01-29-2017, 01:22 PM
(01-29-2017, 11:19 AM)SomeGuy Wrote: Mikebert,
Oh, I get it. Sorry, Wallerstein is on my list, but I haven't gotten around to him yet. Huh, it's an interesting argument. Do you have a working hypothesis to explain the 19th century divergence?
I am not sure that Britain is divergent, it might be America that is divergent. If we consider the 1798-1803 period and the the 1926 General Strike as revolutionary moments, then we can identify a series of revolution/civil wars: 1470, 1688, 1801, 1926 spaced 2x109, 113 and 125 years apart, with an average saecula of 113 years, consistent with the old saeculum identified by S&H.
It is only after S&H shift to America that saeculum length plummets from over 100 years down to as short as 64 years (1844-1908). Maybe the general pattern is the long cycle and America, as the first democratic republic (America established full white male suffrage about a century before Britain did) pioneered the shorter saeculum. This is Kurt Horner's idea. Generation length in the old saeculum of ca. 27 years reflected the average age at which elites inherited their wealth and titles. With the emergence of mass suffrage, it shifted down to about 20 years. As a result turnings shortened. But this is just speculation.