I think there is a need to clarify Peter Turchin's work, as the articles about it completely muddle things up. When people connect the 2020 unrest with Turchin there are talking about his social contagion model This is the model that describes what Samuel Huntington called periodic Creedal Passion Periods. They are *completely different* from the civil war stuff. Here's an explanation of that.
These cycles *can* end with civil wars, but also a lot of other things. One correction, Turchin's concept is a opportunity model, not grievance. The cause of political crisis is growth in elite number who compete and with each other over the "high seats of our civilization". Political polarization moves to political conflict eventually leading to crisis. This can be civil war/revolution, external war, financial/economic crisis, even an ecological crisis or something else. When the opportunity for one of these to happen arises, then it happens.
For example, had the authorities in 1929 dealt with the crisis as they did in 2008, Republicans would likely have remained in power in 1932. America would probably not have gotten involved in WWII, and the world would be very different. But Hoover did not do this, creating the opportunity for a resolution of the crisis by the New Dealers giving rise to what did happen.
I think there is a need to clarify Peter Turchin's work, as the articles about it completely muddle things up. When people connect the 2020 unrest with Turchin there are talking about his social contagion model This is the model that describes what Samuel Huntington called periodic Creedal Passion Periods. They are *completely different* from the civil war stuff. Here's an explanation of that.
https://mikealexander.substack.com/publish
The Civil War stuff comes out of Turchins concept of the secular cycle. Here is a summary
https://mikealexander.substack.com/p/the-american-secular-cycles
These cycles *can* end with civil wars, but also a lot of other things. One correction, Turchin's concept is a opportunity model, not grievance. The cause of political crisis is growth in elite number who compete and with each other over the "high seats of our civilization". Political polarization moves to political conflict eventually leading to crisis. This can be civil war/revolution, external war, financial/economic crisis, even an ecological crisis or something else. When the opportunity for one of these to happen arises, then it happens.
For example, had the authorities in 1929 dealt with the crisis as they did in 2008, Republicans would likely have remained in power in 1932. America would probably not have gotten involved in WWII, and the world would be very different. But Hoover did not do this, creating the opportunity for a resolution of the crisis by the New Dealers giving rise to what did happen.
Is there any interesting writing in the scholarly literature about the American Civil War from this perspective?