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Collapse, Environment, and Society

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Collapse, Environment, and Society Collapse, environment, and society Karl W. Butzer Department of Geography and the Environment, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712 This contribution is part of the special series of Inaugural Articles by members of the National Academy of Sciences elected in 1996. Edited by B. L. Turner, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, and approved December 2, 2011 (received for review September 10, 2011) Historical collapse of ancient states poses intriguing social-ecological questions, as well as potential applications to global change and contemporary strategies for sustainability. Five Old World case studies are developed to identify interactive inputs, triggers, and feedbacks in devolution. Collapse is multicausal and rarely abrupt. Political simplification undermines traditional structures of authority to favor militarization, whereas disintegration is preconditioned or triggered by acute stress (insecurity, environmental or economic crises, famine), with breakdown accompanied or followed by demographic decline. Undue attention to stressors risks underestimating the intricate interplay of environmental, political, and sociocultural resilience in limiting the damages of collapse or in facilitating reconstruction. The conceptual model emphasizes resilience, as well as the historical roles of leaders, elites, and ideology. However, a historical model cannot simply be applied to contemporary problems of sustainability without adjustment for cumulative information and increasing possibilities for popular participation. Between the 14th and 18th centuries, Western Europe responded to environmental crises by in- novation and intensification; such modernization was decentralized, protracted, flexible, and broadly based. Much of the current alarmist literature that claims to draw from historical experience is poorly focused, simplistic, and unhelpful. It fails to appreciate that resilience and readaptation depend on identified options, improved understanding, cultural solidarity, enlightened leadership, and opportunities for participation and fresh ideas. historical disasters | Egypt | Mesopotamia | Fayum Oasis | Ethiopia Rise and Fall of Civilizations Khaldun’s writings were poorly dissem- could and would be fixed by technological here has been inordinate fascina- inated, and Western interest in collapse innovation. tion with societal collapse, an issue was initially stimulated by Edward Gibbon Oswald Spengler’s The Decline of the Toutlined in the introduction to (3), who, with laborious detail, attributed West (1918–1922) (4) was written in the this Special Feature (1). The con- the decline and fall of the Roman Empire wake of a world war and before the Nazi cept has intuitive appeal but ambiguous to moral decay and barbarian invasions, ascendance. He redefined ontogeny in meaning, and has been applied to states, much like his predecessor had. Gibbon humanistic terms that included premoni- nations, or complex societies, in the sense observed that Roman collapse had tions of the authoritarian state. His “win- that such entities rise and flourish, but changed the sociopolitical map of Europe ter” would coincide with a demise of eventually disintegrate and fail. Sociopolit- and the Mediterranean world, a trans- abstract thought, accompanied by em- ical organization, economic weakness, and formation that continues to generate powerment of the rich, and the rise of environmental or demographic trends a secondary literature. Although Gibbon caesarian, demagogic leaders. Spengler have received emphasis. Change takes held to an ethical dimension, he recog- saw a society in deep crisis, and his pre- a long-term cyclic rhythm, at first organiz- nized that Roman collapse could not be scient but pessimistic ideas anticipated the ing, then expanding and integrating, before separated from historical processes that horrors of fascism and Stalinism. His in- shaped the dynamic context of its time, sinking in disorder. Systemic failure in one sights remain pertinent for modeling al- and he was uneasy about the potential synergistic network may destabilize adja- ternative pathways of political resilience in future failure of even more enlightened cent structures. Other open questions and powerful states. the wake of collapse. concern the scale of collapse, the time When the archaeological discoveries of By contrast, the French authors of the frames involved, the key elements that fail, the 19th century revealed a periodic failure Annales School chose a nonlinear track to and whether the outcome is cataclysmic or of kingdoms and empires across the capture the rich detail of regional histo- eventually allows restructuring. Not all Near East, the collapse model became ries, and to develop an interdisciplinary breakdowns are alike. a durable theme of social and historical method in which millennial demographic This challenging concept and its atten- waves served as a bellwether of key in- fi discourse. However, the message shifted: dant issues were rst articulated by the whereas ephemeral Eastern civilizations teractive processes (5–7). Disjunctures Islamic historian Ibn Khaldun [after 1377 regularly dissolved in chaos, the compar- were attributed to competing economic fi common era (CE)] (2), who identi ed the ative durability of ancient Rome improved systems, long-distance networking, war- periodic rise and fall of dynasties as mac- the prospect that Western Europe might fare, or pandemics (8), ideas that gave rostructures in the history of sedentary endure indefinitely. impetus to world-system history (9–11). civilizations. Beginning with the Roman With the proliferation of biological The annalistes eventually turned to more Empire and continuing with its Islamic analogues in the mid-1800s, ontogenetic humanistic studies that introduced counterparts, he attributed demise to rural or evolutionary qualities such as growth, rebellions or outside invaders confronting maturity, and decline were used to in- a ruling hierarchy that had forfeited the terpret historical macrostructures. For so- Author contributions: K.W.B. designed research and original solidarity of its supporters. Rather than cial Darwinists, material culture became an maps, performed research, analyzed data, and wrote the paper. ’ a global history, Khaldun s work was an index for the increasing achievements of The author declares no conflict of interest. implicit critique of Islamic society that civilization, in an era when the Industrial This article is a PNAS Direct Submission. went beyond theological arguments. He Revolution exuded the driving force of 1E-mail: [email protected]. faulted the greed and selfishness that came “progress.” The West was seen as a new This article contains supporting information online at with power, at the expense of the com- empire, wherein technology would assure www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1114845109/-/ mon good. unlimited economic growth. Problems DCSupplemental. 3632–3639 | PNAS | March 6, 2012 | vol. 109 | no. 10 www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1114845109 Downloaded by guest on September 25, 2021 environmental variability as an integral affect feedbacks, but then go on to simply wanton tomb or cemetery violations, and part of historical process (12, 13). fit a group of societal factors into a few dispossession of the elite. Other, less au- SPECIAL FEATURE Notable is the increasing diversity of preconceived categories, supported by thentic admonitions of the era amplify the perspectives about collapse, ranging ini- tertiary digests of no better than mixed themes of poverty, anarchy, and the up- tially from ethical and social, to ideological value, to “explain” a particular outcome by ending of social roles. The basic message is or ethnocentric, and eventually to in- assumed, axiomatic processes. Instead, our a breakdown of the “cosmic order” and terdisciplinary and systemic. The under- five case studies (later and in the SI Text) social justice, perhaps in the wake of an lying ideas continue to echo. The salient identify important, qualitative variables environmental disaster. However one concern today is the interface between and track their roles and interplay in sys- chooses to interpret such writings, there environment and society, to require greater temic outcomes. Although difficult to was no central government, while justice, attention to social science and humanities simulate, societal inputs and feedbacks are order, or respect for tradition fell by the INAUGURAL ARTICLE perspectives. There has indeed been more common than environmental varia- wayside during the nadir of collapse, pre- rapid growth of theoretical sophistication bles. The case studies also offer temporal sumably the seventh to eighth dynasties. in regard to complexity and network the- parameters for transformation. ory, agent-based models, resilience theory, Onset of Economic Decline. During the sixth or tipping points. However, the challenge Anatomy of a Collapse: Old Kingdom dynasty, central authority was steadily di- for a scientific study of historical collapse Egypt luted by privileges granted to courtiers remains to develop comprehensive, in- The historical cycle of the Egyptian Old around the throne. Mortuary temples were tegrated or coupled models, drawing upon Kingdom (14) closed shortly after the im- already built for pharaohs of the fourth the implications of qualitative narratives probably long reign of Pepi II [∼2278– dynasty, institutions that engaged groups of that go well beyond routine social science 2184 before CE (BCE)], the last signifi-
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