Dystopian Pre Industrial Societies/States

Every single place we see in Mad Max I would call dystopian, even the still civilized parts in the first one.
Agreed, the first one is all about keeping the driller for themselves vs "sharing" it with the raiders
I think the tribe at least had the right idea tho, they took as much of the oil as possible and left to a easier-to-secure safe haven where they can fish and use the remaining fuel for trade, might become a more well rounded community in the long run or fall to one of the empires from the sequels
 
A key thing I'm not seeing here is dystopia for whom ?
In Hunger Games, it's not particularly dystopian for citizens of the Capitol, they live a decent life. Same for us right now, I live in France with a good standard of living, life's not bad.
But if I was a child miner in a cobalt mine in Congo I wouldn't think the same.

It's very much how the other half lives, and in Roman society you probably had a large ish middle class who had a decent time enjoying the Pax Romana, and a large underbelly suffering immensely for their benefits.
It's the same argument that James C Scott uses to say life in the dark ages might have gotten better, as there was less large scale exploitation, and individuals might have had more freedom and better nutrition without the taxman
 
Agreed, the first one is all about keeping the driller for themselves vs "sharing" it with the raiders
I think the tribe at least had the right idea tho, they took as much of the oil as possible and left to a easier-to-secure safe haven where they can fish and use the remaining fuel for trade, might become a more well rounded community in the long run or fall to one of the empires from the sequels
That's Road Warrior, technically the second film in the franchise, I was referring to the first, "Mad Max"
 
The British Isles under Cromwell

England suffered 8% population loss. Ireland 20% (which is more than Cambodia under Pol Pot)

Germany During the 30 years war

“Careful analysis of of all the 800 or so German parish registers that survive for the period 1632-7 found that only five did not record a significant mortality crisis ... the accounts of 235 eyewitnesses have survived … three-quarters of the civilians stated that they had been plundered by troops – some of them repeatedly. Johann Georg Tenner, a rural pastor near Nuremberg noted that soldiers passed through his village 61 times in 1634 alone, causing serious damage … Over half the writers reported having to flee their homes at least once; almost half reported the murder by soldiers of individuals whom they had known personally; and about one fifth described being assaulted themselves." - Geoffrey Parker (Historian)

population loss.jpg

"The times were awful beyond measure. To tell of all the misery and misfortune is not within my power, not even what I know and have seen myself … if I did report everything which I have seen and so painfully experienced, no-one living in a better age would believe it'
- Excerpt from the private journal of Caspar Preis, Peasant from Hessen

"First came the Greycoats to eat all my Swine,
Next came the Bluecoats to make my sons Fight,
Next came the Greencoats to make my wife Whore,
Next came the Browncoats to burn down my Home.
I have naught but my life, now come the Blackcoats to rob me of that."

- Anonymous Poem

“Pray, child, Pray!
Tomorrow comes the Swede,
Tomorrow comes the Oxenstierna,
He will soon teach you to pray.
Pray, child, pray!”

- Traditional Childrens rhyme found across Germany in many diverse regions and dialects

Hell, most of 17th century Europe and the non-european territories which had the misfortune to be conquered by Europeans

*One of the main drivers of this mass death - which as percentage of population blows The Eastern Front of the Second World War or Cambodia in the 70's out of the water - was concerted effort by governments to impose religious ideology. This is also the climax of the Great European Witch Hunt. Definitely meets modern criteria for dystopia.
 
Last edited:
Not strictly related to my above post but here is a genuine internal illustration from the 1711 edition of the Index Librorum Prohibitorum (The catholic church official compendium listing forbidden books).

800px-Titelkupfer_Index_librorum_prohibitorum.jpg


I challenge other posters to find me a more dystopian image.
 
Last edited:
The British Isles under Cromwell

England suffered 8% population loss. Ireland 20% (which is more than Cambodia under Pol Pot)

Germany During the 30 years war

“Careful analysis of of all the 800 or so German parish registers that survive for the period 1632-7 found that only five did not record a significant mortality crisis ... the accounts of 235 eyewitnesses have survived … three-quarters of the civilians stated that they had been plundered by troops – some of them repeatedly. Johann Georg Tenner, a rural pastor near Nuremberg noted that soldiers passed through his village 61 times in 1634 alone, causing serious damage … Over half the writers reported having to flee their homes at least once; almost half reported the murder by soldiers of individuals whom they had known personally; and about one fifth described being assaulted themselves." - Geoffrey Parker (Historian)

View attachment 687944
"The times were awful beyond measure. To tell of all the misery and misfortune is not within my power, not even what I know and have seen myself … if I did report everything which I have seen and so painfully experienced, no-one living in a better age would believe it'
- Excerpt from the private journal of Caspar Preis, Peasant from Hessen

"First came the Greycoats to eat all my Swine,
Next came the Bluecoats to make my sons Fight,
Next came the Greencoats to make my wife Whore,
Next came the Browncoats to burn down my Home.
I have naught but my life, now come the Blackcoats to rob me of that."

- Anonymous Poem

“Pray, child, Pray!
Tomorrow comes the Swede,
Tomorrow comes the Oxenstierna,
He will soon teach you to pray.
Pray, child, pray!”

- Traditional Childrens rhyme found across Germany in many diverse regions and dialects

Hell, most of 17th century Europe and the non-european territories which had the misfortune to be conquered by Europeans

*One of the main drivers of this mass death - which as percentage of population blows The Eastern Front of the Second World War or Cambodia in the 70's out of the water - was concerted effort by governments to impose religious ideology. This is also the climax of the Great European Witch Hunt. Definitely meets modern criteria for dystopia.
There are countless examples of similar population declines throughout world history, it's not that rare.
 
There are countless examples of similar population declines throughout world history, it's not that rare.
1. Dystopia (relative to the worst societies of the 20th century) isnt that rare before The Enlightenment.
2 Massive population decline always involves a confulence of human and natural factors. However for human factors to be as significant as in 17th century Germany-Ireland-Poland, is quite rare.

Climate Change was a factor in 17th century Europe, however it hit the whole world. Japan suffered no population decline. What made Europe so bad was a religious schism where both sides held an ideology of Apocalypse which said 'in the event of a major social crisis turn on each other and have a fanatical civil war'.
 
Last edited:
1. Dystopia (relative to the worst societies of the 20th century) isnt that rare before The Enlightenment.
2 Massive population decline always involves a confulence of human and natural factors. However for human factors to be as significant as in 17th century Germany-Ireland-Poland, is quite rare.

Climate Change was a factor in 17th century Europe, however it hit the whole world. Japan suffered no population decline. What made Europe so bad was a religious schism where both sides held an ideology of Apocalypse which said 'in the event of a major social crisis turn on each other and have a fanatical civil war'.
It's really not that rare, there are countless cases from Chinese history alone.
Also there is no reason to assume that the worsening climate hit all places of the world in a similar manner. We have various examples of famines easily killing 5-10% and sometimes more of the population around the time in Europe without warfare.
 
Last edited:
The British Isles under Cromwell

England suffered 8% population loss. Ireland 20% (which is more than Cambodia under Pol Pot)
To be fair, most of those losses were due to the Civil War, which took place before Cromwell came to power (even if he was involved as a commander, you can't really speak of the British Isles as being "under Cromwell" when he was just one of several Parliamentarian generals).
 
It's really not that rare, there are countless cases from Chinese history alone.
Also there is no reason to assume that the worsening climate hit all places of the world in a similar manner. We have various examples of famines easily killing 5-10% and sometimes more of the population around the time in Europe without warfare.
War, Famine, Plague and Death.

A four man band who go together for a reason. War can create and exacerbate famine. War related famine is something any historian of war will tell you is a thing. Famine weakens immune systems facitlitating epidemics. While they didnt have the germ theory of disease and understand the mechanism, commanders in the 30 years war understood the connection between these things. They systematically inflicted famine and engaged in biological warfare (If you have a strong stomach google 'the Swedish Drink') in order to use epidemic disease as a weapon of war.

I would be interested to hear with sources about when China lost 1/3 of its population (as happened Germany 1618-1648) to intentional human action. Even if this did happen, this is kind of a tu quoque and another pre-industrial dystopia rather than a refutation of my example of Germany 1618-1648

Geoffrey Parker gives a lot of detail on how hard climate change hit Japanese agriculture in the 17th century and attributes the lack of disastrous population loss like in Germany and Ireland to policy differences.

This is not a fair comparison, considering that the scorched earth tactics of the defenders were also partially responsible for the death toll.
This is like saying the scorched earth tactics of the Kulaks were responsible for the Ukrainian famine in the 1930's, so Stalinism was not dystopian (thats what the Stalinist authorities said)

To be fair, most of those losses were due to the Civil War, which took place before Cromwell came to power (even if he was involved as a commander, you can't really speak of the British Isles as being "under Cromwell" when he was just one of several Parliamentarian generals).
Ok, Britain under Parliament and its complex itteration of successor states.
 
Last edited:
I would be interested to hear with sources about when China lost 1/3 of its population to intentional human action. Even if this did happen this is a tu quoque and another pre-industrial dystopia rather than a refutation of my example of Germany 1618-1648
The An Lushan Rebellion is considered to have been pretty bloody (Steven Pinker even calculates it to have been one of the bloodiest wars in history, proportionately speaking, although his methodology has been criticised on this point). The Manchu conquest supposedly killed somewhere in the region of 25 million people, according to Wikipedia, although I'm not sure what that would have been as a percentage of the population.
 
The An Lushan Rebellion is considered to have been pretty bloody (Steven Pinker even calculates it to have been one of the bloodiest wars in history, proportionately speaking, although his methodology has been criticised on this point). The Manchu conquest supposedly killed somewhere in the region of 25 million people, according to Wikipedia, although I'm not sure what that would have been as a percentage of the population.
It's not a tu quoque, considering that you said that these types of events were rare, and he came up with examples to argue against that claim.
"In 1626–1646, population size in China dropped from 99.9 million to 88.5 million (a decline of 11.4 %), while in 1852–1870, the population size dropped from 439.6 million to 357.7 million (a decline of 18.6 %) (Zhao and Xie 1988). However, between the two population crises, China experienced the ‘Kang-Qian Golden Age’ (also known as ‘High Qing’), during which the Qing dynasty reached the zenith of its social, economic and military power. That period is characterized by rapid population growth."
Source

So Germany suffered 3 times the percentage population loss as China. The source I quoted gives a prominience to Natural factors which no respected historian of the 30 years war does. Then there is the question of what followed the cataclysm - in China a golden age, an inward focus and the 'ever normal system' which made famine unknown. In Europe, 'the second serfdom' and Prussian militarism in Germany. Developed colonial military states in France and Britain which went on to export the bloodbath to most of the world. (France was a direct beligerant and the officers who built The New Model army had fought and gained experience in the 30 years war - mostly in Swedish Service)

Then there is the cultural legacy. Little matches the utter horror expressed by pretty much all surviving German art from the period. If there is something as nightmarish and important to Chinese Culture as The Adventures of a Simple German please link me up, I would love to read it.

PS. Obviously the 1852-1870 Chinese population crisis was triggered by Colonialism and the Christian fanaticism which developed in the aftermath of the first Opium war. The Taiping Kingdom of Heavenly Peace was definitely a dystopia but I would say the jury is out on whether it counts as pre-industrial)

PPS. Steven Pinker is an utter crank with no formal training in history.
 
Last edited:
To get a fair comparison, you would have to compare Germany with the worst hit provinces of China.
Why?

Why not only focus on the worst hit bits of Germany? Given how 'Germany' was many different polities - much more looosely bound together than China. And some regions of Germany suffered comparatively little.
 
Then there is the question of what followed the cataclysm - in China a golden age, an inward focus
Tell that to the Dzungars.
Why?

Why not only focus on the worst hit bits of Germany? Given how 'Germany' was many different polities - much more looosely bound together than China. And some regions of Germany suffered comparatively little.
I'm not talking about the political organization, but the difference in geographic and population sizes. It would be easier for rampaging armies to destroy a third of the German population than to kill a third of Chinese population, seeing as the latter are so much more bigger and widely spread.
 
Last edited:
Why?

Why not only focus on the worst hit bits of Germany? Given how 'Germany' was many different polities - much more looosely bound together than China. And some regions of Germany suffered comparatively little.
Because you are comparing relatively small places like Mecklenburg and Pomerania to a country/region that had around 1/5 of the world population.
Some places in China also suffered far less during those periods and some more, what would the death toll for 30YW be when you take all of the HRE north of the Alps?
 
Then there is the question of what followed the cataclysm - in China a golden age, an inward focus and the 'ever normal system' which made famine unknown. In Europe, 'the second serfdom' and Prussian militarism in Germany. Developed colonial military states in France and Britain which went on to export the bloodbath to most of the world. (France was a direct beligerant and the officers who built The New Model army had fought and gained experience in the 30 years war - mostly in Swedish Service)
You make a contrast between the supposed 'inward focus' of the Qing and the colonial empires of Western Europe, but that idea ignores that the Qing were expanding their borders and were sending colonists to Xinjiang during this time.
 
Last edited:
Top