replenish the empty treasury; rising
prices due to excess of demand over supply; public borrowing with
no means for repayment; the issue of money without corresponding
reserves; degradation of currency through decrease of its metal
content; unemployment among citizens due chiefly to increase in
forced labor of war captives and other slaves; public insolvency
due to territorial over-expansion; excessive overhead costs;
nepotism, bribery, corruption in public service; an over-large
bureaucracy feeding at the public trough.

e. Revolution in the nuclear center and fierce suppression.
Provincial revolt. Revolt in the colonies. Endemic civil war.

f. Migration toward the central honey-pot; invasion by rivals and
adventurers seeking to control it, plunder it and guzzle its
contents.

g. Dissolution of the society; boredom; ennui; loss of purpose and
direction; growing dissension; power struggle and avoidance of
responsibility for trends that were little understood and generally
beyond the control of existing officialdom.

Histories of individual nations and empires and histories of
civilizations and civilization assemble and present a great body of
factual information which support and substantiate this factual summary.
The present study aims to organize the facts, to compare them and to
draw conclusions as to the benefits and detriments; the practicality or
futility; the wisdom or folly of building empires and merging them into
civilizations.

These conclusions are based on several thousand years of experiment and
experience with the civilized life pattern. Time after time, in age
after age, human beings by the millions have poured faith, hope and
unbounded energy, devotion and dedication into the upbuilding of the
urban nuclei of successive civilizations. Details have varied. Ultimate
conclusions have been the same. One civilization after another has
passed into the limbo of history leaving, sometimes, splendid ruins as a
testimonial to its evident inadequacy to meet the survival needs of
oncoming generations.

Such conclusions, based on history, are underlined by current experience
with the over-ballyhooed, over-priced variant of the life pattern which
signs itself western civilization. Dating from the Crusades a thousand
years ago, western civilization has been promoted, built up and carried
forward by the blood, sweat and tears o