Holding Up a Mirror: How Civilizations Decline

by Anne Glyn-Jones

According to Glyn-Jones, the central dilemma of history is this: the dynamic that promotes economic prosperity arises largely from the conviction that the material world alone constitutes true 'reality'. Yet that self-same dynamic, developing into a critique of all belief in the supernatural as at best superflous, and at worst a damaging superstition, undermines the authority of moral standards and thus leads eventually to the destruction of the very security, prosperity and artistic achievement on which civilizations rest their claim to greatness. Focussing on dramatic entertainment as the barometer of social change, this book shows in vivid detail how the thesis worked itself out in four different civilizations, those of Greece, Rome and medieval Christendom and now in our own contemporary society.

Genres: History, Cultural, Research

652 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1996

Reviews

[Jacob Lehman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating application of Sorokin's contrasts of ideational, idealistic, and sensate societies. Her pessimism around British crime rates is hard to reconcile with the overall decline in violence globally but maybe there's just so much less inter-national violence that it more than compensates for a rise in intra-national violence/crime?

I read this as part of my project to read one book from every aisle of Olin Library at Cornell; you can read my reactions to other books from the project here: https://jacobklehman.com/

A fuller review/reaction will follow on my website.

[William Kohl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unlike histories of Western Societies filled with facts, dates and academic conclusions such as this,

"Government corruption, political dispute, and power struggle all weakened the empire. ... Rome eventually collapsed under its own bloated empire, losing its provinces one by one."

Glyn Jones work, “Holding Up a Mirror”, is pointing to the "signs" signifying social and cultural changes taking place within these societies which led to government corruption, political dispute, etc. Signs such as decline in religion and family and with those declines, loss of those binding values and traditions necessary to sustain a culture. I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in how social dynamics affect the life cycles of great cultures.