Theory of history

I was in my history class a few days ago, and the teacher said something that I think everyone here would appreciate, and see the validity of. Basically, it was this: New ideas (like those by Marx, Protestant Reformation, the prelude to the French Revolution etc) lead to Revolutions (enacting the new ideas), which leads to war and chaos between the new ideas and the old. This in turn leads to more new ideas.

Examples: Protestant Reformation:

New ideas: Protestantism

Revolution: Same?

W&C: 30 years war, Hapsburgs vs Germany etc.

leads to:

New ideas: Enlightenment, Capitalism

Revolutions: American Revolution, French Revolution, South and Central American revolutions, Industrial Revolution

W&C: Napoleonic wars, Spanish American war, War of 1812, Lower living standards in industrialized countries, American Civil War

On and on

Basically, the cycle is:

New ideas > Revolutions > War & Chaos / New ideas > Revolutions etc.

Using this, I would analyze our modern world as the War and Chaos Following the advent of Communism and Totalitarianism and Dictatorships, and I predict that with the internet as an aid, there will be major movements on Government, Economy, and Social Structure upcoming. The CS might even be the result of these.

What do you think?

If you want a theory of history I'm currently fond of the long wave theory.
http://www.joshuagoldstein.com/jgcycle.htm
Basically there's a forty to sixty year cycle recurrent through the last two hundred years or so of post industrial revolution history. The cycle begins with the concurrent development of a host of new technologies, there is then twenty to thirty years of above average growth as these are exploited and the most immediate gains are realized, followed by twenty to thirty years of below average growth or reccession as the diminishing returns of those initial technologies are reached. Then the cycle begins again.
We're supposed to be at the tail end of the 1940's cycle (jet plane, nuclear power, rockets, computing, etc).

I'm talking more sociopolitical than economic. What does this predict, then?

It would seem to predict that within 5 to ten years an cycle should begin and we should expect to see a number of unrelated technologies suddenly become feasable and the basis for the next sixty pears. Perhaps we can already see it with Pollywell fusion and the state of scramjet development.

Does it agree with what happened more than 200 years ago?

I have no idea, as yet I haven't got round to read the book.