The Causes of Disintegration and Fall of Empires: Sociological and Historical Analyses

The preoccupation with the causes of fall of Great Empires has been a continuous focus of interest and object of fascination for historians, philosophers of history and social scientists. It was in their dealing with the causes of downfalls of Empires that historians had at least to imply some of their more general assumptions about human nature and about the nature of society, about the moral and natural forces which sustain or break a social and political order. It was here that even the most antiquarian or matter-of-fact historians were often entrapped into discussing such general problems and had to “show their hand” with regard to such more general questions or assumptions.