# Why were there only two 'great' societies **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 5, 2000, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-there-only-two-great-societies/24631 "2000-07-05T12:33:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2000, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-there-only-two-great-societies/24631/1 "2000-07-05T12:33:56Z")
What I mean by that is throughout history, it seems like only 2 groups of people became technologically advanced over the rest of the world. The 2 groups I am referring to is the Far East and Medertrainian / European area. These are some of my theories: 1 The environment had plentiful resources, making invention easier. 2 The environment was harsher, requiring invention to overcome it. 3 Constant war, or threat of war prompted invention. 4 Periods of peace where there was no uneasiness between people allowed invention. 5 Establishment of certain moral codes in a form of a religion. 6 Trade 7 Enlightenment by superior intelligence. 8 All were advancing at a regular rate and most suffered setbacks (like your tribe who just discovered gunpowder was killed off by another tribe and knowledge of gunpowder is lost) 9 Common language 10 Move from wandering societies to ones that settle and have fixed boundaries 11 Government These are all I can think of right now, I would like to know what your thoughts on this subject are. Some that I listed I think farfetched but can’t be ruled out. I don’t want this to become a racist argument, and I am not saying that the 2 ‘great’ societies are somehow better. Also I am not diminishing the inventions and accomplishments of other groups. ---
**Author:** ![Osakadave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/f07891/32.png) [@Osakadave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Osakadave)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2000, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-there-only-two-great-societies/24631/2 "2000-07-05T13:06:50Z")
May I reccomend Jared Diamond’s excelent book on this subject _Guns, Germs, and Steel_. He argues that it comes down to geography and biology. Eurasia had more plants and animals suitable to domestication than the other continents. Also Eurasia had fewer geographic obsticals that prevented the transmission and distribution of new ideas and inventions. Africa is divided by the inhospitable climates of the Sahara and rain forests. The Americas were likewise divided by the narrowness of Central America and inhospitable climates (rain forests and the Southwerstern deserts). ---
**Author:** ![Phobos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Phobos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phobos)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2000, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-there-only-two-great-societies/24631/3 "2000-07-05T13:09:22Z")
5 - certainly, the less advanced places you’re comparing to also had religion 6- good one 7 - not likely, we’re all one species…perhaps better education or more helpful traditions or better mass communication 9 - not so sure about this one There was some recent book on this subject that I didn’t actually read (was it Guns, Germs, and Steel?) but I think it talked about how Europe has a good east-west orientation that is beneficial to agriculture (something that is necessary to support large societies where progress is more likely to occur) and that those regions had more “beasts of burden” available (large, strong animals capable of being trained to support our farming, etc.) ---
**Author:** ![SuaSponte](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/67e7ee/32.png) [@SuaSponte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SuaSponte)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2000, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-there-only-two-great-societies/24631/4 "2000-07-05T15:06:36Z")
I agree that Guns, Germs, and Steel is a good starting place to look into this. I will disagree with your theory #4 - war, not peace, is good for invention. Compare your two “great societies” The Far East, esp. China, was considerably more advanced that Europe/Med. by 1500, the start of the great European expansion. However, China (and soon thereafter Japan) was a unitary state with the powers-that-be interested in keeping the status quo. An example was the Chinese decision to abandon its ocean-going navies. The European area, in constrast, was split among continually warring, and generally miniscule, states. These states turned to technology to gain advantage over their competitors. This point is discussed in The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, author forgotten. Sua. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2000, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-there-only-two-great-societies/24631/5 "2000-07-05T16:40:22Z")
Can’t believe **Arnold** didn’t beat me to this one… 🙂 See Cecil’s column [How come Europe dominated the rest of the world and not vice versa?](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/970620.html) ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2000, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-there-only-two-great-societies/24631/6 "2000-07-05T17:10:08Z")
thank you for your input and to Kimstu for finding what the great one has to say. This explans somewhat why europe advanced, but IMHO the Far East has also advanced greatly to such a degree as I do not know who was most advanced. They developed different technologies so it makes it hard to compare directly. Also about the moral code by religion, I know that other less advanced civ’s had a religious moral code, but I am saying is that maby the actual moral code by these 2 civ’s were more helpful to advancement What I ment by times of peace is that possibly if your rivals signed a peace treaty with you, you could breath a little easier and put your energy into either developing new and exciting things or build up your military with new and exciti9ng weapons that you can test out on your next sneak attack to break the treaty ---
**Author:** ![Spiritus\_Mundi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c68b51/32.png) [@Spiritus\_Mundi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiritus_Mundi)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2000, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-there-only-two-great-societies/24631/7 "2000-07-05T17:48:10Z")
I’m not certain I buy the initial premise. Technology is not static. Therefore, any relative measurement depends upon when you take your snapshot. Are you including Egypt among your “Medertrainian / European”. Fine, but it makes any argument from ecology specious as teh environmental factors faced by Egyptians had little in common with those of the Northern europeans. How about the Near East? If you took your picture 6000 years ago I might make a case that Sumer and Harrapa represented the technological apex. 35,000 years ago I might argue for Oceania. 100 years from now we might be discussing the technological superiority of South America. ---
**Author:** ![mipsman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mipsman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mipsman)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2000, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-there-only-two-great-societies/24631/8 "2000-07-05T18:38:34Z")
K2, as for Europe, William McNeill in his book “Rise of the West” (a misnomer as it ties together worldwide contemporaneous events better than any text I have ever read) points out that “in the 8th and early 9th centuries, (Western European) civilized social structures were restricted to an area not much greater than the original Aegean cradle (of) 1400 years before.” “(The people of)Western Europe directly inherited a society in which nearly all the overburden of civilized institutions had crumbled into agrarian simplicity. Europeans could therefore build anew, utilizing elements from the variegated cultural inheritances of their neighbors (ed. comment-classical, Byzantine and Moslem) according to choice. Moreover, the universal claims of the Roman Catholic Church, together with the military success that Frankish arms soon attained on every frontier, gave western Europeans a secure sense of superiority that ruled out slavish imitations of their more civilized neighbors and the fear that any borrowing whatever would endanger their spirtual independence. (ed. comment-This second point was a problem in both contemporary India and China.) A society remarkably open to to innovation thus emerged - sure of itself, interested in the wonders of the civilized world, and eager to seize wealth, fame and learning whereever they could be found…” “Western Europe also enjoyed important geographical advantages which technical developments of the so-called Dark Age (500-900AD) brought into play for the first time. Broad and fertile plains cultivated by the mold-board plow, an indented coast line, numerous navigible rivers traversed by ships capable of withstanding the perils of Atlantic wind and tide, and an abundance of metals, especially of iron, and of timber, all contributed essential elements to western Europe’s abrupt ascendance.” “The barbarian inheritance-both from the remote Bronze Age invasions of the second millenium BC and from the more immediate Germanic, Scandinavian, and steppe invasions of the first millenium AD-made European society more thoroughly warlike than any other civilized society on the globe, excepting the Japanese.” I believe that there was also luck involved. If Constantinople had fallen to the Arabs during their first major onslaughts (673 to 718 AD) or if the Mongol/Turkish invasion of the 1200’s had penetrated to the Atlantic, the “European abrupt ascendance” would not have been assured. Also, until the Mongol invasion and then the British invasion forced them into international passivity, India had always been another of the major “great societies”. I do not believe that there was any inevitability to the current international power structure. Luck and chance played a huge part. If you put all the pieces back on the board where they started and ran the game over again, the world would undoubtedly be drastically different ---
**Author:** ![APB9999](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e8cbc/32.png) [@APB9999](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/APB9999)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2000, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-there-only-two-great-societies/24631/9 "2000-07-05T18:41:55Z")
Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen! I apologize for stopping your coach so far from the local hostelry, but alas, it is my business in this unjust world. If you will kindly drop your valuables in this pillowcase, you can be on your way with a hearty “God Bless You!” from the impoverished souls of the region - one of them, anyway. And you, my young lovely, may keep your baubles in exchange for a kiss from your sweet lips…ah. Wine, by the rood! Oh, one more thing before I ride, hearties. Answer me this: What percentage of the world’s arable land belongs to each continent? Tally Ho! ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2000, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-there-only-two-great-societies/24631/10 "2000-07-06T01:34:54Z")
[I’m not certain I buy the initial premise. Technology is not static. Therefore, any relative measurement depends upon when you take your snapshot. Are you including Egypt among your “Medertrainian / European”. Fine, but it makes any argument from ecology specious as teh environmental factors faced by Egyptians had little in common with those of the Northern europeans.] I see your point, and perhaps I should have looked further back, let me try a slight rephrase What causes some civ’s to develop advanced technologies, and for that mater what slows them down from continuing. I was including ancient Egypt as part of the Med. I feal that the Med since it is not an ocean made it an ideal trade waterway for early ships. I’m sure there were some rough seas but nothing compaired to the open ocean ---
**Author:** ![Ben](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/df788c/32.png) [@Ben](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ben)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2000, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-there-only-two-great-societies/24631/11 "2000-07-06T01:51:58Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by k2dave \* > \*\* > What causes some civ’s to develop advanced technologies, and for that mater what slows them down from continuing. > \*\* While that’s an interesting question, it’s not the same as asking about “great societies.” The ancient Greeks, for example, were not that technologically advanced, as far as I remember. Meanwhile we have the problem that we know very little about the ancient Maya, who could (for all we know) have been very advanced indeed in terms of mathematics and literature. If every book in every library in the US except the Bible were burned, future archaeologists would conclude that we were good at mathematics (because we have the zero) but not much else. -Ben ---
**Author:** ![Spiritus\_Mundi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c68b51/32.png) [@Spiritus\_Mundi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiritus_Mundi)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2000, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-there-only-two-great-societies/24631/12 "2000-07-06T15:58:25Z")
> [@](#): > > If every book in every library in the US except the Bible were burned, future archaeologists would conclude that we were good at mathematics Except for that whole pi==3 thing, of course. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![mrblue92](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@mrblue92](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mrblue92)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2000, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-there-only-two-great-societies/24631/13 "2000-07-06T19:59:57Z")
> [@](#): > > future archaeologists would conclude that we were good at mathematics . . . but not much else. That’s exceedingly ridiculous. If you can’t think of certain plastic objects that would last for a few thousand years, you’re not thinking hard enough. ---
**Author:** ![oldscratch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ed655f/32.png) [@oldscratch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/oldscratch)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2000, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-there-only-two-great-societies/24631/14 "2000-07-06T20:14:42Z")
I just want to chime in with the others in recomending _Guns Germs and Steel_. It really is a good book on the subject and addresses every one of your points. It basicly comes down to the fact that it was easier for trade and the spread of ideas and inventions to occur in Eurasia than in the rest of the world. Plus they got something of a head start. Plus they had more to work with in the very begining. China would have been a good contender, except there wasn’t the competition there that there was in the MidEast/Europe ---
**Author:** ![dal\_timgar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a88e57/32.png) [@dal\_timgar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dal_timgar)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2000, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-there-only-two-great-societies/24631/15 "2000-07-06T21:51:33Z")
so now that we have the internet to spread ideas, does the world go into warp drive or do we stagnate from to many people communicating too much nonsense. LOL! ``` Dal Timgar ``` ---
**Author:** ![Ben](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/df788c/32.png) [@Ben](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ben)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2000, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-there-only-two-great-societies/24631/16 "2000-07-07T00:21:13Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by mrblue92 \* > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > future archaeologists would conclude that we were good at mathematics . . . but not much else. > > That’s exceedingly ridiculous. If you can’t think of certain plastic objects that would last for a few thousand years, you’re not thinking hard enough. \*\* Maybe you’re not reading carefully enough. I wasn’t making a prediction about the future of our society- I was using a _metaphor_ to illustrate that for all we know, the Mayans could have had a “great society.” -Ben ---
**Author:** ![mrblue92](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@mrblue92](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mrblue92)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2000, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-there-only-two-great-societies/24631/17 "2000-07-07T13:59:31Z")
Oh I realize what you were saying, I just think it’s a bad comparison. And I’d also like to point out there have been some criticisms that Diamond’s book disregards some very important cultural issues in favor of a politically correct stance. Unfortunately I haven’t read the book yet (I intend to), but the reviews on Amazon (especially the one from the New Zealand chap) point out some possible flaws. Still, I’m sure it’s an interesting book. ---
**Author:** ![oldscratch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ed655f/32.png) [@oldscratch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/oldscratch)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2000, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-there-only-two-great-societies/24631/18 "2000-07-07T21:59:32Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by mrblue92 \* > \*\* > And I’d also like to point out there have been some criticisms that Diamond’s book disregards some very important cultural issues in favor of a politically correct stance. Unfortunately I haven’t read the book yet (I intend to), but the reviews on Amazon (especially the one from the New Zealand chap) point out some possible flaws. Still, I’m sure it’s an interesting book. \*\* This is completely off topic, but I wanted to address your points. for anyone interested, the revlevant review is found [here](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0393317552/o/qid=963006414/sr=2-1/103-4446651-7509414). The reviewer claims that Jared Diamond doesn’t take into account racial differences. Hmmmmm, can anyone say racism? Of course he doesn’t take into account racial differences you dolt (Peter Agnew not mrblue92), the whole premise of the book is that race had no impact on the evolution of human society. This man’s claims are completely unfounded. I’m not saying that there aren’t problems with the book, I’m just saying he doesn’t actually point any out. The book in no way disregards cultural issues, instead it points out that they take a back seat to the basics of geography and environment. The book has a whole chapter on how Chinese culture enabled it to fall behind the rest of the world. And Peter’s insistince that we take religion into account is just silly. The chinese were exploring far before the europeans without a so called mission to “spread the gospel” for that matter so did the polynesians. It sounds to me that Peter is just a little scared to admit that Africans could have ruled the world if given the right conditions. He wants to defend the idea that there is something inherently better about europeans over the rest of the world. Sorry, it just doesn’t fly. ---
**Author:** ![Spiritus\_Mundi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c68b51/32.png) [@Spiritus\_Mundi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiritus_Mundi)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2000, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-there-only-two-great-societies/24631/19 "2000-07-07T22:44:42Z")
> [@](#): > > The book has a whole chapter on how Chinese culture enabled it to fall behind the rest of the world. Of course, this is the same culture that allowed China to surge ahead of the rest of the world, too. Like I said, it all depends upon when you take the snapshot. It is very easy to look back on history and tell a story to account for the result you see. This, however, might tell as much about your ability to tell a story as it does about the “inevitability” of any particular historical “drivers”. I’m not saying that the book is wrong, only pointing out that fitting a story to the facts is not the same as demonstrating that the plotline “caused” the facts. ---
**Author:** ![mrblue92](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@mrblue92](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mrblue92)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2000, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-there-only-two-great-societies/24631/20 "2000-07-10T13:56:27Z")
Oldscratch, I think you have seriously misrepresented Agnew’s review. There is a big difference between “race” and “culture”. First, when reviewing the book he says it is Diamond’s view that: > [@](#): > > Having overcome their agrarian problems by 1500, Europeans used their newly developed “guns” and “steel” along with “germs” to dominate the globe. Thus, issues of race and biology do not explain the course of world history. If African tribes had lived in Europe, says Diamond, it would be they, not Europeans, who would dominate the world today. Nowhere else in the review does Agnew mention race, and in fact he says, “Although Diamond’s basic thesis does have some validity, he ignores too many important issues that needed to be discussed.” For those uninclined to check out the link, here is one of his criticisms, which seems very reasonable to me: > [@](#): > > Diamond also overlooks important issues such as differing cultural prespectives. Between 1400 and 1600, the European depiction of nature underwent a fundamental change. (See Keith Thomas, “Man and the Natural World,” Michael Adas, “Machines as the Measure of Men.”) In this period, Europeans began to look upon nature as something that must be tamed. Europeans realised that technological innovations could overcome the obstacles of nature and improve lives. Thus, innovation and progress were encouraged by all. By contrast, until the arrival of Europeans, all the other civilisations of the world resigned themselves to the limitations of their environment. African and Pacific civilisations sought to harmonise themselves with nature, rather than try to change it. The people of New Guinea, where Diamond apparently grew up, were no exception to this rule, as Roy Rappaport’s “Pigs for the Ancestors” so convincingly shows. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-were-there-only-two-great-societies/24631.md?page=2)