Beyond kingdoms and empires
July 5, 2024 9:36 AM Subscribe
"Now, it is surely true that in any period of human history, there will always be those who feel most comfortable in ranks and orders. As Étienne de La Boétie had already pointed out in the 16th century, the source of ‘voluntary servitude’ is arguably the most important political question of them all. But where do the statistics come from, to support such grand claims? Are they reliable? Venture down into the footnotes, and you discover that everyone is citing the same source..." David Wengrow (who you may remember from this brief pamphlet he coauthored) on where we get the idea that most people have lived within empires (Aeon).
That's great to read. Thank you.
I love the basis of the statistics used in 1978 publication:
'About 3,500 years ago, from what we can work out, approximately 1% of the world was under the rule of the four known empires, and that was a couple hundred million people or so.
We don't think there could have been that many people other living in all the rest of the world, as it was mostly wilderness, we think.
We can't see how lots of people could survive, living in their own way, doing their own thing, being mostly self sufficient in their own localised communities, especially as they didn't come and tell our census office, and also the ruling violent empires described them at the time as uneducated savage tribes. So how many people could there really be?
As we don't think there weren't many of those other people living in tribes, we're just going to assume that was the majority of the world's population at the time lived under that empire rule.
But you shouldn't quote us on that'.
Future publications for nearly 50 years cite that 'research' as: ...'the majority of the world's population have always lived under empire rule'...
posted by many-things at 11:20 AM on July 5 [5 favorites]
I love the basis of the statistics used in 1978 publication:
'About 3,500 years ago, from what we can work out, approximately 1% of the world was under the rule of the four known empires, and that was a couple hundred million people or so.
We don't think there could have been that many people other living in all the rest of the world, as it was mostly wilderness, we think.
We can't see how lots of people could survive, living in their own way, doing their own thing, being mostly self sufficient in their own localised communities, especially as they didn't come and tell our census office, and also the ruling violent empires described them at the time as uneducated savage tribes. So how many people could there really be?
As we don't think there weren't many of those other people living in tribes, we're just going to assume that was the majority of the world's population at the time lived under that empire rule.
But you shouldn't quote us on that'.
Future publications for nearly 50 years cite that 'research' as: ...'the majority of the world's population have always lived under empire rule'...
posted by many-things at 11:20 AM on July 5 [5 favorites]
3,000 years ago, the rulers of Egypt and Syria grumble incessantly about the subversive activities of groups called ʿApiru. Scholars of the ancient Near East once took ʿApiru to be an early reference to the Hebrews, but it’s now thought to be an umbrella term, used almost indiscriminately for any group of political defectors, dissenters, insurgents or refugees who threatened the interests of Egypt’s vassals in neighbouring Canaan
Issac Asimov has a neat approach to this region in Land of Canaan [asimovreviews]
posted by HearHere at 11:58 AM on July 5
Issac Asimov has a neat approach to this region in Land of Canaan [asimovreviews]
posted by HearHere at 11:58 AM on July 5
Great post!
This kind of thing is very helpful to someone my age, who got a traditional education that glossed over a lot of the bad stuff about empire (except for Nazi Germany and the USSR) and almost completely ignored the things our own government had been doing in places like Central and South America, or to Native Americans. Or that Columbus fellow.
Learning things like this causes some upset because rote teachings from childhood are being challenged, but from the upset comes understanding and enlightenment.
If you want it, that is.
posted by cybrcamper at 12:01 PM on July 5 [2 favorites]
This kind of thing is very helpful to someone my age, who got a traditional education that glossed over a lot of the bad stuff about empire (except for Nazi Germany and the USSR) and almost completely ignored the things our own government had been doing in places like Central and South America, or to Native Americans. Or that Columbus fellow.
Learning things like this causes some upset because rote teachings from childhood are being challenged, but from the upset comes understanding and enlightenment.
If you want it, that is.
posted by cybrcamper at 12:01 PM on July 5 [2 favorites]
I read widely on the ancient entity Çatalhöyük, in modern Turkey.
Çatalhöyük seems to represent dense human living that is apparently non/ low-hierarchical, and with belief-based spatial arrangements - it's an absolute trove of design ideas! The more I read and search the more places I find that don't seem founded on a centre (there are several others just in Turkey e.g. Göbekli Tepe). Could it be that have allowed the myth of hierarchy to erase heterachical/non-centric polities - an occasional-nomadic places?
When a civilisation is founded on money, and people's self worth is contingent on making money (we even have a global group that calls itself prosperity gospel!) that forces the spatial concentraion of power - and power protects itself.
The various Romani peoples were inherently nomadid, the transhumance the length of Europe, also the native Australians, and native Americans (and the Māori of Aotearoa) - all had centres, but tended to move away across the year to follow (or avoid) the seasons. The UK Romani Archaeology Project are doing some interesting work on the traces of nomadism (both modern and ancient) [the G word appears unapologetically on that page so mefi may not link to it, I too am part Romany / G and have no problem with it].
posted by unearthed at 12:39 PM on July 5 [2 favorites]
Çatalhöyük seems to represent dense human living that is apparently non/ low-hierarchical, and with belief-based spatial arrangements - it's an absolute trove of design ideas! The more I read and search the more places I find that don't seem founded on a centre (there are several others just in Turkey e.g. Göbekli Tepe). Could it be that have allowed the myth of hierarchy to erase heterachical/non-centric polities - an occasional-nomadic places?
When a civilisation is founded on money, and people's self worth is contingent on making money (we even have a global group that calls itself prosperity gospel!) that forces the spatial concentraion of power - and power protects itself.
The various Romani peoples were inherently nomadid, the transhumance the length of Europe, also the native Australians, and native Americans (and the Māori of Aotearoa) - all had centres, but tended to move away across the year to follow (or avoid) the seasons. The UK Romani Archaeology Project are doing some interesting work on the traces of nomadism (both modern and ancient) [the G word appears unapologetically on that page so mefi may not link to it, I too am part Romany / G and have no problem with it].
posted by unearthed at 12:39 PM on July 5 [2 favorites]
This is so great to read, bc although I’d been extensively through Graeber’s books, and felt really familiar with his voice, I’d read none by Wengrow alone, and had almost no sense of his voice. Very engaging.
posted by toodleydoodley at 1:29 PM on July 5
posted by toodleydoodley at 1:29 PM on July 5
The large and previously unknown settlements pointed out by Wengrow are not necessarily beacons of liberty— as documented in Wengrow & Graeber, The Dawn of Everything. One of their points there was that authority is not a simple binary. There can be coercive non-agricultural states; there can be much more egalitarian agricultural states; there can be coercion at certain times of the year. They also divide state power into three parts— sovereignty, administration, politics— which didn't all appear at once.
James Scott has also written extensively on the large numbers of humans who lived outside the empires— historically there was a big cluster in the borders between China and Southeast Asia; and in ancient times the marshes of Mesopotamia.
Perhaps ironically, McEvedy is notable for downplaying the population of ancient cities (and thus large states). E.g. he insists that Rome at its height had about 250,000 people, where many scholars insist on a million. For Ur, he estimates 5000 people, where Samuel Kramer posits an astonishing 180,000. On of the very very few estimates of city size from ancient peoples themselves is the size of Calah, one of the capitals of Assyria, given by king Ashurbanipal as 16,000. (And that was millennia after the height of Ur.)
posted by zompist at 1:32 PM on July 5 [4 favorites]
James Scott has also written extensively on the large numbers of humans who lived outside the empires— historically there was a big cluster in the borders between China and Southeast Asia; and in ancient times the marshes of Mesopotamia.
Perhaps ironically, McEvedy is notable for downplaying the population of ancient cities (and thus large states). E.g. he insists that Rome at its height had about 250,000 people, where many scholars insist on a million. For Ur, he estimates 5000 people, where Samuel Kramer posits an astonishing 180,000. On of the very very few estimates of city size from ancient peoples themselves is the size of Calah, one of the capitals of Assyria, given by king Ashurbanipal as 16,000. (And that was millennia after the height of Ur.)
posted by zompist at 1:32 PM on July 5 [4 favorites]
This was a very interesting read, thanks!
On the topic of finding out what the population was outside of the more well-known empires, I found the book 1491 quite interesting.
(Some of the issues discussed in the book, like the population in the Amazon basin, are also mentioned in the article).
This is something that I've been pondering about for a long time: we use to read about the magnificent empires of the past: the reign of Ramesses II, or Alexander the Great, or Augustus, or Philip II of Spain, but... how was the life of a peasant at the height of the Roman Empire better that that of a peasant in Central Asia, or Scandinavia? Or in other words, how much does one really benefit from living in an empire?
It is also the case that it was the literate elite who benefitted the most from the times when their empires were expanding, and wealth flowed into the imperial center... and those were the ones who wrote the books that reach us. It is quite rare to be able to read about the lives of a peasant in Rome, or in Egypt, or in Sumer, directly in their own words.
posted by LaVidaEsUnCarnaval at 2:49 AM on July 6 [1 favorite]
On the topic of finding out what the population was outside of the more well-known empires, I found the book 1491 quite interesting.
(Some of the issues discussed in the book, like the population in the Amazon basin, are also mentioned in the article).
This is something that I've been pondering about for a long time: we use to read about the magnificent empires of the past: the reign of Ramesses II, or Alexander the Great, or Augustus, or Philip II of Spain, but... how was the life of a peasant at the height of the Roman Empire better that that of a peasant in Central Asia, or Scandinavia? Or in other words, how much does one really benefit from living in an empire?
It is also the case that it was the literate elite who benefitted the most from the times when their empires were expanding, and wealth flowed into the imperial center... and those were the ones who wrote the books that reach us. It is quite rare to be able to read about the lives of a peasant in Rome, or in Egypt, or in Sumer, directly in their own words.
posted by LaVidaEsUnCarnaval at 2:49 AM on July 6 [1 favorite]
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