Mencken theory

March 21, 2006 8:03 PM

Mencken filter. I recall seeing this piece, but I cannot find it now. Mencken asserted that the Renaissance was the direct result of the pandemic Black Death of the mid-1300s, arguing that the reduction in European population by 1/3 opened the door to a more widespread sharing of wealth and resources. Can anyone point me to the right location?
posted by yclipse to Society & Culture (4 answers total)

I'm not sure if this is what you are really after but you might find the books by Peter Turchin on cliodynamics useful LINK.
He mainly concentrates on the effects of war/turmoil on population size/growth but I think he might touch upon what you're asking.
...
"Many historical processes are dynamic. Empires rise and fall, populations and economies boom and bust, world religions spread or wither. Cliodynamics (from Clio, the muse of history, and dynamics, the study of temporally varying processes) is the new scientific discipline that investigates such dynamical processes in history."
posted by jonesor at 3:42 AM on March 22, 2006

I don't remember this as a theory from Mencken, although it is an accepted theory. There's quite a bit of (contentious) discussion of it in this thread, which I'm not really into wading through again, but there may well be some actual references inside.
posted by OmieWise at 5:55 AM on March 22, 2006

Yeah, that's a pretty common theory, and I think you've just gotten it wrongly attached to Mencken in your head (it doesn't sound like his kind of subject).

Omie, I'd forgotten how badly that thread got derailed once cleardawn decided to grace it with his presence. Too bad; it was a great post and deserved a better thread.
posted by languagehat at 6:46 AM on March 22, 2006

What languagehat said. That's actually a pretty common theory, and I don't think any one person is associated with it more than another.
posted by unreason at 7:21 AM on March 22, 2006