The subtitle, "Why Civilizations Fail" is more descriptive of the content of this work, which offers in fewer than 5,000 words a comprehensive view of history -- and of our own era as well.
FIRST PARAGRAPH:
"An unforgettable flash of clarity in Laguna Beach more than thirty-five years ago made me keenly aware of an unheralded affliction wreaking havoc in our midst. Designated by three words – Survival Overcompensation Trauma and its telling acronym, SOT – this enduring human disorder may help explain why previous civilizations have failed and ours is not immune to this fate. . It may also provide a fresh perspective on what is causing the increasing inequality in the United States and around the globe."
ON FATE OF CIVILIZATIONS:
"Are we doomed always to live in a world where we suffered and died because there wasn't enough -- or in a world where we suffer and die because we don't know how to handle plenitude?"
"Will we adopt healthier lifestyles and reverse the trend to obesity before SOT’s pleasures turn us into mush? Will we be able to solve the problem of public and private indebtedness before the situation spirals irrevocably out of control? Will we be able to safeguard our environment before our environment poisons us? Will we be able to eliminate nuclear weapons before they eliminate us? Will we be able to transition to the pursuit of higher altruistic pleasures before our selfishness tears apart the delicately interwoven fabric of our democratic societies – and of the world?"
"A million years hence, should anyone care for a brief explanation of our demise, the Torah/Old Testament tale of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden would say perfectly well just about all that needed to be said. Yes, they too had everything and wanted more."
Ernest Kolowrat was born in Prague in 1935. After attending schools in the former Czechoslovakia, Turkey and England, he graduated from Yale and served as a junior Naval officer with the U.S. Pacific Fleet. During the decade of the 1960s, he was world affairs editor for Scholastic Magazines in New York, director of information for the American Institute for Foreign Study in Greenwich, Connecticut, and director of 10th Anniversary Programs for the Peace Corps in Washington. Since 1971 he has been a freelance writer, filmmaker and publicist. He is the author of "Hotchkiss: A Chronicle of an American School."
The unique concept that forms the basis of "The Laguna Beach Theory of History" was first copyrighted by the Library of Congress in 1978 as part of a work titled "Future Pleasure." It was further developed in "Confessions of a Hapless Hedonist" in 1985 – a work that appeared as a best-selling trilogy in the early 1990s in the Czech Republic. One of the volumes of that trilogy was reissued in Prague in 2011 with a new epilogue dedicated to an updated version of this singular view of history and our world today. The English version of that volume is now available in softcover and on Kindle as "The Reckoning: An Inconvenient Discovery about Pleasure."
FIRST PARAGRAPH:
"An unforgettable flash of clarity in Laguna Beach more than thirty-five years ago made me keenly aware of an unheralded affliction wreaking havoc in our midst. Designated by three words – Survival Overcompensation Trauma and its telling acronym, SOT – this enduring human disorder may help explain why previous civilizations have failed and ours is not immune to this fate. . It may also provide a fresh perspective on what is causing the increasing inequality in the United States and around the globe."
ON FATE OF CIVILIZATIONS:
"Are we doomed always to live in a world where we suffered and died because there wasn't enough -- or in a world where we suffer and die because we don't know how to handle plenitude?"
"Will we adopt healthier lifestyles and reverse the trend to obesity before SOT’s pleasures turn us into mush? Will we be able to solve the problem of public and private indebtedness before the situation spirals irrevocably out of control? Will we be able to safeguard our environment before our environment poisons us? Will we be able to eliminate nuclear weapons before they eliminate us? Will we be able to transition to the pursuit of higher altruistic pleasures before our selfishness tears apart the delicately interwoven fabric of our democratic societies – and of the world?"
"A million years hence, should anyone care for a brief explanation of our demise, the Torah/Old Testament tale of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden would say perfectly well just about all that needed to be said. Yes, they too had everything and wanted more."
Ernest Kolowrat was born in Prague in 1935. After attending schools in the former Czechoslovakia, Turkey and England, he graduated from Yale and served as a junior Naval officer with the U.S. Pacific Fleet. During the decade of the 1960s, he was world affairs editor for Scholastic Magazines in New York, director of information for the American Institute for Foreign Study in Greenwich, Connecticut, and director of 10th Anniversary Programs for the Peace Corps in Washington. Since 1971 he has been a freelance writer, filmmaker and publicist. He is the author of "Hotchkiss: A Chronicle of an American School."
The unique concept that forms the basis of "The Laguna Beach Theory of History" was first copyrighted by the Library of Congress in 1978 as part of a work titled "Future Pleasure." It was further developed in "Confessions of a Hapless Hedonist" in 1985 – a work that appeared as a best-selling trilogy in the early 1990s in the Czech Republic. One of the volumes of that trilogy was reissued in Prague in 2011 with a new epilogue dedicated to an updated version of this singular view of history and our world today. The English version of that volume is now available in softcover and on Kindle as "The Reckoning: An Inconvenient Discovery about Pleasure."
