I didn't see a different perspective until I started this new wave of research and it has definitely fundamentally changed how I think of civilization!
@@madelinejameswrites well obviously the state would do anything to make itself look like the only possible and perfect reality. We saw it at its worst during the colonialism era.
Wow! what a beautiful and concise lecture on the "why" civilisations have formed! As a modern electronic-age non-magic city builder, this episode drew me in. Thank you and see you in the discord.
the stuff about nomadic groups is so interesting!!! I'm building a dnd campaign set post bronze age collapse and this super antiquity history is such a well
Oh so glad it's helpful! If you're into reading non-fiction, the book The Creation of Inequality that I mentioned would probably have a ton of inspiring and relevant stuff for you!
I'd also recommend looking into David Graeber's anthropological work, particularly Debt: The First 5000 Years and The Dawn of Everything. He's also a colleague of James C. Scott. A colleague pf him is also Michael Hudson, who did economic archeological work that he adapted into a trilogy of works: ... and Forgive Them Their Debts, The Collapse of Antiquity, and Temples of Enterprise, all worth looking into. If you can find anything by him, Lewis Mumford's The Myth of the Machine gives a lot to grapple with.
I'll have to get Debt, I've heard good things about it! And I've read a bit on Dawn of Everything. I'll look into the rest! Thank you for the recommendations!
Your commitment to worldbuilding continues to astonish me. I couldn't imagine trying to write fantasy now without being intimidated by some of these considerations. 😅 Which makes me happy I'm writing contemporary right now.
😂 it's definitely a lot, but I will say for my story worlds I don't fully go into all this detail for the entire world. I typically try to focus my energy on the places that I'm going to be writing about, and what I do for each story is a bit different based on what I need. I think this process helps me to understand the fundamental processes though. Every story I write I include more and more depth for this kind of stuff, it's a growing process and I'm always learning!
This channel was a huge discovery for a history major building a post-cataclysmic fantasy world (roughly steampunk -> medieval). Thank you for all the great content, this is a true trove of treasure! Now where did I put my coffee and notebook...
I am writing for a late bronze/early iron age setting, so this part of the guide is getting really exciting for me. Can’t wait to see what nuances you’ll explore in there early establishing eras of civilization!
@@madelinejameswrites Just finished the episode, lots of interesting considerations to take in. I always thought states formed out of the attractiveness of a stable lifestyle rather than as a form of subjugation that people were coerced into. Was this something that came up in later stages of civilization formation? I'm also curious about whether or not you'll be doing episodes on how to form "personalities" for your states, things like hierarchies and beliefs.
@@maxwellsimon4538 we'll get into it a bit in the next part, but states did get more attractive over time. There was still the issue of needing to keep the population in a state. And we'll be diving into cultural traits and beliefs more later! They will largely be from the perspective of ways societies can address challenges (both political and geographic).
Notes for myself states around more biome diverse areas setttled areas where all requirements arent met twin areas where trade routes occur or where state-demanded resources exist, or where "barbarians" exist alongside states migratory areas with low biome diversity or just areas without a lot of habitability
This is excellent. This probably popped up on my feed due to my interest in actual states and history, but fills in a lot of information i was not aware of. Great job!
Another great guide!!! Your videos are so in-depth, yet I'm able to follow along without getting overwhelmed haha! Thank you so much for making this guide. Looking forward to the next video 💕
Rewatched the previous parts to prepare for this one, I'M SO EXCITED!! When it first came out, I shared it with artist/writer friends like "!!!!!" like we do Artifexian videos too.
26:49 just a note that "q" in Chinese romanization is pronounced as a sound close to English "ch" so it should be something close to "ching dynasty". If you know the IPA the sound is /tɕʰ/. Great video though I can't believe I haven't seen your videos before, will definitely be watching more of them 🙏🏽
Although I think you’re right that emergencies and danger helped encourage people to accept authoritarian states (a tactic that still works today, unfortunately), I think another part of it may have been the astronomical expertise of the priest classes in states like Egypt or the Mesopotamian or Indus city-states. We unfortunately tend to think of ancient priests as mere spinners of superstition, and of course they did believe tons of stuff that we now know isn’t true, but that nonsense was mixed in with a lot of genuine observational knowledge of astronomy and its correlations with seasonal rains, frosts, and droughts. If your priests can tell the whole community that the position of the Sun is a sign from the goddess Inanna that she’s ready to bless the sowing of the millet crop (which happens also to be the exact date of the spring equinox and the start of the rainy season), it may make sense to the millet farmers to raise a little surplus to feed those priests, so they can get the planting time right again next year.
How could land degradation caused by agricultural be determined? Specifically, the gradual desertification over centuries, unnoticed by the farmers, until their society suffers agricultural collapse (thinking of the Mayans). Could this potentially be the outcome of most antiquity states? Explore adventurers from the lucky faraway state would then discover vast ruins of lost civilizations all over the world :)
This is definitely an effect I ran into! Against the Grain talks about this with the increased salinization of their water, upstream logging, etc. basically destroying their local environment slowly until it can't support them anymore. And societies definitely did collapse from that, like you said! I have looked too much into this yet, but I would think the more a population is trying to optimize their use of land, the more at risk they'd be for this. So faster population growth, more restricted farming land, other needs for large amounts of lumber, etc.
@@VincentWernerK I don't know if he's shared his real name and his academic work on RU-vid. But if you look at Artifexian's latest videos, his guides are linked in there
