“New diseases like syphilis seemed to call for new and ‘stronger’ medicines; and this became one of the stock arguments for resorting to the Paracelsian chemical pharmacopeia and mystical medical philosophy… The swift development of European medical practice to levels of skill exceeding all other civilized traditions resulted.”

from Plagues and Peoples, 1976

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“In agricultural communities, male leadership in the hunt ceased to be of much importance… the comparatively tight personal subordination to a leader necessary to the success of a hunting party could be relaxed in proportion as grain fields became the center around which life revolved… Among predominantly pastoral peoples, however, religious-political institutions took a quite different turn… pastoralists were likely to accord importance to the practices and discipline of war.”

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“The decline of Indian Buddhism was centrally due to the fact that it never offered the Indian laity a complete religion. Early Buddhism knew no ceremonies for birth and death, marriage, illness, and other critical turns of private life... Only for the community of monks did Buddhism provide a complete and well-defined way of life... But Brahmins were needed for all the ordinary crises in life, ready with their rites and sacred formulas to ward off danger or minimize the damage. This elemental fact assured the survival of Brahminism in India.”

from The Rise of the West: A History of the Human Community, 1963

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“Ssu-ma Ch'ien's many-volumed history of China established the frame within which Chinese history continued to be written almost to the present day. Ssu-ma Ch'ien accepted and made canonical the theory that each dynasty began with an especially virtuous ruler and then gradually dissipated that virtue until Heaven lost patience and substituted a new dynasty in its place.”

from The Rise of the West: A History of the Human Community, 1963

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“The rise of Islam offers perhaps the most impressive example in world history of the power of words to alter human behavior in sudden, surprising ways.”

from Keeping Together in Time, 1995

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“An irresistible cycle seems to operate, repeating patterns of the ancient world where civil strife and war brought disaster... rooted in the very nature of civilization—itself a product and expression of rapid technological and social change.”

from Keeping Together in Time, 1995

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