From Empire to Erosion: Quigley on Seven Stages of Civilizations

In The Evolution of Civilizations, historian Carroll Quigley outlines a framework for how civilizations rise and fall, moving through seven distinct stages: mixture, gestation, expansion, conflict, universal empire, decay, and invasion. 

The turning point, he argues, comes during the stage of universal empire. Here, the very tools that once drove growth and innovation—what Quigley calls the "instruments of expansion"—harden into rigid institutions. These mechanisms, originally designed to mobilize resources and energy, become politicized, intellectualized, and ultimately bureaucratized. As they expand in size and complexity, they begin to consume more than they produce, consolidating power while claiming to be the guardians of the civilization itself.

This transformation marks the onset of decline. Innovation gives way to conformity. Governance becomes sluggish, defensive, and self-serving. Quigley contends that most civilizations do not collapse in a spectacular catastrophe, but instead fade quietly into irrelevance. Entrenched institutions, obsessed with preserving their own existence, lose the capacity for reform. And when the final blow comes—often in the form of invasion—it is met not with resistance, but with resignation. The civilization, hollowed out from within, simply lacks the will to fight.

By Quigley’s reckoning, the modern West appears to be firmly entrenched in the stage of decay. Its once dynamic institutions now function more to preserve power than to serve society. Cultural and political sclerosis has set in. And so, the next stage—inevitable in the cycle—may well be invasion: not only from determined adversaries abroad, but also from within, as internal divisions and ideologies exploit the very weaknesses that bureaucratized decline has left exposed.