Stasis and Growth in the Epoch of Agrarian Empires

John L. Brooke

doi:10.1017/CBO9781139050814.009

6 - Stasis and Growth in the Epoch of Agrarian Empires

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2014

John L. Brooke

Show author details

John L. Brooke: Affiliation:
Ohio State University

Book contents

Get access

Summary

Getting Ahead, Running in Place, Falling Behind

Around 3000 BC, driven by the abrupt final crisis of the Mid-Holocene transition, the state organization of society suddenly began to emerge in particular locations in the Old World, first in Mesopotamia and Egypt, then the Indus Valley, and the Yellow River Valley of China. Now, in the early twenty-first century, we look back over 5,000 years of “history,” defined as such by the bureaucratic organization of the state and the writing systems that support it. Even within those 5,000 years, however, our modern condition emerged only yesterday, grounded in an industrial transition to fossil fuel that began only 300 years ago, on a world economy of center and periphery that emerged only 500 years ago with the rise and spread of early modern European empires. These 500 years encompass the early modern and modern transformations that will be the subject of Part IV of this book. Part III examines the forty-four centuries that intervened between the rise of the state and the opening of the crises that would lead eventually to global modernity. More precisely, I close my account of premodernity around AD 1350, after New World societies had been severely impacted by medieval droughts and as Old World societies were feeling the first manifestations of the Little Ice Age and facing the devastation of the grievous mortality of the Black Death.

What then of the ancient and medieval worlds that occupied the global stage between “prehistory” and “modernity”? The rise of modernity, with its global reach, massive population and economic growth, and energy revolutions can make these worlds look paltry by comparison, a long, flat-line epoch of stagnant agrarian economies governed by unchanging autocratic states. From this perspective, ancient and medieval societies simply were bound in a “Malthusian trap” of the limits of the organic economy. Economic growth was limited to either additive territorial expansion of growing populations to new territories – increasingly by imperial violence – or by an equally additive intensification of commerce, labor, and organic technologies, so-called Smithian growth.

Type: Chapter
Information: Climate Change and the Course of Global History
A Rough Journey
, pp. 261 - 287

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139050814.009 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2014

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Clark, Gregory, From Alms to Riches: A Brief Economic History of the World (Princeton, NJ, 2007)

Weisdorf, Jacob L., “From Stagnation to Growth: Revisiting Three Historical Regimes,” Journal of Population Economics 17 (2004), 455–72Google Scholar

Lagerlof, Niles-Peter, “From Malthus to Modern Growth: Can Epidemics Explain the Three Regimes?” International Economic Review 44 (2003), 755–77Google Scholar

Jones, Charles I., “Was an Industrial Revolution Inevitable? Economic Growth over the Very Long Run,” Advances in Microeconomics 1 (2001), 1–43Google Scholar

Galor, Oded and Weil, David N., “Population, Technology, and Growth: From Malthusian Stagnation to the Demographic Transition and Beyond,” AER 90 (2000), 806–28Google Scholar

Kremmer, Michael, “Population Growth and Technological Change: One Million B.C. to 1990,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 108 (1993), 681–716.Google Scholar

Mokyr, Joel, “Punctuated Equilibria and Technological Progress,” AER 80 (1990), 350–4Google Scholar

“Evolution and Technological Change: A New Metaphor for Economic History?” in Fox, Robert, ed., Technological Change: Methods and Themes in the History of Technology (Amsterdam, 1996), 63–83.

McNeill, John R. and McNeill, William H., The Human Web: A Bird’s Eye View of World History (New York, 2003)

Christian, David, Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History (Berkeley, CA, 2004)

Spier, Fred, The Structure of Big History: From the Big Bang until Today (Amsterdam, 1996)

Lieberman, Victor, Strange Parallels: Southeast Asia in Global Context, c. 800–1830. Vol. II: Mainland Mirrors: Europe, Japan, China, South Asia and the Islands (New York, 2009), 91, 108

Morris, Ian, Why the West Rules – For Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal about the Future (New York, 2010)

Gills, Barry K. and Frank, Andre Gunder have expanded his sequence to reach back to the origins of the city and the state, at roughly 3000 BC, most recently in “The Five Thousand Year World System in Theory and Praxis,” in Denemark, Robert A. et al., eds., World System History: The Social Science of Long-Term Change (London and New York, 2000), 3–24

Chandler, Tertius, 4000 Years of Urban Growth: An Historical Census (Lewiston, 1987)

Wilkinson, David, “Decline Phases in Civilizations, Regions, and Oikumenes,” in Comparative Civilization Review 33 (1995), 33–78Google Scholar

Gills, Barry K. and Frank, Andre Gunder, “World System Cycles, Crises, and Hegemonial Shifts, 1700 B.C. to 1700 A.D.,” Review 15 (1974), 621–87Google Scholar

Sanderson, Stephen K., Civilizations and World Systems: Studying World-Historical Change (Walnut Creek, CA, 1995)

Frank, Andre Gunder and Gills, Barry K., The World System: Five Hundred Years or Five Thousand? (London, 1993)

Frank, Andre Gunder, “Bronze Age World System Cycles,” CA 34 (1993), 383–429Google Scholar

Sherratt, Andrew, “What Would a Bronze-Age World System Look Like? Relations between Temperate Europe and the Mediterranean in Later Prehistory,” JEArch 1 (1993), 1–57Google Scholar

Algaze, Guillermo, The Uruk World System: The Dynamics of Early Mesopotamian Civilization, second edition (Chicago, IL, 2005)

Frank, Andre Gunder and Thompson, William R., “Afro-Eurasian Bronze Age Economic Expansion and Contraction Revisited,” JWH 16 (2005), 115–72Google Scholar

Beaujard, Philippe, “The Indian Ocean in Eurasian and African World-Systems before the Sixteenth Century,” JWH 16 (2005), 391–410Google Scholar

Beaujard, Philippe, “From Three Possible Iron-Age World Systems to a Single Afro-Eurasian World-System,” JWH 21 (2010), 1–44Google Scholar

Jones, Eric L., Growth Recurring: Economic Change in World History (Ann Arbor, MI, 2000 [1988])

de Vries, Jan, “Economic Growth before and after the Industrial Revolution: A Modest Proposal,” in Prak, Maarten, ed., Early Modern Capitalism: Economic and Social Change in Europe, 1400–1800 (New York, 2001), 177–94, esp. 178–89

Goldstone, Jack A., “Efflorescences and Economic Growth in World History: Rethinking the ‘Rise of the West’ and the Industrial Revolution,” JWH 13 (2002), 323–90, see esp. 323–7, 333–4, and 379Google Scholar

Goldstone, Jack A., “Neither Late Imperial nor Early Modern: Efflorescences and the Qing Formation in World History,” in Struve, Lynn A., ed., The Qing Formation in World-Historical Time (Cambridge, MA, 2004), 242–302

Lee, Ronald D., “Malthus and Boserup: A Dynamic Synthesis,” in Coleman, David and Scholfield, Roger S., eds., The State of Population Theory: Forward from Malthus (Oxford, 1986), 96–103

Wood, James W., “A Theory of Preindustrial Population Dynamics: Demography, Economy, and Well-Being in Malthusian Systems,” CA 39 (1998), 99–216.Google Scholar

Smith, Adam, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (Edinburgh, 1843), 258–9

Diamond, Jared, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (New York, 2005)

Chew, Sing C., World Ecological Degradation: Accumulation, Urbanization, and Deforestation, 3000B.C.–A.D. 2000 (Walnut Creek, CA, 2001)

Redman, Charles L., Human Impact on Ancient Environments (Tucson, AZ, 1999)

Ponting, Clive, A Green History of the World (London, 1992)

Harris, Marvin laid the fundamentals of the “endogenous model” in Cannibals and Kings: The Origins of Cultures (New York, 1977)

Williams, Michael, Deforesting the Earth: From Prehistory to Global Crisis (Chicago, IL, 2003), 37–144

Roberts, Neil, The Holocene: An Environmental History, second edition (Malden, MA, 1998), 159–206.

Cronon, William, Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West (New York, 1991), 56–7, 265–9

Schama, Simon, Landscape and Memory (New York, 1995)

Hsiang, Solomon M. et al., “Quantifying the Influence of Climate on Human Conflict,” Science 341, (2013), DOI:10.1126/science.1235367CrossRef Google Scholar

Zhang, David D. et al., “The Causality Analysis of Climate Change and Large-Scale Human Crisis,” PNAS 108 (2011), 17296–301Google Scholar

Lee, Harry F. et al., “Climatic Change and Chinese Population Growth Dynamics of the Last Millennium,” ClimCh 88 (2008), 131–56Google Scholar

Zhang, David D. et al., “Global Climate Change, War, and Population Decline in Recent Human History,” PNAS 104 (2007), 19214–19Google Scholar

“Climate Change and War Frequency in Eastern China over the Last Millennium,” HumEcol 35 (2007), 403–14, esp. 413

“Climatic Change, Wars, and Dynastic Cycles in China over the Last Millennium,” ClimCh 76 (2006), 459–77

Zhang, Zhibin et al., “Periodical Climate Cooling Enhanced Natural Disasters and Wars in China during AD 10–1900,” Proceedings of the Royal Society B 277 (2010), 3745–53.Google Scholar

Gunderson, Lance H. and Holling, C. C., eds., Panarchy: Understanding Transformations in Human and Natural Systems (Washington, DC, 2002)

Folke, Carl, “Resilience: The Emergence of a Perspective for Social-Ecological Systems Analysis,” GEC 16 (2006), 253–67Google Scholar

Redman, Charles, “Resilience Theory in Archaeology,” AmAnth 107 (2005), 70–7Google Scholar

Schwartz, Glenn M. and Nichols, John J., eds., After Collapse: The Regeneration of Complex Societies (Tucson, AZ, 2006), 137–43

McAnamy, Patricia A. and Yoffee, Norman, eds., Questioning Collapse: Human Resilience, Ecological Vulnerability and the Aftermath of Empire (New York, 2010)

Tainter, Joseph, “The Archaeology of Overshoot and Collapse,” ARA 35 (2006), 59–74Google Scholar

Butzer, Karl W., “Collapse, Environment, and Society,” PNAS 109 (2012), 3632–9.Google Scholar

Boone, James L., “Subsistence Strategies and Early Human Population History: An Evolutionary Ecological Perspective,” WdArch 34 (2002), 6–25Google Scholar

Shennan, Stephen, “Demography and Cultural Innovation: A Model and Its Implications for the Emergence of Modern Human Culture,” CArchJ 11 (2001), 5–16Google Scholar

Fogel, Robert, The Escape from Hunger and Premature Death, 1700–2100: Europe, America, and the Third World (New York, 2004)

McEvedy, Colin and Jones, Richard, Atlas of World Population History (New York, 1978)

Biraben, Jean-Noël, “Essai sur l’Evolution do Nombre des Hommes,” Population 34 (1979), 13–24Google Scholar

Binford, Lewis L., Constructing Frames of Reference: An Analytical Method for Archaeological Theory Building Using Hunter-Gatherer and Environmental Data Sets (Berkeley, CA, 2001), 142–4

Galloway, Patrick R., “Long-Term Fluctuations in Climate and Population in the Preindustrial Era,” PopDevR 12 (1986), 1–24Google Scholar

Bryson, Reid A., “Civilization and Rapid Climate Change,” Environmental Conservation 15 (1988), 7–15Google Scholar

Butzer, Karl W., “Environmental Change in the Near East and Human Impact on the Land,” in Sasson, Jack M., ed., Civilizations of the Ancient Near East, vol. 1 (Farmington Hills, MI, 1995), 123–51

Baillie, M. G. L., “Extreme Environmental Events and the Linking of Tree-Ring and Ice-Core Events,” in Dean, Jeffrey S. et al., eds., Tree Rings, Environment, and Humanity: Proceedings of the International Conference, Tucson, Arizona, May 17–21, 1994 (Tucson, AZ, 1996), 703–11

Marcus, Joyce, “The Peaks and Valley of Ancient State: An Extension of the Dynamic Model,” in Feinman, Gary M. and Marcus, Joyce, Archaic States (Santa Fe, NM, 1998), 59–94

Matthews, Roger, The Archaeology of Mesopotamia: Theories and Approaches (London, 2003), 100–1

Peiser, Benny J. et al., Natural Catastrophes during Bronze Age Civilizations: Archaeological, Geological, Astronomical and Cultural Perspectives (Oxford, 1998)

Weiss, Harvey and Bradley, Raymond S., “What Drives Societal Collapse?” Science 291 (2001), 609–10Google Scholar

deMenocal, Peter B., “Cultural Responses to Climate Change during the Late Holocene,” Science 292 (2001), 667–73Google Scholar

Chew, Sing C., “Globalization, Ecological Crisis, and Dark Ages,” Global Society 16 (2002), 333–56Google Scholar

Chew, , The Recurring Dark Ages: Ecological Stress, Climate Changes, and System Transformation (Lanham, MD, 2007)

Matthews, Roger, “Zebu: Harbingers of Doom in Bronze Age Western Asia?” Antiquity 76 (2002), 438–46Google Scholar

Mieroop, Marc van de, A History of the Ancient Near East, ca. 3000–323 B.C (Malden, MA, 2004), 37–8, 67–70, 115–17, 179–94

Kristianson, Kristian and Larrson, Thomas B., The Rise of Bronze Age Society: Travels, Transmissions, and Transformations (New York, 2005), 105–6

Migowski, Claudia et al., “Holocene Climate Variability and Cultural Evolution in the Near East from the Dead Sea Sedimentary Record,” QuatRes 66 (2006), 421–31.Google Scholar

Simmons, I. G., Changing the Face of the Earth: Culture, Environment, History (Malden, MA, 1989)

Williams, Michael, “Dark Ages and Dark Areas: Global Deforestation in the Deep Past,” Journal of Historical Geography 26 (2000), 28–46Google Scholar

Kirch, Patrick V., “Archaeology and Global Change: The Holocene Record,” Annual Reviews in Environmental Resources 30 (2005), 409–40.Google Scholar

Issar, Arie S. and Zohar, Mattanyah, Climate Change – Environment and Civilization in the Middle East (Berlin, 2004), 1–12, 137–8

Weninger, Bernhard et al., “Climate Forcing due to the 8200 cal yr BP Event Observed at Early Neolithic Sites in the Eastern Mediterranean,” QuatRes 66 (2006), 401–20, at 418Google Scholar

Rosen, Arlene Miller, Civilizing Climate: Social Responses to Climate Change in the Ancient Near East (Lanham, MD, 2007), 1–16

Coombes, Paul and Barber, Keith, “Environmental Determinism in Holocene Research: Causality or Coincidence?” Area 37 (2005), 303–11Google Scholar

Vita-Finzi, Claudio, The Mediterranean Valleys: Geological Changes in Historical Times (Cambridge, 1969)

Donald Hughes, J., Ecology in Ancient Civilizations (Albuquerque, NM, 1975)

Donald Hughes, J., Pan’s Travail: Environmental Problems of the Ancient Greeks and Romans (Baltimore, MD, 1994)

Braudel, Fernand, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, Siân Reynolds, trans., 2 vols. (New York, 1972)

Andel, Tjeerd H. van et al., “Five Thousand Years of Land Use and Abuse in the Southern Argolid, Greece,” Hesperia 55 (1986), 103–28Google Scholar

–, “Land Use and Soil Erosion in Prehistoric and Historical Greece,” JFdArch 17 (1990), 379–96.

McNeill, John R., The Mountains of the Mediterranean World: An Environmental History (New York, 1992), 68–86

Fisher, Christopher T., “Demographic and Landscape Change in the Lake Pátzcuaro Basin, Mexico: Abandoning the Garden,” AmAnth 107 (2005), 87–95Google Scholar

Redman, Charles L. et al., The Impact of Humans on Their Environment (Washington, DC, 2004), 141–57.

Horden, Peregrine and Purcell, Nicholas, The Corrupting Sea: A Study of Mediterranean History (Malden, MA, 2000), 298–341

Grove, A. T. and Rackham, Oliver, The Nature of Mediterranean Europe: An Ecological History (New Haven, CT, 2001), esp. 288–311

Rackham, Oliver, “Ecology and Pseudo-Ecology: The Example of Ancient Greece,” in Shipley, Graham and Salmon, John, eds., Human Landscapes in Classical Antiquity: Environment and Culture (New York, 1996), 16–43

Sallares, Robert, The Ecology of the Ancient Greek World (London, 1991), 372–3.

Bintliff, John, “Time, Process and Catastrophism in the Study of Mediterranean Alluvial History: A Review,” WdArch 33 (2002), 417–35, quote at 430Google Scholar

Allen, Harriet D., “Response of Past and Present Mediterranean Ecosystems to Environmental Change,” Progress in Physical Geography 27 (2003), 358–77Google Scholar

Shiel, R. S., “Refuting the Land Degradation Myth for Boeotia,” in Bailey, G. et al., eds., Human Ecodynamics (Oxford, 2000), 55–62

Casna, Jesse, “Mediterranean Valleys Revisited: Linking Soil Erosion, Land Use and Climate Variability in the Northern Levant,” Geomorphology 101 (2008), 429–42Google Scholar

Pustilnik, L. A. and Yom Din, G., “Space Climate Manifestation in Earth Prices – From Medieval England up to Modern U.S.A.,” Solar Physics 224 (2004), 472–81Google Scholar

Ó’Gráda, Cormac, Famine: A Short History (Princeton, NJ, 2009), 13–39.

Fleitmann, Dominik et al., “Holocene ITCZ and Indian Monsoon Dynamics Recorded in Stalagmites from Oman and Yemen (Socotra),” QSR 26 (2007), 170–88Google Scholar

Haug, Gerald H. et al., “Southward Migration of the Intertropical Convergence Zone through the Holocene,” Science 293 (2001), 1304–8Google Scholar

Sachs, Julian P. et al., “Southward Movement of the Pacific Intertropical Convergence Zone AD 1400–1850,” NatGeosc 2 (2009), 519–25.Google Scholar

Rohling, E. J. et al., “Holocene Ocean-Atmosphere Interactions: Records from Greenland and the Aegean Sea,” ClimDyn 18 (2002), 587–93Google Scholar

Legge, Heiko Lars and Mutterlose, Jörg, “Climatic Changes in the Northern Red Sea during the Last 22,000 Years as Recorded by Calcareous Nannofossils,” Paleoceanography 21 (2006), PA 1003Google Scholar

Marriner, Nick et al., “ITCZ and ENSO-like Pacing of Nile Delta Hydro-Geomorphology during the Holocene,” QSR 45 (2012), 73–84.Google Scholar

Jones, Matthew et al., “A High-Resolution Late Holocene Lake Isotope Record from Turkey and Links to the North Atlantic and Monsoon Climate,” Geology 34 (2006), 361–4Google Scholar

Herzschuh, Ulrike, “Palaeo-Moisture Evolution in Monsoonal Central Asia during the Last 50,000 Years,” QSR 25 (2006), 163–75Google Scholar

Cullen, Heidi M. et al., “Impact of the North Atlantic Oscillation on Middle Eastern Climate and Streamflow,” ClimCh 55 (2002), 315–38.Google Scholar

McNeill, William H., Plagues and Peoples (New York, 1977)

Smith, Andrew T. Price, Contagion and Chaos: Disease, Ecology, and National Security in the Era of Globalization (Cambridge, MA, 2009), 159–88.

Trigger, Bruce G., Understanding Early Civilizations (New York, 2003), 541–625

Diamond, Jared, Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fate of Human Societies (New York, 1997), 215–38.

McNeill, William H.’s argument on the early state as a “macro-parasite” in The Human Condition: An Ecological and Historical View (Princeton, NJ, 1980)

Garnsey, Peter, Famine and Food Supply in the Greaco-Roman World (Cambridge, 1988)

Kessler, David and Temin, Peter, “The Organization of the Grain Trade in the Early Roman Empire,” EconHistR 60 (2007), 313–32Google Scholar

Temin, Peter, “A Market Economy in the Early Roman Empire,” JRS 91 (2001), 169–81Google Scholar

Smith, Michael E., “The Archaeology of Ancient State Economies,” ARA 33 (2004), 73–102.Google Scholar

Mattieu, James R. and Mayer, Daniel A., “Comparing Axe Heads of Stone, Bronze, and Steel: Studies in Experimental Archaeology,” JFdArch 24 (1997), 334–51.Google Scholar

Smil, Vaclav, Energy in World History (Boulder, CO, 1994), 40–9

Levine, Marsha et al., eds., Late Prehistoric Exploitation of the Eurasian Steppe (Cambridge, 1999)

Anthony, David W. and Brown, Dorcas R., “Eneolithic Horse Exploitation in the Eurasian Steppes: Diet, Ritual and Riding,” Antiquity 74 (2000), 75–86.Google Scholar

Lilley, Samuel, Men, Machines, and History: The Story of Tools and Machines in Relation to Social Progress, revised edition (New York, 1965), 25–41

Wertime, Theodore A. and Muhly, James D., eds., The Coming of the Age of Iron (New Haven, CT, 1980)

Pigott, Vincent C., ed., The Archaeometallurgy of the Asian Old World (Philadelphia, PA, 1999)

Persson, Karl G., Pre-Industrial Economic Growth: Social Organization and Technological Progress in Europe (Oxford, 1988). 21–4

Wikander, Orjan, ed., Handbook of Ancient Water Technology (Leiden, 2000)

Lewis, M. J. T., Millstone and Hammer: The Origins of Water Power (Hull, 1997)

Russo, Lucio, The Forgotten Revolution: How Science Was Born in 300BC and Why It Had to Be Reborn, Silvio Levy, trans. (Berlin, 2004)

Wilson, Andrew, “Machines, Power and the Ancient Economy,” JRS 92 (2002), 1–32Google Scholar

Greene, Kevin, “Technological Innovation and Economic Progress in the Ancient World: M. I. Finley Re-Considered,” EconHistR 53 (2000), 29–59.Google Scholar

Jongman, Willem, “The Rise and Fall of the Roman Economy: Population, Rents and Entitlement,” in Bang, Peter F. et al., eds., Ancient Economies, Modern Methodologies: Archaeology, Comparative History, Models and Institutions (Bari, 2006), 243–61.

Taylor, Timothy, “Believing the Ancients: Quantitative and Qualitative Dimensions of Slavery and the Slave Trade in Later Prehistoric Eurasia,” WdArch 33 (2001), 27–43Google Scholar

Baker, H. D., “Degrees of Freedom: Slavery in Mid-First-Millennium BC Babylon,” WdArch 33 (2001), 18–26Google Scholar

Snell, Daniel C., Kyrtatas, Dimitris J., Braund, David, Scheidel, Walter, and Grey, Cam, in Bradley, Keith and Cartledge, Paul, eds., The Cambridge World History of Slavery, Vol. I: The Ancient Mediterranean World (Cambridge, 2011)

Mouhot, Jean-François, “Past Connections and Present Similarities in Slave Ownership and Fossil Fuel Usage,” ClimCh 105 (2011), 329–55.Google Scholar

Ruddiman, William F., “The Anthropogenic Greenhouse Era Began Thousands of Years Ago,” ClimCh 61 (2003), 261–93Google Scholar

Ruddiman, has published a popular version of this argument in SA 292 (March 2005)

James Salinger, M., “Agriculture’s Influence on Climate during the Holocene,” Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 142 (2007), 96–102Google Scholar

Ruddiman, William F. et al., “Early Rice Farming and Anomalous Methane Trends,” QSR 27 (2008), 1291–5Google Scholar

Li, Xiaoliang et al., “Increases in Population and Expansion of Rice Agriculture in Asia, and Anthropogenic Methane Emissions since 5000BP,” QuatInt 202 (2009), 41–50.Google Scholar

Debret, M. et al., “Evidence from Wavelet Analysis for a Mid-Holocene Transition in Global Climate Forcing,” QSR 28 (2009), 2675–88.Google Scholar

Mokyr, , “Punctuated Equilibria and Technological Progress”; “Evolution and Technological Change: A New Metaphor for Economic History?”; and the essays in Bintliff, John D., Structure and Contingency: Environmental Processes in Life and Human History (London, 1999)

Book contents

6 - Stasis and Growth in the Epoch of Agrarian Empires

Summary

Access options

References

Save book to Kindle

Save book to Dropbox

Save book to Google Drive