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Historians long have sought the causes of the decline or
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fall of great civilizations.
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Moral failure often has been awarded importance for
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Rome’s collapse, but the explanation often is stimulated
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by anxieties of analysts worrying about the course of
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their own civilization.
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More realistically, it appears that civilizations
naturally
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rise and fall as part of an inevitable process
influenced
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by the changes occurring in their societies.
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And, importantly, the decline or collapse of a
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civilization does not mean that its contribution
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disappears.
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