The extraordinary thing about WWII, T. Greer reminds us, is what happened after:
The forces unleashed by the [An-Lushan Rebellion] eventually led to the complete disintegration of Tang power. This kind of collapse was not seen after the Second World War. The power that suffered the most was to emerge from the conflict as the world’s second strongest. But it was not just the Soviet Union that showed remarkable resilience — humanity as a whole weathered the destruction of two continents and the death of 70 million people barely worse for wear. This is a truly remarkable feat — perhaps one only possible in today’s Exponential Age. The Tang never recovered from the An-Lushan rebellion; Central Asia never blossomed like it did before the Mongol conquests; no new Roman empire rose from the ashes of the old. But the Second World War was not a precursor to a new dark age. Under the old rules of static civilization — where wealth was not created, but taken — catastrophes of this scale required centuries of recovery before old heights could be reclaimed. The history of the post-war world dramatically illustrates that this is no longer the case.
Greer is responding to Neil Halloran‘s The Fallen of World War II, which you must watch:
“But the Second World War was not a precursor to a new dark age.”
Well that’s a relief. Here I thought it was.