As a student of cultures past and present, I have especially been interested in a couple of ideas - one is urbanization another is political systems, which includes attempt at the assimilation of people's of diverse cultures. These ideas are connected and are difficult to study predictively. Most societies change over time and end up at different places. The most successful society in lasting power was Rome, the topic of my current study. Greece tried to last and had some success, but much shorter in terms of time, but great in terms of achievement in regard to philosophy, medicine, and science (including natural science and philosophy). The United States attempted a similar experiment without benefit of unifying elements such as shared culture including ethnicity, religion, customs and traditions. It has made many mistakes including slavery, secularism, the rise of political correctness, class conflict among and between various groups, and the disintegration of the family, the rise of privatization, including the (voluntary) military, the embracing of globalization, etc. Most of these are recent developments. The effect is to undermine the nation-state as a unified entity. These tend to combine to work in direction disintegration and decline of the state. Nothing, however, is certain so that noone can predict the future, but the writing seems to be on the wall suggesting a short political life preceded by decline and weakness. Rome actually had many similar characteristics, but balanced it with a brutal military structure that could overpower or overwhelm the threat - both internal or external.
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