Serpents in the sand

the long version

For decades, social scientists have worked with models that have sought to quantify and explain human behavior. The common foundation for nearly all of these mathematical applications is the assumption of linear progression, equilibrium, and stability. Serpents in the Sand: Essays on the Nonlinear Nature of Politics and Human Destiny not only argues that in fact political life is fundamentally nonlinear but investigates, estimates, and thoroughly analyzes specific instances of extreme nonlinearity in politics. By so doing, Courtney Brown offers a guide to the reader on how to apply nonlinearity, including chaos theory, to real-world situations. . The author develops his argument by in-depth analysis of four examples covering a broad spectrum of political life. He considers, first, the relationship between individual rationality and the influence of a voter's political milieu. He then turns to look at the dynamics behind the Johnson vs. Goldwater landslide presidential election of 1964. The fall of the Weimar Republic and the rise of Nazi Germany provide a third case study, followed, fourth, by an analysis of the relationship between democratic electoral politics and the ecological environment. Throughout, Courtney Brown employs the evidence of these cases to demonstrate the essentially nonlinear nature of human political behavior.