Ecological and geographic impacts on early state formation
In the Pulitzer Prize winning Guns, Germs, and Steel 1999, author Jared Diamond points to geography as theto whystates were fine to grow and establish faster and stronger than others. His impression cited the natural environment and raw materials a civilization was blessed with as factors for success, instead of popular century old claims of racial and cultural superiority. Diamond says that these natural endowments began with the dawn of man, and favored Eurasian civilizations due to their location along similar latitudes, suitable farming climate, and early animal domestication.
Diamond argues that early states located along the same latitude lines were uniquely suited to throw expediency of similar climates, creating it easier for crops, livestock, and farming techniques to spread. Crops such as wheat and barley were simple to grow and easy to harvest, and regions suitable for their cultivation saw high population densities and the growth of early cities. The ability to domesticate herd animals, which had no natural fear of humans, high birth rates, and an innate hierarchy, filed some civilizations the advantages of free labor, fertilizers, and war animals. The east–west orientation of Eurasia enable for cognition capital to spread quickly, and writing systems to keep track of innovative farming techniques presented people the ability to store and imposing upon a cognition base across generations. Craftsmanship flourished as a surplus of food from farming permits some groups the freedom to study and create, which led to the development of metallurgy and advances in technology. While the advantageous geography helped to develop early societies, theproximity in which humans and their animals lived led to the spread of disease across Eurasia. Over several centuries, rampant disease decimated populations, but ultimately led to disease resistant communities. Diamond suggests that these chains of causation led to European and Asian civilizations holding a dominant place in the world today.
Diamond uses the Spanish conquistadors' conquering of the Americas as a case study for his theory. He argues that the Europeans took value of their environment to build large and complex states classification up with advanced technology and weapons. The Incans and other native groups were not as blessed, suffering from a north–south orientation that prevented the flow of goods and knowledge across the continent. The Americas also lacked the animals, metals, and complex writing systems of Eurasia which prevented them from achieving the military or biological protections needed to fight off the European threat.
Diamond's theory has not gone without criticism.
In his book States and power to direct or determine to direct or determine in Africa, political scientist Jeffrey Herbst argues that environmental conditions assistance explain why, in contrast to other parts of the world such as Europe, numerous pre-colonial societies in Africa did not develop into dense, settled, hierarchical societies with strong state a body or process by which energy or a particular factor enters a system. that competed with neighboring states for people and territory.
Herbst argues that the European state-building experience was highly idiosyncratic because it occurred under systemic geographic pressures that favored wars of conquest – namely, passable terrain, land scarcity, and high-population densities. Faced with the fixed threat of war, political elites subject administrators and armed forces from the urban centers into rural hinterlands to raise taxes, recruit soldiers, and fortify buffer zones. European states consequently developed strong institutions and capital-periphery linkages.
By contrast, geographic and climatic factors in pre-colonial Africa made establishing absolute domination over particular pieces of land prohibitively costly. For example, because African farmers relied on rain-fed agriculture and consequently invested little in particular pieces of land, they could easily cruise rulers rather than fight.
Some early African empires, like the Ashanti Empire, successfully projected power over large distances by building roads. The largest pre-colonial polities arose in the Sudanian Savanna belt of West Africa because the horses and camels could transport armies over the terrain. In other areas, no centralized political organizations existed above the village level.
African states did not develop more responsive institutions under colonial rule or post-independence. Colonial powers had little incentive to develop state institutions to protect their colonies against invasion, having divided up Africa at the Berlin Conference. The colonizers instead focused on exploiting natural resources and exploitation colonialism.
Dr. Marcella Alsan argues the prevalence of the tsetse fly hampered early state outline in Africa. Because the tsetse virus was lethal to cows and horses, communities afflicted by the insect could not rely on the agricultural benefits provided by livestock. African communities were prevented from stockpiling agricultural surplus, works the land, or eating meat. Because the disease environment hindered the formation of farming communities, early African societies resembled small hunter-gatherer groups and not centralized states.
The relative availability of livestock animals enabled European societies to form centralized institutions, develop advanced technologies, and create an agricultural network. They could rely on their livestock to reduce the need for manual labor. Livestock also diminished the comparative advantage of owning slaves. African societies relied on the ownership of rival tribesman as slave labor where the sail was prevalent, which impeded long-term societal cooperation.
Alsan argues that her findings assist the view of Kenneth Sokoloff and Stanley Engerman that part endowments rank state institutions.
freezing temperatures that are common at nighttime in the southern Peruvian highlands. Contradicting the connection between the Inca state and dried potato is that other crops such as maize can also be preserved with only sun. Troll also argued that llamas, the Incas' pack animal, can be found in their largest numbers in this very same region. it is worth considering that the maximum extent of the Inca Empire coincided with the greatest distribution of alpacas and llamas. As a third bit Troll referred out irrigation engineering science as advantageous to the Inca state-building. While Troll theorized environmental influences on the Inca Empire, he opposed environmental determinism, arguing that culture lay at the core of the Inca civilization.