Exploration of Connections between Energy Use and Leadership Transitions

* Article: LePoire D. J. 2009. Exploration of Connections between Energy Use and Leadership Transitions. Systemic Transitions: Past, Present, and Future / Ed. by W. R. Thompson, pp. 205–222. New York: Palgrave-Macmillan.

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Summary

"LePoire (2009: 217) offers an interesting frame on this problem by arguing for viewing history as a complex adaptive process in which succeeding phases of energy intensification over time have led to greater complexity. He thinks the succeeding phases are recognizable in five-fold expansions in energy intensity and dates them as follows:

- civilization (3000 BCE–400 CE),

- commerce (700–1720),

- industrialization (1720–1950), and

- knowledge-based (1950–?)."

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