The Evolution of Civilizations An Introduction to Historical Analysis - Tapa blanda

Carroll Quigley was a legendary teacher at the Georgetown School of Foreign Service. His course on the history of civilization was extra-ordinary in its scope and on its impact on its students. Like the course, the Evolution of Civilizations is a comprehensive and perspective look at the factors behind the rise and fall of civilizations. Quigley examines the application scientific method to the social sciences. He poses a division of culture into six levels, from the more abstract to the more concrete - intellectual, religious, social, political, economic and military. - and he identifies seven stages of historical change for all civilizations: mixture, gestation, expansion, conflict, universal empire, decay and invasion. He tests these hypothesis by a detailed analysis of five major civilizations: the Mesopotamian, the Canaanite, the Minoan, the classical, and the Western. Quigley defines a civilization as "a producing society with an instrument of expansion." A civilization's decline is not inevitable but occurs when its instrument of expansion is transformed into an institution--that is, when social arrangements that meet real social needs are transformed into social institutions serving their own purposes regardless of real social needs.

William Carroll Quigley was born on November 9, 1910 in Boston Massachusetts. His parents were William F. Quigley and Mary F. Carroll. He married Lillian May Fox who was born on September 21, 1917 in New York. Quigley studied history and earned B.A, M.A., and Ph.D. degrees at Harvard University. He taught at Princeton University, then at Harvard, then at the School of Foreign Service (SFS) at Georgetown University. From 1941 to 1972, he taught a two-semester course on the development of civilizations at SFS. Many alumni of Georgetown's School of Foreign Service asserted that this was "the most influential course in their undergraduate careers." Carroll Quigley died on January 3, 1977 in Georgetown in Washington DC. He was cremated. There is no grave site. He left two sons Denis Carroll Quigley (1941 - 1982) and Thomas Fox Quigley (born May 13, 1945 – died March 17, 1995). In his last will and testament, he left all rights to his books, papers and research materials to his long-time research assistant and personal friend, Miss Helen E. Veit. His widow apparently intended to contest the will but the matter was settled out of court. Lillian May Fox Quigley died 4 Mar 1993 in a nursing home in Alexandria Virginia. SSI 153-18-5483