[sjajshha]

I found John Glubb’s analysis of the problem much better than the author’s: https://people.uncw.edu/kozloffm/glubb.pdf

Much more impressive he wrote this 50 years ago, but he might as well have been alive today. History certainly rhymes.

[mrlonglong]

A glaring omission is the Chinese civilisation. It's lasted thousands of years.

[prewett]

The individual dynasties, however, lasted about 250 years each, like the others listed. China also got taken over by the Mongols in the mid-1200s, (retaken by Han Chinese a century later), and then by the Manchurians in the mid-1600s. Chinese civilization, not just the government, got taken over by European rationalism/modernism in 1940s with the Communist Revolution. (It's ironic that the Chinese government talks complains about "Western influences", when their whole governmental ideology is based on European ideas.)

[mrlonglong]

Confucianism lasted a lot longer though.