ABSTRACT
Cultures have perished before of decadence. They lost the cunning of hand or brain, they fell prey to some sharp climatic change, they were wiped out through conquest by tribes unheard of before, they were caught in some taboo that left them powerless to deal with Nature and get a living from it. Along with the increase in tempo—to explore the familiar again—the authors are witnessing an increase in magnitude. They are doing everything not only faster but bigger than ever before. Europeans used to laugh at Americans for talking in terms of magnitudes. It is this that gives many the sense that civilization is a death dance. The twin plagues of depression and war, never more dreaded, were never more deadly in their imminence and destructiveness. Social theory has been puzzled by the problem of why revolutionary changes come where they do and, although the soil may seem just as fertile, not elsewhere.
