Fascinating to view China from this biome perspective - which is a first for me. Geography and structural factors set the stage for everything - a concept you may learn early but it's hard to appreciate until it's described like this.
The implications for the Agrarian -> Commercial transition make sense and offers some food for thought.
Rice provides 3x caloric land production relative to wheat, which drives a far greater population. The larger population and complex water systems must be more tightly controlled to ensure stable society and manage famine risk.
I've also read that agrarian river based societies tend to be more brittle regarding external threats, perhaps because they're less dynamic due to the higher social control orientation.
Female foot binding illustrates this. The warrior Manchurian emperors attempted to ban the practice after coming to power, yet the lower classes adopted it during those centuries, despite the previous Song elites having lost. Meanwhile in the present day - I knew a Manchurian descended gal that is an expert bareback horse archer and put her stiletto through a man's foot that accosted her, and is also a top notch corporate consultant.
Remarkable how geography shapes the centuries and our stories.
I suppose the analogy can be extended too far, but the three rivers of China have a somewhat similar look to the Loire-Rhine-Danube complex in Europe. I had not appreciated how the rivers in China were "so close and yet so far from each other".
Would it be fair to say that the social structures and norms desired or required to manage and control major irrigation systems and related agricultural output, storage, distribution, etc., creates a more closely joined situation compared to Mongol or other pastoral raiding societies? And that those kinds of societies tend to have a greater trust factor among "strangers", a situation also desired to evolve towards commercial activities?
This also suggests that there are another 3 or 4 factors that should be added to the set required for a space traveling technological society to develop on some star systems/ planets rather than on others. Besides the "Goldilocks" 3rd planet from the Sun kind of situation, said planet needs some of your factors as well? Further lowers the probability of other space based somethings developing out there.
It might be fair to instead say that Nagasaki was short-circuited by the arrival of Westerners who had already imbibed the preconditions for a commercial society. Absent that, it would be possible to see how a native Japanese version of this might have come about. It may be that it would have happened on its own in the Renaissance period if it hadn't been for those pesky Europeans and their firearms, first encouraging the isolation of the Shogunate and then providing a model for the modern Japanese state.
Maybe, but you might also argue that the arrival of the Westerners actually increased the possibilities of Nagasaki evolving into a separate Commercial society. We will never know, as their political autonomy was crushed by the shoguns. This was the fate of many fledgling Commercial societies.
Fascinating to view China from this biome perspective - which is a first for me. Geography and structural factors set the stage for everything - a concept you may learn early but it's hard to appreciate until it's described like this.
The implications for the Agrarian -> Commercial transition make sense and offers some food for thought.
Rice provides 3x caloric land production relative to wheat, which drives a far greater population. The larger population and complex water systems must be more tightly controlled to ensure stable society and manage famine risk.
I've also read that agrarian river based societies tend to be more brittle regarding external threats, perhaps because they're less dynamic due to the higher social control orientation.
Female foot binding illustrates this. The warrior Manchurian emperors attempted to ban the practice after coming to power, yet the lower classes adopted it during those centuries, despite the previous Song elites having lost. Meanwhile in the present day - I knew a Manchurian descended gal that is an expert bareback horse archer and put her stiletto through a man's foot that accosted her, and is also a top notch corporate consultant.
Remarkable how geography shapes the centuries and our stories.
Thanks for the article Michael.
Thanks for the comment. Glad that you enjoyed it.
Yes, I intend to write an article about the impact of rice production on Asian history in the near future.
A great summary. Thanks.
I suppose the analogy can be extended too far, but the three rivers of China have a somewhat similar look to the Loire-Rhine-Danube complex in Europe. I had not appreciated how the rivers in China were "so close and yet so far from each other".
Would it be fair to say that the social structures and norms desired or required to manage and control major irrigation systems and related agricultural output, storage, distribution, etc., creates a more closely joined situation compared to Mongol or other pastoral raiding societies? And that those kinds of societies tend to have a greater trust factor among "strangers", a situation also desired to evolve towards commercial activities?
This also suggests that there are another 3 or 4 factors that should be added to the set required for a space traveling technological society to develop on some star systems/ planets rather than on others. Besides the "Goldilocks" 3rd planet from the Sun kind of situation, said planet needs some of your factors as well? Further lowers the probability of other space based somethings developing out there.
"Take me to your river basins!"
It might be fair to instead say that Nagasaki was short-circuited by the arrival of Westerners who had already imbibed the preconditions for a commercial society. Absent that, it would be possible to see how a native Japanese version of this might have come about. It may be that it would have happened on its own in the Renaissance period if it hadn't been for those pesky Europeans and their firearms, first encouraging the isolation of the Shogunate and then providing a model for the modern Japanese state.
Thanks for comment.
Maybe, but you might also argue that the arrival of the Westerners actually increased the possibilities of Nagasaki evolving into a separate Commercial society. We will never know, as their political autonomy was crushed by the shoguns. This was the fate of many fledgling Commercial societies.