There is a significant body of work done by Lev Gumilev on the death and genesis of ethnoi (the cyclical nature of societies, as You've put it). It will certainly let you see things from a different perspective.

Sadly, most of his books weren't translated from russian. One that I could find is http://www.amazon.com/Ethnogenesis-biosphere-L-N-Gumilev/dp/....

EDIT: found a free on-line version of the book - http://cossackweb.narod.ru/gumilev/contents.htm