The State of a Civilization

Abstract

In this chapter, we will look at the concept and internal structure of civilizations and reveal the mechanism underlying the many inexplicable phenomena observed in social organizations and human history from the angle of the systemic yoyo model (Wu and Lin 2002; Lin 2007) in order to provide some novel and practically useful explanations. Starting in this chapter and in the rest of this book we will see how systems science in general and the systemic yoyo model in particular can bring forward convincing and tangible results in social science based on sound scientific foundations. Due to the novelty of reasoning and sound conclusions derived from solid scientific foundations, it is expected that this work will produce results that can be truly useful for policy-makers at the national and international levels.