DBWI: West-East empires as common as North-South empires?

Many of you may be familiar with Dared Jiamond's book Steel, Germs, and Guns, the most popular book of geographic determinism. While controversial, it remains a common reference on these boards.

According to Dared Jiamond, Eurasia having a long west-east axis was doomed. The main poles of civilization that have survived and conquered others, all existed on north-south axes. Historical peoples who managed to unite large areas of land and sea on different latitudes had access to many different environments, crops, and resources. With a wide swath of environments, North-South-spanning empires were able to expand and influence a large spectrum of allies and rivals. This forced them to adapt, producing superior armies and exportable goods with associated cultural-ideological influence ("cargo"). In fact, urban centers which concentrated cargo manufacture, causing the industrial revolution, were only possible in civilizations like the Inca, Swahili, Kemetic, Celtic and Japonic.

To the contrary, areas of land that were easy to travel east and west, were susceptible to migratory hordes of pastoralists. This meant that most of Eurasia -- excepting its oceanic edges, in Atlantic Berberia and Celtica, and the string of thalassocracies from Nippon to Luzon to Papua -- could never develop to the extent of Africa and the Western Hemisphere. The only reason these corners of Eurasia did develop was because of protected islands of Eiria, Nippon, Luzon, Papua, and so on, rapid second-wave industrializers.

It's difficult to imagine a world where the industrial revolution did not occur in East Africa. As many argue the industrial revolution itself was a very lucky occurrence as African metallurgy was exported to the Tawantinsuyu, whose campaigns of conquest and maritime expansion then led to a competition with local powers and the rebirth of Egyptian, Celtic and Japonic urbanism. It may be possible with a very early POD nonetheless.

What would the world be like if the civilizations of Eurasia conquered the others?
 
migratory hordes of pastoralists.

What if these hordes were to unite and facilitate trade between far flung parts of Eurasia? They could possibly serve as a middle-man between Nippon in the east and Celtica in the west. While the route may not be as fast, if the nomads can keep the bandits down, then it might be seen as a safer route than the pirate filled archipelagos between Nippon and East Africa.
 
I think a dominant Eurasia is definitely possible—I wouldn’t say it was doomed to ignominy, as Jiamond seems all to eager to suggest—though there were certainly factors, as you pointed out, such as the ability of north-south civilizations to facilitate exotic trade and Eurasia’s perennial problems with steppe/central Eurasian nomads. Even so, Eurasia is a land full of resources, population, and potential, especially in the South and East. Perhaps those areas could’ve developed to a point where they could resist nomad incursions and develop greater societies than they did IOTL.
 
I think a dominant Eurasia is definitely possible—I wouldn’t say it was doomed to ignominy, as Jiamond seems all to eager to suggest—though there were certainly factors, as you pointed out, such as the ability of north-south civilizations to facilitate exotic trade and Eurasia’s perennial problems with steppe/central Eurasian nomads. Even so, Eurasia is a land full of resources, population, and potential, especially in the South and East. Perhaps those areas could’ve developed to a point where they could resist nomad incursions and develop greater societies than they did IOTL.

The bigger issue is you don't have very many string east-west river systems to form a solid logistical/enforcement backbone to help unify the localized socities into a single polity. The Yangze is probably your best bet, but lookto the north and east: it's a giant open door to the Centeral European and Siberian plains and so you'll never get a long enough period of security and peace to allow that kind of empire to consolidate before some rival hires up a horde to stampede over them. It'd face the same fate as the Volga-Dnieper Basin.
 
What if these hordes were to unite and facilitate trade between far flung parts of Eurasia? They could possibly serve as a middle-man between Nippon in the east and Celtica in the west. While the route may not be as fast, if the nomads can keep the bandits down, then it might be seen as a safer route than the pirate filled archipelagos between Nippon and East Africa.
The difficulty seems to be traversing the massive mountains and deserts in the middle of Eurasia before the Incas built railroads and paved highways.

There was briefly an agropastoralist state in central Eurasia, the Saka kingdom, which held territory on both sides of Altai Mountains and down the Indus, but as soon as it was able to smuggle silk into its capital and localize production it did. From thereafter, a north-south trade route predominated with its southernmost extension along the west coast of Bharat, up the Indus to the trade entrepots of Hindu Kush. It was later extended further north, as fur trade and animal husbandry in the Taiga brought raw goods to the south. But hostility of nomadic polities on the other side of the Altai mountains prevented a revival of silk trade with Qin or mainland Nippon. After the rise of the Huns and others, West Eurasia and East Eurasia were never reliably connected again, and even this north-south trade route was only rarely revived.

Further to the west, there was the Volga Trade Route, supported by the Bolgars, and it too was north-south in its general direction, connecting the Suomi to the Euphrates-Tigris Valley along the river systems of west Eurasia. The brief west-east trade period was cut short when silk production was localized here too. Even before that, valuable goods travelled by sea from the ports of lower Indus, to the Elamite Gulf, where it was then traded north up into the Thracian subcontinent. There was little overland trade through the volatile lands of Parthia and Khorastan. Of course, most silk was imported from the Sahel by the Trans-Saharan silk trade.

There would have to be one hell of an empire that could unite most of Eurasia. But maybe it could realign the trade networks in its favor so that it could tax the whole route. The best bet? Probably the Tocharians, as they survived through the Huns and temporarily captured both Qin and the Kush. Their rule might be highly opposed by their neighbors, though. After all, the Inca were able to extend their control over the area during the Great Game by siding with the local tribes and Brahmavarta against the Tocharians.
 
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I think a couple viable east west empires could emerge around the Mediterranean basin or the gangetic plain.

They'd both have some pretty impressive water ways to facilitate travel and trade, the med for one or the Ganges for the other. And compared to most of the rest of Eurasia they're relatively sheltered from the steppe.

Thoughts?
 
I think a couple viable east west empires could emerge around the Mediterranean basin or the gangetic plain.

They'd both have some pretty impressive water ways to facilitate travel and trade, the med for one or the Ganges for the other. And compared to most of the rest of Eurasia they're relatively sheltered from the steppe.

Thoughts?

The problem with those areas is that there are too many potential bases of power. As soon as some kingdom in, say, the Latin peninsula starts to get too powerful, other kingdoms in Egypt or Hellas will just squash them down. Same with the Gangetic plain. Any power based around the Ganges will find its equal based around the Indus, and both will have their vulnerable underbellies exposed to their neighbors in the south. Regions like the Mediterranean and India are simply destined to always be disunited, which means a lot of their resources will go towards fighting their neighbors instead of investing in scholars or the arts. Too much competition disrupts the long periods of stability that helps science flourish.
 
I think a couple viable east west empires could emerge around the Mediterranean basin or the gangetic plain.

They'd both have some pretty impressive water ways to facilitate travel and trade, the med for one or the Ganges for the other. And compared to most of the rest of Eurasia they're relatively sheltered from the steppe.

Thoughts?
The Ganges basin is certainly protected from the steppe. The Bharat subcontinent doesn't have the necessary climate regions for a real self-sustaining empire on its own, though, if Jiamond's model is anything to go by. I guess if trade between the Indus and north-east Africa were more robust ... maybe? It's hard to imagine that trade that far east would be sufficiently profitable for east Africans before industrialization, compared to the Kemet-Swahili-Bantu sea routes. What would they even trade for? Spices? Gold? Why travel that far when the Bantu emperors could get that from the Trans-Saharan trade? It wasn't worth the cost to get there until steamships and airships were invented.

But the Mediterranean? Don't be ridiculous. The Haemus mountains in the northeast didn't stop the Huns from getting to the sea. The Alps didn't stop Hannibal and it certainly didn't stop the Goths. No Mediterranean "empire" conquered more than a hundred thousand kilometers of land before succumbing to invaders. There's no way they could defend themselves.
 
I think one aspect that hasn't been discussed as much is the germs part of Jiamond's work. What impact did they have on the polities of Eurasia? I'm not too knowledgeable on how diseases impacted native populations; does anyone else have any insights into this?
 
I think one aspect that hasn't been discussed as much is the germs part of Jiamond's work. What impact did they have on the polities of Eurasia? I'm not too knowledgeable on how diseases impacted native populations; does anyone else have any insights into this?

The reproductive/climate capacity of Wheat vs. Maize is what he writes about, not pathogens. The Three Sisters system of Corn, Squash, and Beans produces a much more easily stored and processed diet than wheat and rye, as well as producing more calories per acre and fixing some more nutrants to the soil. And with no need for milling, the Americas could leverage their wind and water power directly, giving them a major advantage in technological development

(Ooc: Get it? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cereal_germ)
 
I think a couple viable east west empires could emerge around the Mediterranean basin or the gangetic plain.

They'd both have some pretty impressive water ways to facilitate travel and trade, the med for one or the Ganges for the other. And compared to most of the rest of Eurasia they're relatively sheltered from the steppe.

Thoughts?
A united Mediterranean? You might be onto something here. Kushite-ruled Egypt did make it pretty far into the Bitter Sea, as did the League of Qart-Hadasht expanded by Hannibal. And of course the Numidians, who conquered both. I could easily see a more united Tamazgha being the state to transmit super-Saharan technology and goods northward, and then basically having the Thracian subcontinent for the taking. If the Numidians started their northern expansion centuries earlier, it's possible that Thrace and the rest of Western Eurasia would rise to the level of the Afro-Asiatic civilizations to the south.

The reproductive/climate capacity of Wheat vs. Maize is what he writes about, not pathogens. The Three Sisters system of Corn, Squash, and Beans produces a much more easily stored and processed diet than wheat and rye, as well as producing more calories per acre and fixing some more nutrants to the soil. And with no need for milling, the Americas could leverage their wind and water power directly, giving them a major advantage in technological development

(Ooc: Get it? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cereal_germ)
The Western Hemisphere, and the tropics of the Eastern Hemisphere certainly had a better agricultural package than Eurasia. That being said, some North African civilizations, such as Tamazgha, Qart-Hadasht, and Kemet, did prosper based on wheat, rye, and barley agriculture, although in the process they reduced much of their population to serfdom simply to have an economic surplus. This was immediately traded away for silk, coffee, kola nut, sugarcane, and spices from super-Saharan Africa.

This was even more dramatically the case further north, in areas of Eurasia where cooler, heavier soils made for poorer agricultural yields than in Africa -- see Pompeian latifundia and Doric helotry.

According to Jiamond, a lot of Eurasian crops, such as the almond and the apple (the seeds of which contain cyanide), were actually not completely domesticated -- so much so that they caused poisoning among the nobility of Eurasia, who consumed many fruits as luxury goods. Further, diseases such as ergot made wheat stored over the winter dangerous to consume. By contrast, African and New World crops such as cassava, yams, rice, peanuts, and potatoes, were completely edible even raw due to a thorough domestication of safe varieties.
 
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OOC: Totally missed the DBWI in the title, the further down the original post I got the more confused I was, My brain somehow missed Dared Jiamond too
 
With East-West Empires, you don't have Celtican Philosophy. There would be no world famous Incan potato cider.

According to Jiamond, a lot of Eurasian crops, such as the almond and the apple (the seeds of which contain cyanide), were actually not completely domesticated -- so much so that they caused poisoning among the nobility of Eurasia, who consumed many fruits as luxury goods. Further, diseases such as ergot made wheat stored over the winter dangerous to consume. By contrast, African and New World crops such as cassava, yams, rice, peanuts, and potatoes, were completely edible even raw due to a thorough domestication of safe varieties.


Were Eurasian nobles actually eating raw apples and almonds? You have to boil them or roast them. Man, the Eurasian nobles were weird. However, we do have to thank the shamans of the Eurasian steppe for the foundations of modern toxicology. Only after the observation of the shamans preparing apple and almond based remedies by Celtican and Kemetic anthropologists and doctors do we get somewhere in modern toxicology.
 
The reproductive/climate capacity of Wheat vs. Maize is what he writes about, not pathogens. The Three Sisters system of Corn, Squash, and Beans produces a much more easily stored and processed diet than wheat and rye, as well as producing more calories per acre and fixing some more nutrants to the soil. And with no need for milling, the Americas could leverage their wind and water power directly, giving them a major advantage in technological development

(Ooc: Get it? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cereal_germ)

OOC: Nicely done

IC: While I know he focuses a lot on that kind of germ, I could've sworn I read somewhere about hemorrhagic fevers and Syphilis being a major cause of collapse in certain Eurasian polities, though perhaps I am confusing Jiamond's work for other theories/works. Great insight on the crops though; it's hard to imagine Eurasia compensating for such a glaring deficit.
 
OOC: Nicely done

IC: While I know he focuses a lot on that kind of germ, I could've sworn I read somewhere about hemorrhagic fevers and Syphilis being a major cause of collapse in certain Eurasian polities, though perhaps I am confusing Jiamond's work for other theories/works. Great insight on the crops though; it's hard to imagine Eurasia compensating for such a glaring deficit.

I think the whole "Sunset Pandemic" stories are rather overblown, to be honest. Eurasian populations are far more robust in terms of disease resistance than anywhere else on earth, given their continent is awash in incubators for the stuff in its plethora of livestock and the migration of nomads constantly moving them around. Their illnesses did WAY more damage to the Americas in the exchange than the other way around. The problem with pandemic diseases though was they hit at the lynchpins of Eurasian society;swine, dairy bovines, egg laying fowl, ect. when brought in by said population movements... meaning the food supplies (particularly of vital proteins) would shrink just as population pressure feel on a region, only facilitating conflict and fear of rather than cooperation with the "Alien". Not that I can blame them; as psychologist Peter Jordanson points out, increased disgust sensitivity naturally leads to more authoritarian and less open to innovation cultures.
 
OOC: Nicely done

IC: While I know he focuses a lot on that kind of germ, I could've sworn I read somewhere about hemorrhagic fevers and Syphilis being a major cause of collapse in certain Eurasian polities, though perhaps I am confusing Jiamond's work for other theories/works. Great insight on the crops though; it's hard to imagine Eurasia compensating for such a glaring deficit.
There was also malaria, which spread north across the Sahara and west across the Atlantic. While the Incas using cinchona bark could produce quinine as an effective treatment, first from herbal remedies and later from industrial production, this was not possible in Eurasia. African civilizations, though they lacked cinchona bark had long dealt with the disease and it was a dealt with by urban planning, transhumance and the draining of wetlands where possible (the latter particularly in the Sahel).
 
Perhaps the OP could be fullfilled if someone finds a PoD which delays husbandry.
It would buy the sedentary civilizations of continental Eurasia some extra time to develop, unite and claim more land which whould otherwise have been dominated by the pastoralists.
Or am I severly underestimating the needed delay?

Another idea I had was that a steppe horde might take over a sedentary civilization by conquest and replacing its aristocracy, maybe the Yangtze or Indus are well situated for this as if the invaders unite the region during a time of division, thus strenghtening it. Though as there are not many examples of that in history it probably is unfeasable for some reason or other.
 
(OOC: what is the PoD for the scenario you're proposing, OP?)
OOC: I don't have any specific POD in mind, the way I see it is that there's a gradual cascade of small changes. It is also a parody of geographic determinism arguments (although there is a little bit of validity to them)
 
Continent spanning trade networks without crossing different climate zones and other natural barriers? It can't happen. The Euriasian steppe would give rise to raiding and conquering nomadic powers every so often, obliterating any state that could form in the agricultural heartlands and holding back the advance of technology and institutions. Furthermore, they would heavily tax any trade networks crossing Eurasia, discouraging it from becoming more than a sideshow. You need a big, stable empire to unite China or the Mediterranean without being toppled by population movements and develop the technology to explore sea routes. In order for East-West overland trade routes to function as a vector for animals, products, technologies, and ideas, you need to prevent the rise of extractive, conquering steppe nomads that tend to kill the turkey that lays the golden egg. Only a North-South axis will give rise to such stable polities in the long run. There was no threat from the plains to prevent the rise of empires in the Andes, Mexico, and the Northern river lands, and in time they formed a common economic unit. This proves that you can have the horse or the state - not both.
 
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