Comparisons: Cycles and Empires in Agrarian Worlds

Abstract

The back story to historical change is summed up by Bruce Campbell (2016: 22) as “climate, ecosystems, microbes, humans, biology, society.” One could also list them as climate, ecological factors, disease, demography, and secular economic change. Human-caused but longue durée matters such as soil erosion, deforestation, desertification, watercourse management, irrigation works, medical science, developing technology, and entrenched moral systems affect all these, nowhere more than in East Asia, where they came over time to be as much as part of the environment as mountains and rivers.