Eastern Europe?

They are big wars. The first one makes up much of the 1600 peak. The second shows up as a shoulder on the 1688-1713 peak.

Dear Mike,

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

> WW I was an important and expensive and afterward there was a
> great need felt to avoid another conflict like it. But WW I wasn't
> a crisis war. What about the War of the Spanish Succession is
> different from WW I that make the former a crisis war and the
> latter not?

WWI was a crisis war for Eastern Europe.




(Click on the above image to get a full-sized image.)

WW I enveloped huge parts of the world, but was not a crisis war for
Western Europe. The War of the Spanish Succession was a crisis war
for Western Europe.

Originally Posted by Mike Alexander '59

> I spoke about the cluster of wars from 1536-1559 that formed the
> peak in my graph--why are you talking about a war from 1521-29?

The reason I quoted the war from 1521-29 is because that's all I
could find. I checked the world history books I've been using, and
none of them mentions anything at all. Yesterday I googled
"Franco-Spanish War," and I got a war from 1635-59, and the
Franco-Habsburg war from 1521-29. If I google "Franco-Habsburg war,"
I still get two wars from 1521-29 and 1551-59.

So that's why I thought you were talking about a war from 1521-29 and
again from 1551-59. When you talked about the wars between France
and Spain, these are the only wars that I could even find listed
anywhere. All the other wars you're talking about don't even seem to
count in the "Franco-Habsburg war."

I don't get any of the wars you're listing when you try to google
"Franco-Spanish war" or "Franco-Habsburg war." Try it yourself if
you don't believe me.

Today I tried googling "Fourth War of Charles V," and I did get
something on the New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia at
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06207a.htm . (I love this site
because the encyclopedia was written in the 1900s decade, and so it
contains a great deal of information which has otherwise been
filtered out in history books of the last century.)

This page describes the wars you're talking about, but doesn't
mention the high casualties, and appears to assign these wars no
particular importance whatsoever. I found Arundel's Rebellion on a
timeline at http://www.warscholar.com/Year/1525.html .

I'm not trying to belittle these wars, Mike, I'm just trying to
figure out what's going on, and why these wars are so important when
they're not in any of the sources I've checked.

I'm just trying to put these wars in perspective, Mike, and figure
out how to deal with them.

The casualty figures that you've listed are quite high, and if there
were any justice in the world, then these wars should be
super-important. But they're so unimportant, no one seems to care
much about them.

How do those wars correspond to what's happening today? Today we
have wars going on in places like the Bangladesh-India border
(they're building an electrified fence there), in Chechnya, in Congo,
and of course there's that impending catastrophe in Darfur which may
cause hundreds of thousands of deaths. How many people in America
care about any of these wars?

There's a bitter truth about humans that we really don't care about
deaths of other people except for political purposes. We really
didn't care about a million deaths in Rwanda in 1994, and we don't
really care about the deaths in those other wars I've listed.

So I assume that in the wars you're talking about, they didn't mean
much of anything to anyone even though human beings were being used as
cannon fodder (or whatever kinds of weapons they needed fodder for in
those days).

There are wars going on around the world all the time, that no one
cares about. In answer to another one of your questions, you're
right that I can't list all the French or German wars of the 1530s,
but then I can't even list all the wars that went on in the 1990s and
their casualty rates, although I suspect there were dozens, with
hundreds of thousands or perhaps millions of casualties.

One thing about crisis wars is that they're the wars that people
actually care about, other than the actual people involved. They're
the wars that people remember for centuries.

Maybe the Catholics didn't kill as many Huguenots as were killed in
the 1530s wars you're talking about, but then the St. Bartholomew's
Night Massacre is still remembered with bitterness today. When the
massacre occurred, the Catholics in Rome, led by the Pope, celebrated
the deaths of so many "heretics" as a miracle, to be remembered as a
holy event. The hatreds over that exist to this day, even though
Pope John Paul made a plea for forgiveness and reconciliation in a
visit to France in 1997.

So you can see the contrast. The Fourth War of Charles V killed a
lot of people, but nobody remembers it enough to even include it in
world history books. There'll be no apology from the Pope for the
Fourth War of Charles V. What they remember is St. Bartholomew's
Night Massacre, and enough people remember it that the Pope actually
had to apologize for it just a few years ago.

These examples illustrate some major facts concerning crisis wars.
Crisis wars have to do with a common cultural memory. They affect
generations not only because of what happened, but because of
perceptions of what happened. If you ask a high school kid today
about the Korean War, he probably won't know what you're talking
about. If you ask him about WW II, he'll at least know what it was,
even though he won't much more than that. In fact, he probably won't
know more than what he learned in Saving Private Ryan. He'll
believe that it was all caused by Hitler, even though that's
impossible. Try asking someone why they think Hitler bombed Pearl
Harbor, and they'll say that haven't learned why yet. Still, at
least they have a cultural memory of WW II, but chances are don't
even have a cultural memory of the Korean War.

But let's go back, Mike, because I know your fingers are itching to
tell me why I'm wrong. I don't think either of us is wrong. The fact
is that you and I are looking at something completely different.
You're not looking at the same generational wars that I am (or that
S&H are), but you're looking at something very important. And all
I'm saying -- as I've said before -- is that we should be able to
integrate all this stuff so that we're supporting each other rather
than opposing each other.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com