Academics From The United States

"This article revisits the prediction, made in 2010, that the 2010–2020 decade would likely be a period of growing instability in the United States and Western Europe..."

"All these cycles look set to peak in the years around 2020."

"We are also entering a dip in the so-called ... This could mean that future recessions will be severe."

"We need to find ways to ameliorate the negative effects of globalization... Economic inequality, accompanied by burgeoning public debt, can be addressed by making tax rates more progressive."

"This prediction was based on a computational model that quantified in the USA such structural-demographic forces for instability as popular immiseration, intraelite competition, and state weakness prior to 2010."

"(SDT) offers a... wholistic framework for investigating such... forces that... lead to revolutions, civil wars, and other major outbreaks of socio-political instability."

"Another Belzoni activist would be attacked by White supremacists months later. Belzoni leader, entrepreneur, and grocer Gus Courts was warned after the murder of Lee that he would be "next on the list to go." Courts was distinguished from his peers by organizing a contingent. of Humphreys County Blacks to pay their poll taxes and register to vote in 1953. After being harassed by the Humphreys County Citizens' Council, Courts appealed to the state government for protection. Instead of receiving protection, Courts was confronted in his store by a local Citizens' Council member who possessed a copy of his letter appealing for protection. After the November 1955 elections, Courts was shot in his store. Friends took the wounded Courts two counties away to the hospital in Mound Bayou, due to concerns about the care Lee received in the Belzoni hospital after his assault. Courts recovered from the attack in Mound Bayou. Following advice from Medgar Evers, Courts decided to leave the state. Escorted by an armed Evers, Courts fled the Delta to Jackson. After stints in Texas and California, Courts and his family would eventually move to Chicago. An FBI investigation of the Courts shooting ended with no arrests. In Chicago, Courts was clearly a political exile of Mississippi apartheid. During a 1968 interview, Courts reflected, I had to leave my $15,000 a year grocery business, my trucking business and my home and everything—my wife and I—thousands of us Mississippians had to run away. We had to flee in the night. We are American refugees from the terror in the South all because we wanted to vote."

"During the 1870s, Black political participation was the primary motivation for White supremacist violence. Black political participation accounted for 83 percent of the recorded mob violence of the period. The federal government allowed its southern adversaries back into the union through the violence, terror, and disenfranchisement of people of African descent. The U.S. government and national Republican Party proved unreliable allies as valiant men like Caldwell were assassinated, Black political officials were deposed, and the Black masses were forced into agrarian peonage. With the Hayes-Tilden , any pretense of federal intervention in Mississippi and the former Confederacy was dropped for decades. A war was waged in the South to place emancipated Blacks, in the words of Du Bois, "back towards slavery." Terrorist violence was unleashed to secure the White planter elite in power and to perpetuate a system based on White supremacy. The specter of violence remained as a means of intimidation and social control. In the decades following Reconstruction, lynching became common in the state. Between 1882 and 1940, 534 Black people were lynched in Mississippi—the highest total in the United States during that period. The federal government ignored terrorism waged against Black people: "Congress and the president took no action to prevent lynching, and the federal government did not prosecute the perpetrators, even when the event was publicized at least a day in advance." With White supremacist violence as a major vehicle used to intimidate and suppress, within decades Blacks were excluded from representation and participation in electoral politics and apartheid was institutionalized in civil society."

"The next decade is likely to be a period of growing instability... which could undermine... scientific progress..."

"Quantitative historical analysis reveals that complex human societies are affected by recurrent—and predictable—waves of political instability..."

"The assassination of Caldwell is symbolic of the reign of terror that defeated Reconstruction, democracy, Black political participation, as well as human rights in Mississippi and the South in the mid-. Violence was central to the establishment of White domination, not only to seize power for White supremacists but also to instill fear and intimidation in the Black population and their allies. In a state with a Black majority, to secure White supremacy and to maintain Black labor, particularly rural workers, as a servile labor force, it was necessary to institutionalize fear and intimidation. Men like Caldwell represented hope for Black progress and resistance to White domination."

"SDT can be... an explicit computational model capable of forecasting future... social unrest and political violence in specific social systems."

"In the United States, we have stagnating or declining real wages, a growing gap between rich and poor, overproduction of young graduates with advanced degrees, and exploding public debt. These... social indicators are... related... dynamically. They... experienced turning points during the 1970s. Historically, such developments have served as leading indicators of looming political instability. ...50-year instability spikes occurred around 1870, 1920 and 1970, so another could be due around 2020."

"Specific triggers... are difficult, perhaps... impossible to predict. ...[S]tructural pressures build up slowly and more predictably, and are amenable to analysis and forecasting."

"... was proposed by and further developed and tested by... investigators, including [S.] Nefedov, Turchin, [and] Korotayev et al."

"Many triggering events... are ultimately caused by pent-up social pressures ...[i.e.,] the structural factors."

"[T]here are other dimensions. The state fragility and international environment, especially for smaller countries, international environment plays quite a role, but I will focus on the first two."

"Not all of these candidates are wealthy in their own right. Many of the newly wealthy... instead of running themselves... fund other individuals."

"The SDT proposes that the causes of revolutions and major rebellions are... similar to processes that cause earthquakes. In both... it is useful to distinguish "pressures" (structural conditions, which build up slowly) from "triggers" (sudden releasing events, which immediately precede a social or geological eruption)."

"I'll use the example of the United States, which I have studied from inside out... over the past 20 years, and I will illustrate how these few forces... have laid out in real life... a particular example..."

"[E]ssentially the effect of increasing the number of wealth holders is translated into increased competition for political positions."

"That, as Nandana observes at this point (sloka 22), each country is given in the order of its authority, the best being first, is clear not only from the last verse, but from the one that follows it. For here it is stated that the ' district fit for sacrifice ' is all the country forming the natural habitat of the black buck, and this differs from the 'country of barbarians' in that the latter is not a place fit for the twice-born to live in. 'Natural habitat ' is not to be taken with the Commentators as making a distinction between country and town, but between the plains and the hills. The Gangetic plain and the country about Kuruksetra, between Delhi and Umballa and south of the former locality, is still the 'natural habitat' of the black buck. This account in Manu concludes with the words: " thus have I briefly expounded to you the home (yoni) of dharma, and its origin (sanmbhavta).""

"The Punjab is thus omitted altogether from the list. The most western locality is the place where the Sarasouti disappears in the north-west, and the Arabian Sea, west of the southern line of the Vindhyas."

"[a homeland decidedly east of the Punjab] is supported even by native traditions. At a very early (Brahmanic) period the Northerners‘ are regarded as a suspicious sort of people, whose religious practices, far from being authoritative, are censured. No tradition associates the ancient literature with the Punjāb. In fact, save for one exception, even the legal manuals do not take cognizance of the Northwest. They have the stanza that defines Āryāvarta, and also the stanzas that extend the geographical boundary still further south; but they ignore the North."

"if the first home of the Aryans can be determined at all by the conditions topographical and meteorological, described in their early hymns, then decidedly the Punjab was not that home. For here there are neither mountains nor monsoon storms to burst, yet storm and mountain belong to the very marrow of the Rigveda... If there is an area which fulfils these conditions, according to Hopkins, it is ―a district […] where monsoon storms and mountain scenery are found, that district, namely, which lies South of Umballa (or Ambālā). It is here, in my opinion, that the Rigveda, taken as a whole, was composed. In every particular, this locality fulfils the physical conditions under which the composition of the hymns was possible, and what is of paramount importance, is the first district east of the Indus that does so."

"Manu, however, has one verse that in connection with this subject is of interest, and deserves to be translated, though till now it never has been rendered into English. I refer to ii. 17, and translate in paraphrase: "The country divinely meted out by the rivers Sarasouti and Ghuggar, and lying between them, is where the (Rig, etc.) Veda arose, and hence is called brahmavarta or 'home of the Veda' in the tradition of the learned.""

"The second book of Manu is concerned with the correct dharma and conduct of the twice-born...The following verses then show what are the less authoritative, but still authoritative countries. In abstract this appears thus: (The district between the Sarasvati and Dhrsadvatl is the home of the Veda); the religious practices found in this country are those of the good. Next to this lies the country south of it (from Thanesar to Mathura),' which is the district of the seers of the Veda (brahmarsidepa), and from Brahmans of this district are to be learned the practices of men to-day. Taking a wider sweep, all the country from west to east between the place where the Sarasouti disappears in the desert and that where the Jumna disappears in the Ganges, and from north to south between the Himalayas and the Vindhya hills is the ' Middle Land.' The ' home of the Aryans' (Aryavarta), as it is called, is the country between these mountains and the two seas."

"[there are a great many] evidences of special rapport between viii and v."

"viii joins the later Avesta to post-Rik literature and the other General Books."

"To point to the list of words common to the Avesta and viii [of the Rigveda] with its group, and say that here is proof positive that there is closer relationship with the Avesta, and that, therefore, viii after all is older than the books which have not preserved these words, some of which are of great significance, would be a first thought. But this explanation is barred out by the fact that most of these Avestan words preserved in viii, withal those of the most importance, are common words in the literature posterior to the Rik. Hence to make the above claim would be tantamount to saying that these words have held their own through the period to which viii (assuming it to be older than ii-vii) is assigned, have thereupon disappeared, and then come into vogue again after the interval to which the maker of this assumption would assign ii-vii. This, despite all deprecation of negative evidence, is not credible. Take, for instance, udara or uṣṭra or meṣa, the first is found only in viii., i., x.; the second in viii., i.; the last in viii., i., ix., x. Is it probable that words so common both early and late should have passed through an assumedly intermediate period (of ii.-vii.) without leaving a trace? Or, again: is a like assumption credible in the case of kṣīra, which appears in the Iranian khshīra; in RV. viii., i., ix., x.; disappears in the assumedly later group ii.-vii.; and reappears in the AV. and later literature as a common word? Evidently, the facts are not explained on the hypothesis that the Avesta and RV. viii. are older than RV. ii.-vii."

"viii with the General Books and post-Rik literature agrees with Avestan as against the early family books."

"Neo-Platonism and Christian Gnosticism owe much to India. The Gnostic ideas in regard to a plurality of heavens and spiritual worlds go back directly to Hindu sources. Soul and light are one in the Sankhyan system, before they became so in Greece, and when they appear united in Greece it is by means of the thought which is borrowed from India. The famous three qualities of the Sankhyan reappear as the Gnostic 'three classes'.""

"The vocabulary of the Kaṇva maṇḍala [8] often coincides with that of the Atri maṇḍala [5] when it shows no correspondence with that of other family books. This subject deserves special treatment."

"We must, I think, suppose that the Avesta and RV. viii. are younger than RV. ii.-vii.; or else that the poets of viii. were geographically nearer to the Avestan people, and so took from them certain words, which may or may not have been old with their Iranian users, but were not received into the body of Vedic literature until a time posterior to the composition of ii.-vii."

"Priya compounds are a formation common in Smṛti [....] Epic [....] In AV, VS, and Brāhmaṇa [....] but known in RV only to books viii, i, ix, x."

"the intermediate character of v, between viii and the other family books."

"Plato IS full of Sankhyan thought, worked out by him, but taken from Pythagoras. Before the sixth century B.C. all the religious- philosophical Idea of Pythagoras are current in India (L. Schroeder, Pythagoras). If there were but one or two of these cases, they might be set aside as accidental coincidences, but such coincidences are too numerous to be the result of change.""

"We are the product of Western civilization, so it’s necessary to understand yourself before you can understand anyone else."

"The peace does not keep itself, and though it may be intellectually unfashionable to say so, the world needs a policeman."

"In my judgment, the best history is one that tells a story and combines it with analysis. The natural way for an historian to analyze things includes answering with a tale. The combination of telling an interesting story and answering questions along the way that an intelligent person is interested in hearing about--that's history at its peak, in my opinion."

"Concerns about the decline of liberty in our whole polity is what threatens all of the aspects of it, including democracy."

"Seeing what Hitler and the Nazis had done, I knew there was real evil in the world, and after that, I couldn’t take pacifists seriously."

"“the only sources for the early (pre-Achaemenid) history of the eastern Iranian peoples are the Avesta, the Old Persian inscriptions, and Herodotus. … In view of the dearth of historical sources it is of paramount importance that one should evalute the evidence of the Avesta, the holy book of the Zoroastrians, parts at least of which antedate the Old Persian inscriptions by several centuries.” ..."

"“A very few geographical names appear to be inherited from Indo-Iranian times. For instance, OPers. Haraiva-, Av. (acc.) HarOiium, and OPers. HarauvatI, Av. HaraxvaitI-, both of which in historical times are located in the area of southern Afghanistan (Herat and Kandahar), correspond to the two Vedic rivers Sarayu and SarasvatI. These correspondences are interesting, but tell us nothing about the early geography of the Indo-Iranian tribes.”"

"Since the classical Greeks already, it has been common to date Zarathuštra to the 6th century BC, hardly a few generations before the Persian wars. In popular literature, this date is still given, but scholars have now settled for an earlier date: “The archaism of the Gāthās would incline us to situate Zarathuštra in the very beginning of the first millennium BCE, if not even earlier.” (Varenne 2006) But how much earlier? According to leading scholar SkjaervØ, “Zoroastrianism (…) originated some four millennia ago”."

"“Evidence either for the history of the Iranian tribes or their languages from the period following the separation of the Indian and Iranian tribes down to the early 1st millennium BC is sadly lacking. There are no written sources, and archaeologists are still working to fill out the picture.” ..."

"“The earliest mention of Iranians in historical sources is, paradoxically, of those settled on the Iranian plateau, not those still in Central Asia, their ancestral homeland. ‘Persians’ are first mentioned in the 9th century BC Assyrian annals: on one campaign, in 835 BC,… There are no literary sources for Iranians in Central Asia before the Old Persian inscriptions (Darius’s Bisotun inscription, 521-519 BC, ed. Schmitt) and Herodotus’ Histories (ca. 470 BC). ..."

"The pantheon was never eliminated, and Zoroastrianism, in some sense at least, remained a polytheistic religion throughout its history, although today the many deities have lost their individual divine character and are not worshipped for themselves but have been reinterpreted as allegories or symbols. Thus, modern Zoroastrianism is probably best described as monotheistic, certainly as monotheistic as Christianity with its Trinity and angels, though less monotheistic than Judaism and Islam."

"Zoroastrianism (…) originated some four millennia ago."

"“Two Young Avestan texts contain lists of countries known to their authors, YaSt 10 and VidEvdAd, Chapter 1. The two lists differ considerably in terms of composition and are therefore most probably independent of one another. Both lists contain only countries in northeastern Iran.” ...[All these places are] “located to the east of the Caspian Ocean, with the possible exception of Raga”."