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I found John Glubb’s analysis of the problem much better than the author’s: https://people.uncw.edu/kozloffm/glubb.pdf

Much more impressive he wrote this 50 years ago, but he might as well have been alive today. History certainly rhymes.

A glaring omission is the Chinese civilisation. It's lasted thousands of years.

The individual dynasties, however, lasted about 250 years each, like the others listed. China also got taken over by the Mongols in the mid-1200s, (retaken by Han Chinese a century later), and then by the Manchurians in the mid-1600s. Chinese civilization, not just the government, got taken over by European rationalism/modernism in 1940s with the Communist Revolution. (It's ironic that the Chinese government talks complains about "Western influences", when their whole governmental ideology is based on European ideas.)

Confucianism lasted a lot longer though.

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