[Noumenon]

Yes, Quigley makes no bones about his contempt for the common man, and he really goes off on that tangent in the latter pages of Tragedy and Hope. This was probably what made his work so appealing to certain Georgetown U grads like Bill Clinton. But I strongly suspect that the bulk of Quigley's work was lost on such.

But that doesn't make him any less correct in his observation and analysis of Arabic society and its ancient pedigree. He nailed the endogamy vs exogamy bit fair and square.

[Vigilanteman]

Agreed. There is a very similar mentality in play with Prof. Jared Diamond who authored, among other works, the epic anthropological book Collapse. It is a study of civilizations which collapsed and those which avoided collapse. Diamond makes some valuable and interesting observations based on these historical studies. But his favorite two model societies are the New Guinea highlands and the isolated island of Tikopia who are successful in his eyes primarily because they are so isolated that nobody bothered them.