Re:A Compass for the Politics of Collapse
by inglor_cz on Monday August 30, 2021 @11:59PM
(#28363835)
Decline of the Western Roman Empire was, in fact, at least regional collapse of civilization. Cities almost disappeared or at least shrunk considerably, including Rome, which peaked at 1 million people under Augustus, but had only 20-30 thousand people in the Early Middle Ages; other cities of the WRE fared even worse.
Literate secular class, including Roman state bureaucracy, disappeared as well, and with it large scale planning, monetary economy, large construction projects or most of long distance trade. Only the Church still maintained reading and writing, but that was a very small group of people.
All of this may not fulfill your definition of collapse of civilization, but I believe that a Roman citizen of 2nd century AD, suddenly transported to the 8th century, would be aghast seeing what became of his former home. Even cattle shrunk to half its former size and crop yields diminished, as agricultural best practices were forgotten.
Re:A Compass for the Politics of Collapse
by Karrot_Kream on Monday August 30, 2021 @02:48PM
(#28359393)
Agreed. I didn't talk about the Late Bronze Age collapse because it's still very much an ongoing topic of research, but I definitely agree. You can also draw similar parallels to the transition between the Heian court period in Japan to the Sengoku Warring States eras as well, as far as the collapse/change dichotomy is concerned.
Re:A Compass for the Politics of Collapse
by Apocryphon on Monday August 30, 2021 @02:48PM
(#28359384)
What about the sudden abandonment of cities in Mesoamerica at different periods?
Re:A Compass for the Politics of Collapse
by Karrot_Kream on Monday August 30, 2021 @02:50PM
(#28359413)
That states fell is not disputed. States and civilizations fell all the time in the Ancient world. This is distinct from the narrative that humanity as a whole would collapse simultaneously. As the parent comment says, the Late Bronze Age collapse is the closest we have to a simultaneous civilization ending event as we know in modern history, and it is very much under active research.
This entailed most urban centers in the Eastern mediterranean (besides Egypt and Mesopotamia) being violently destroyed, and writing completely disappearing in large regions. And all this happening over the course of maybe 50-100 years.
Arguments can be made for the declining Western Roman Empire, and collapse of some of the Chinese dynastic states. But as you point out, one can rather easily counter argue that this wasn't collapse of civilization but rather the collapse of a specific hegemonic state and its replacement by several smaller competing powers. Civilization still remained: urban center and writing didn't disappear. These were collapses of states not of civilization.