The author postulates that there have been three (and ½) great extinctions due to people not having enough babies to replicate themselves, and that there is a fourth great extinction of one or more civilizations facing the world.
The first great extinction is the end of Bronze Age event, when Geek Mycenaean civilization, the Hittite empire, and other cities in the Eastern Mediterranean disappeared. The Author's hypothesis is that the last man in every city walked out, closed the gate, and then pushed the button for the pyrotechnics to burn the city to the ground, and then pushed the other button to destroy the walls. It's a nice story, but wrong. Later on the author talks about how there is no archeological evidence to support the Muhammad of Islamic beliefs until almost a century after his historical death, so maybe the Islamic Muhammad never existed. There is also no archeology to support his hypothesis about the Bronze Age extinction.
While the author quotes some royals talking about killing each other and each others children, that is sparse evidence that depopulation actually occurred. Even if the royals were that bloodthirsty, that doesn't mean the rest of the population was. While there is a little archeological evidence for some population loss in the regions of Elis and Arcadia, there are still many more cities in Greece, the entire Hittite Empire, cities in Syria, along the Eastern Mediterranean, in Cyprus, and down towards Egypt, that were all burned, with walls destroyed. Some were repopulated. That all of these disparate cities and populations all decided to stop having babies simultaneously is pure conjecture, not even worthy of consideration without greater proof. What really occurred is still a matter of great conjecture, but depopulation is a least likely scenario.
In Greece, after the extinction, there are indications that the population may have fallen by as much as 90%. Once again, did the population fall that far, or did the survivors just leave such a light archeological footprint that they are invisible to us today? In any case, first the apocalypse, then the population decline. It's just like a disaster movie. First civilization is destroyed, and then the survivors scrabble in the ruins.
Strike one against Goldman.
The Spartans were always a shaky civilization. Earthquakes, losses in battle, the Peloponnesian War, and the wars against the Thebans, all contributed to Spartan losses. Goldman quotes the battle of Leuctra in 371BC, a Spartan loss to Thebes, stating that there probably weren't more than a thousand Spartans in the fight. Nine years later, in 362BC, the Spartans and Thebans faced off again, but this time the Spartans won and Epaminondas, the Theban leader, was killed. So even 999 Spartans were still pretty good. Yes, the Spartans did die out, but they were oddballs.
The Athenians had too many people circa 476BC, and they started sending them out to form colonies. There were lots of conflicts with everyone, then the Peloponnesian Wars started. Athens had the plague go through in 430BC, and again, much worse, in 427BC. The Athenians lost the wars, losing 40% of their population to plague, and 40% more of their men to the disastrous wars. After that were more wars. Suffering those defeats and devastation went a long way to decimate Athens, and the remaining citizens must not of thought the future was bright, as it had been a century earlier, so they also, became too few to be more than ordinary, but they did not die out.
Ball one against Goldman.
The Roman empire is complex, but not for Goldman. He likes Theodore Mommsen for his Roman historian. However, an advantage of Gibbons over Mommsen is that Gibbons is great literature, its actually readable, and Gibbons is talking about the last 296 years of the entire Roman Empire, while Mommsen is about the Republic (BC). Gibbons is also about the entirety of the Byzantine Empire. Gibbons partly blamed Christianity for the fall of Rome, and I agree with that as my review of
It's Not the End of the World, It's Just the End of You: The Great Extinction of the Nations
states.
Certainly the Romans had population problems, and yes, the upper classes always had trouble having enough children survive childbirth and live into adulthood. So did everybody back then. The Empire went along OK, with the greatest economic activity in the world up until the early/mid 1800's. Marcus Aurelius' reign was fine until Lucius Verus returned in 165AD after defeating the Parthians. He brought the plague back with him. Best information says it was probably Small Pox. Perhaps up to 35% of all Romans died. The same plague returned several times over the next 60 years or so. In 250AD, just before the worst of the 3rd century, another plague came through, probably a precursor of Measles that was then quite deadly. Another 25% or so died. After the death of Commodus, in 192, civil wars were the method for choosing the next emperor more often than not, for the next 200 years. How many died in those civil wars is hard to gage, but far too many Romans did. Edward Boak writes about the de-population in
Manpower Shortage and the Fall of the Roman Empire in the West (Jerome Lectures)
, but his work is greatly questioned.
The empire came back until the Goths and the battle of Adrianople in 378AD. But, if the Romans had waited for the two armies to unite before engaging the Goths, instead of trying to one up each other, the Goths would have been toast. So, yes, there was some depopulation, but the plagues and internal wars went far to depopulate them. One analysis, by Tainter in
The Collapse of Complex Societies (New Studies in Archaeology)
, uses a marginal utility theory, i.e. when the Roman citizens saw no more value in being a Roman citizen than in being a Barbarian, then they would switch sides.
The miracle is that Rome lasted as long as it did. To say it is just population loss is shallow, vapid, and without sufficient documentation to be a worthy thought. Was it a part of the reason for the fall in the West? Probably. Due only to too few babies? Less likely.
The Byzantine Empire was doing great until Krakatoa gave them two non-summers and crop losses in 534-536AD, and then the Justinian Plague hit. This was the Black Death, or Bubonic plague, in 540AD. An estimated 40% of all Byzantines died. It reverberated around the empire for the next 40 years. The Sassanid Persians also suffered, but the Arabs did not. In 602 Maurice was overthrown by Phocas, and the empire started to collapse. Bad Leadership. The Persians and Avars from the Balkans invaded, and the empire was fast disappearing. Along comes Heraclius, and perhaps the greatest comeback of all time. The two superpowers of the Middle East fight WWII on the Russian Front against each other, and the Byzantines win big in 628.
They disbanded their army, just like the US after WWII. Along came the Muslims. The battle of Yarmuk, a Byzantine loss in 636 AD, is well documented on the Byzantine side. The Byzantine armies in Egypt and North Africa were smaller, poorly led, poorly trained units that fought, but not well, against the Muslims. It wasn't a cake walk for the Muslims, either, per Byzantine records. About three hundred years later the Byzantines came roaring back, and were doing good until the traitorous Ducas family lost the battle of Manzikert in 1071AD.
Strike 2 and 1/2, Ball two and three against Goldman.
Islam today. It is a liberal wet dream that people will stop having babies. There is no more liberal wet dreaming organization in the world than the UN.
The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) is a UN adjunct organization. To measure climate change, you need to be able to read a graph properly and a thermometer. The IPCC can do neither. It is a worthless, biased organization that cannot read data, or develop any thing other than its pre-possessed ideas.
Overall, the UN is a totally worthless organization. Goldman says he would sentence anyone to a years hard labor at the UN database that believes the US is in population decline. Goldman should run, not walk, as far away from the UN as he can. Liberals can't ask questions properly, they can't add data properly, they can't design studies properly.
As a Statistical Engineer, I know there are liars, darn liars, and statisticians. I don't believe their data any further than I can through it. Goldman says he has no population date for Europe, and then he pops up with a plethora of birth rate data. Once again, don't trust liberals, and especially population control liberals at the UN.
While there is little doubt that the population of Muslims is slowing down, is it going to slow down enough and start falling in Europe? Per Mark Steyn, the Austrian demographic center says there will be more Muslims under 18 by 2050 than non-Muslims, which means for howsever many people are left, Muslims will be the majority. I believe the Austrians before I believe the idiots in Turtle Bay.
Per Fareed Zakaria, per Putin, the Russian population is starting to increase. I don't believe Muslims in Russia are being educated, and with the population they will also continue to increase, only at a faster pace, so Russia could still become an Islamist majority nation this century.
The PEW folks are uber liberal George Soros supporting and supported by Soros folks. They say that the global Muslim population is still increasing by 15% for the next couple of decades. This would be the Pakistani's, the Maududi's, taking over England, the Afghanistani's, the Kurds, and whoever else. The open question is won't they continue to increase after the next couple of decades, also? Why would they slow down or stop having babies? Muslims live in enclaves that are self-reinforcing with their own peer pressures. That is more important than the general population. Babies will keep coming.
South America, per PEW, has over 11 million Muslims. South America has a population growth rate of over 2.4, even though some countries are less than 2.1. The Islamic population of South America should continue to increase, probably outpacing the Hispanic population.
Per PEW, the USA Muslim population will triple by 2030. This will give Michigan a 20% Muslim population. As the USA grows, why would not the Muslim Population continue to grow and outpace the USA generally? Our Muslims in Michigan are all saying they are having over 10 babies per family. CAIR dominates Michigan and its politicians in both parties. Goodbye, Michigan.
The greatest concentration of Muslims in Canada is in London, Ontario, only two hours from Dearbornistan in MI. It is in the non-Quebec part, so it will keep growing also.
I am glad that Africa and China are being converted to Christianity. Of course, South Korea is dying even faster than Japan, so how many Christians will be left there? The Bishops SWAG (Sorry Wild --- Guess) about converting 10,000 a day, and Goldman's belief that the number is even higher is pie in the sky, marketing hype. Plus, the Christians in Europe are dying, and the Christians in China are off the books.
With the Islamic population increasing (not dying) globally, circa 2030, there will be more Muslims in this world than Christians. Saudi Arabia will keep spending $4 billion/yr putting up Mosques, Maddrasses, Islamic Centers, and they will be well prepared to receive the multitudes of converts to Islam when the headline reads that they are the world's largest religion, surpassing Christianity. So the explosion in converts in Europe, America, and elsewhere will fuel an increasing number of Muslims in the world for quite some time. Dawa wins!
Strike Three - Goldman is out!
PS - Read
The Real German War Plan, 1904-14
by Terence Zuber - The Schlieffen plan Goldman references as the German plan to win WW I is an urban myth; another example of the ignorance of this author.
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