The Evolution of Civilizations
Quigley's 1961 theoretical statement of the seven-stage civilizational model
Also known as: Evolution of Civilizations, EoC, The Evolution of Civilizations: An Introduction to Historical Analysis
The Evolution of Civilizations: An Introduction to Historical Analysis (1961) is Carroll Quigley's theoretical work — the volume in which he lays out the analytical machinery he then applies in Tragedy and Hope and The Anglo-American Establishment. Civilizations, on Quigley's account, are producing societies organized around an instrument of expansion that hardens into an institution and then passes through seven stages — Mixture, Gestation, Expansion, Age of Conflict, Universal Empire, Decay, Invasion. Quigley tests the hypothesis on five civilizations: Mesopotamian, Canaanite, Minoan, Classical, and Western.
Scope
Evolution of Civilizations is a single 414-page volume that opens with three chapters on method — scientific method and the social sciences, the relationship of man and culture, and the distinction between groups, societies, and civilizations — then proceeds in three chapters to historical analysis as such, ending with the seven-stage scheme of civilizational change. The second half of the book applies the framework to five civilizations as test cases: Mesopotamia, the Canaanites and the Minoans, the Classical world, and Western Civilization. The conclusion returns to the present and asks where the West sits on the curve. Quigley wrote the book, as Harry Hogan's foreword puts it, as both 'wide-ranging' and 'analytic, not merely descriptive' — an attempt at a 'causal explanation of the stages of civilization' against the more episodic comparative work of Spengler and Toynbee. The American Historical Review reviewer wrote that 'Quigley's juxtaposition of facts in a novel order is often provocative, and his work yields a harvest of insights.'
Structure
The book has ten numbered chapters plus a foreword by Harry J. Hogan, a preface, and a conclusion. Chapter 1 (Scientific Method and the Social Sciences) defends the possibility of a scientific historiography. Chapter 2 (Man and Culture) distinguishes Quigley's six 'levels of culture' — intellectual, religious, social, political, economic, military. Chapter 3 (Groups, Societies, and Civilizations) defines a civilization as a producing society with writing and city life. Chapter 4 (Historical Analysis) is the methodological core. Chapter 5 (Historical Change in Civilizations) lays out the seven stages — Mixture, Gestation, Expansion, Age of Conflict, Universal Empire, Decay, Invasion — and the instrument-of-expansion mechanism. Chapter 6 (The Matrix of Early Civilizations) covers the prehistoric matrix. Chapters 7-10 apply the framework to Mesopotamia, the Canaanites and Minoans, the Classical world, and the West. A short conclusion returns to the question of where Western Civilization sits on the seven-stage curve.
Method
Quigley's preface to the first edition is explicit that 'this book is not a history. Rather it is an attempt to establish analytical tools that will assist the understanding of history' (EoC 23). He treats historiography as a problem of selection: 'the facts of the past are infinite, and the possible arrangements of any selection from these facts are equally numerous,' so 'there must be some principle on which selection from these facts is based' (EoC 23). The book's job is to make that principle explicit. The principle is the seven-stage life-cycle, which presupposes the instrument-of-expansion model: each civilization expands when a producing surplus is reinvested by some social mechanism (slavery, feudalism, capitalism, etc.) and stagnates when that mechanism hardens into an institution that consumes its own surplus. The method is comparative — Quigley draws not just on history but on anthropology, archaeology, economics, and what he calls 'culture-and-personality' work. Harry Hogan's foreword notes that Quigley took a 'peculiarly scientific approach... he believed that it should be possible to examine the data and draw conclusions.'
Key Arguments
The book's analytic core is the claim that civilizations are organized around an instrument of expansion — a social mechanism by which surplus is accumulated and reinvested (for Classical Civilization, slavery on great estates; for medieval Western Civilization, feudalism; for modern Western, commercial then industrial then financial capitalism). Each instrument eventually hardens into an institution that consumes its surplus rather than reinvesting it. At that point the civilization passes from Expansion into an Age of Conflict and, in twelve of thirteen historical cases, on through Universal Empire, Decay, and Invasion. The West is the exception: it has been able to 'reform itself' and re-enter Expansion several times (T&H 4-5, EoC ch. 10). Western Civilization's distinguishing ideology, Quigley argues, is the moderate-realist epistemology articulated by Aquinas in the thirteenth century: 'the truth unfolds in time through a communal process' (Hogan, foreword, EoC 16). This is the philosophical condition for institutional reform, and the prospect that the West may now be losing it is the book's open question.
Reception and Reader's Guide
Evolution of Civilizations was reviewed warmly on publication — Christian Science Monitor: 'He has reached sounder ground than has Arnold J. Toynbee'; Library Journal: 'this is an amazing book... sane, impressively analytical, and well balanced' (EoC 2). It never sold like Tragedy and Hope but is the indispensable theoretical companion to that book — readers who want the framework that organizes Tragedy and Hope's narrative should read Evolution first. Begin with the foreword by Harry Hogan and Quigley's own preface, then skip to Chapter 5 (Historical Change in Civilizations) for the seven-stage scheme and Chapter 10 (Western Civilization) for the application. Chapters 2-4 on method reward a careful reader but can be read after the historical chapters. The conclusion is short and should not be skipped — it is where Quigley raises, without resolving, the possibility that the West is now in its first irreversible Age of Conflict.
Cited in
- evolution-of-civilizations · p. 2 Quigley
In this perceptive look at the factors behind the rise and fall of civilizations, Professor Quigley seeks to establish the analytical tools necessary for understanding history... he identifies seven stages of historical change for all civilizations: mixture, gestation, expansion, conflict, universal empire, decay, and invasion.
- evolution-of-civilizations · p. 3 Quigley
Contents — 1. Scientific Method and the Social Sciences — ... — 5. Historical Change in Civilizations — ... — 10. Western Civilization — Conclusion.
- evolution-of-civilizations · p. 14 Quigley
This book is not a history. Rather it is an attempt to establish analytical tools that will assist the understanding of history.
- evolution-of-civilizations · p. 5 Quigley
The Evolution of Civilizations expresses two dimensions of its author, Carroll Quigley... In the first place, its scope is wide-ranging, covering the whole of man's activities throughout time. Second, it is analytic, not merely descriptive.
- tragedy-and-hope · p. 7 Quigley
BY CARROLL QUIGLEY — The Evolution of Civilizations — Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time.