Peter Turchin and colleagues created a computer model to study the rise and fall of states in Europe, Asia and Africa over the period from 1500 BCE to 1500 CE.
Their conclusion:
The central premise of the model, which we test, is that costly institutions that enabled large human groups to function without splitting up evolved as a result of intense competition between societies—primarily warfare. Warfare intensity, in turn, depended on the spread of historically attested military technologies (e.g., chariots and cavalry) and on geographic factors (e.g., rugged landscape). . . . The model-predicted pattern of spread of large-scale societies was very similar to the observed one. Overall, the model explained 65% of variance in the data. An alternative model, omitting the effect of diffusing military technologies, explained only 16% of variance.
My first reaction to this study is that I could certainly believe that warfare accounts for 65% of the rise of large states in history. Which gives me pause, because this sort of modeling relies very heavily on assumptions. Did they fiddle with the parameters until they got a result that fit their (and my) preconceptions? Can this sort of modeling really tell us anything new, or does it just spit back the data we choose to give it?
4 comments:
Well, I've downloaded this, and someday I may even read it. One thing I'd be curious about is that they seem to be taking as synonymous, or at least developmentally connected, the political forms described by the following phrases: "huge anonymous societies of today," "largest-scale complex societies" and "a long history of statehood." In their view, do modern Belgium and Japan both count as "large-scale complex societies"? One is very small and the other large, but they seem of a piece in terms of sharing modern complexity, stability, and anonymity. Are they taking anything larger than a village or set of villages as "large-scale"? Does, say, the Duchy of Cleves, which survived through centuries of intense military competition, count as a large-scale society?
Overall, I'm skeptical, but maybe that's just a historian's cynicism about sociological modeling.
Okay, I've skimmed through it. First of all, there are lots of mathematical formulas, which the authors boast of. Second, they seem to regard size as an important aspect of what they're looking for, and yet a word search turns up no reference to the Mongols. Third, I notice some assessments of what they call "ultrasociality"--complex societies with strong non-kin ties--that strike me as odd. Why would sixth-century Germany contain a pocket of ultra-sociality of the highest type, while Constantinople in the same period doesn't? Medievalists will likewise marvel at the ultrasocial, intense supra-kin statism of southern Finland around the year 1000, while contemporary Song China languishes in semi-barbarism. And what's with leaving the Iranian plateau in pure kin-based anarchy for the whole 3000 year period?
In any case, the prose is rebarbative pseudoscientific hardtack, which means hopefully I won't be tempted to read it, since I've already allowed myself to be distracted by this more than I should.
Thanks for reading it; now I don't have to.
Well, I did only skim it. Someday I may read it. I'm curious to know how they rated the societies, where they got their information from.
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