Home > Author > John Bagot Glubb
1 " Perhaps the most dangerous by-product of the Age of Intellect is the unconscious growth of the idea that the human brain can solve the problems of the world. Even on the low level of practical affairs this is patently untrue. Any small human activity, the local bowls club or the ladies’ luncheon club, requires for its survival a measure of self-sacrifice and service on the part of the members. In a wider national sphere, the survival of the nation depends basically on the loyalty and self‑sacrifice of the citizens. The impression that the situation can be saved by mental cleverness, without unselfishness or human self-dedication, can only lead to collapse. "
― John Bagot Glubb , The Fate of Empires and Search for Survival
2 " If we are considering the history of our own country, we write at length of the periods when our ancestors were prosperous and victorious, but we pass quickly over their shortcomings or their defeats. Our people are represented as patriotic heroes, their enemies as grasping imperialists, or subversive rebels. In other words, our national histories are propaganda, not well balanced investigation. "
3 " Many of the foreign immigrantswill probably belong to races originallyconquered by and absorbed into the empire.While the empire is enjoying its High Noonof prosperity, all these people are proud and glad to be imperial citizens. But when declinesets in, it is extraordinary how the memoryof ancient wars, perhaps centuries before, issuddenly revived, and local or provincialmovements appear demanding secession orindependence. Some day this phenomenonwill doubtless appear in the now apparentlymonolithic and authoritarian Soviet empire.It is amazing for how long such provincialsentiments can survive. "
4 " Decadence is a moral and spiritual disease, resulting from too long a period of wealth and power, producing cynicism, decline of religion, pessimism and frivolity. The citizens of such a nation will no longer make an effort to save themselves, because they are not convinced that anything in life is worth saving. "
5 " The Age of Intellect is accompanied by surprising advances in natural science. In the ninth century, for example, in the age of Mamun, the Arabs measured the circumference of the earth with remarkable accuracy. Seven centuries were to pass before Western Europe discovered that the world was not flat. Less than fifty years after the amazing scientific discoveries under Mamun, the Arab Empire collapsed. Wonderful and beneficent as was the progress of science, it did not save the empire from chaos. "
6 " Alternatively, there are ‘political’ schools of history, slanted to discredit the actions of our past leaders, in order to support modern political movements. In all these cases, history is not an attempt to ascertain the truth, but a system of propaganda, devoted to the furtherance of modern projects, or the gratification of national vanity.Men can scarcely be blamed for not learning from the history they are taught. There is nothing to learn from it, because it is not true. "
7 " The heroes of declining nations are always the same—the athlete, the singer or the actor. "
8 " Men are interminably different, andintellectual arguments rarely lead toagreement. Thus public affairs drift from badto worse, amid an unceasing cacophony ofargument. "
