Nomads and Empire

[jimmy olsen]

I found a cool monograph on the feedback loop style relationship between the rise of Empires and Nomadic Confederations along the ecological boundary separating agricultural settlements and nomads.

http://cliodynamics.info/PDF/Steppe_JGH_reprint.pdf

Abstract
Between 3000 BCE and 1800 CE there were more than sixty 'mega-empires' that, at the peak,
controlled an area of at least one million square kilometres. What were the forces that kept
together such huge pre-industrial states? I propose a model for one route to mega-empire,
motivated by imperial dynamics in eastern Asia, the world region with the highest concentration
of mega-empires. This 'mirror-empires' model proposes that antagonistic interactions
between nomadic pastoralists and settled agriculturalists result in an autocatalytic process,
which pressures both nomadic and farming polities to scale up polity size, and thus military
power. The model suggests that location near a steppe frontier should correlate with the frequency
of imperiogenesis. A worldwide survey supports this prediction: over 90% of megaempires
arose within or next to the Old World's arid belt, running from the Sahara desert
to the Gobi desert. Specific case studies are also plausibly explained by this model. There
are, however, other possible mechanisms for generating empires, of which a few are discussed
at the end of the article.

[Agelastus]

Thanks.

[Viking]

Fascinating.

On a related note, does anybody know of any good explanation as to why the great nomad empires stopped spawning? Though this paper might seem to suggest that the great steppe was simply overtaken by two civilized empires (china and russia) which now had the will and power to impose their will on the steppes at a time when the steppe was in a decline phase of the feedback loop.

[Sahib]

Fascinating.

On a related note, does anybody know of any good explanation as to why the great nomad empires stopped spawning? Though this paper might seem to suggest that the great steppe was simply overtaken by two civilized empires (china and russia) which now had the will and power to impose their will on the steppes at a time when the steppe was in a decline phase of the feedback loop.

Reliable firearms and artillery negating the traditional nomadic military advantage?

[jimmy olsen]

Fascinating.

On a related note, does anybody know of any good explanation as to why the great nomad empires stopped spawning? Though this paper might seem to suggest that the great steppe was simply overtaken by two civilized empires (china and russia) which now had the will and power to impose their will on the steppes at a time when the steppe was in a decline phase of the feedback loop.

Reliable firearms and artillery negating the traditional nomadic military advantage?

I would say even more important than that was the increased ability of the state to mobilize its resources and take advantage of the massive disparity in population .

[Viking]

Reliable firearms and artillery negating the traditional nomadic military advantage?

Do we have any example of a large nomadic confederation/empire fighting bow vs. arquebus and losing?

[Faeelin]

Reliable firearms and artillery negating the traditional nomadic military advantage?

Do we have any example of a large nomadic confederation/empire fighting bow vs. arquebus and losing?

Muscovy?

[Viking]

Reliable firearms and artillery negating the traditional nomadic military advantage?

Do we have any example of a large nomadic confederation/empire fighting bow vs. arquebus and losing?

Muscovy?

Was Muscovy heavily equipped with gunpowder weapons?
Were Kazan and Crimea not?
Were Kazan and Crimea not stationary bandits?

[jimmy olsen]

Reliable firearms and artillery negating the traditional nomadic military advantage?

Do we have any example of a large nomadic confederation/empire fighting bow vs. arquebus and losing?

Muscovy?

Were Kazan and Crimea not stationary bandits?

The article references raids deep by the Crimean khanate into Muscovite territory so I don't think so.

[Viking]

Reliable firearms and artillery negating the traditional nomadic military advantage?

Do we have any example of a large nomadic confederation/empire fighting bow vs. arquebus and losing?

Muscovy?

Were Kazan and Crimea not stationary bandits?

The article references raids deep by the Crimean khanate into Muscovite territory so I don't think so.

The questions were not rhetorical. I want to know.

They had a city and they had settled in the Ukraine. This then poses the question, when does a raiding bandit become a settled bandit and can he be both?

[jimmy olsen]

Reliable firearms and artillery negating the traditional nomadic military advantage?

Do we have any example of a large nomadic confederation/empire fighting bow vs. arquebus and losing?

Muscovy?

Were Kazan and Crimea not stationary bandits?

The article references raids deep by the Crimean khanate into Muscovite territory so I don't think so.

The questions were not rhetorical. I want to know.

They had a city and they had settled in the Ukraine. This then poses the question, when does a raiding bandit become a settled bandit and can he be both?

Ah, well I don't know much about the Crimeans and their situation.

[Martinus]

Reliable firearms and artillery negating the traditional nomadic military advantage?

Do we have any example of a large nomadic confederation/empire fighting bow vs. arquebus and losing?

Native Americans and/or Zulus.

[Agelastus]

Reliable firearms and artillery negating the traditional nomadic military advantage?

Do we have any example of a large nomadic confederation/empire fighting bow vs. arquebus and losing?

Native Americans and/or Zulus.

The Zulus were a settled agrarian, not nomadic, culture.

And the native Americans were not a united confederation. Moreover, the few times several tribes fought together (such as in 1876) they never did so on anything approaching the scale of the Eurasian steppe.

[Queequeg]

The questions were not rhetorical. I want to know.

They had a city and they had settled in the Ukraine. This then poses the question, when does a raiding bandit become a settled bandit and can he be both?

Nomads and settled peoples often settle in to what could generously be called a symbiotic, and realistically be called a parasitic relationship, at least past the time of the Scythians and early Indo-Europeans, who were substantially more complex and far better agriculturalists than most, particularly non-Indo-European nomads.  That said, with land as fertile as the Ukraine, there was probably ALWAYS some manner of sedentary population, with a blur of sedentary and nomad.  For instance, the Slavic languages all developed on the fascinating Forest-Steppe frontier, and their language seems to reflect a truly ancient relationship with more easterly Iranian proto-nomads and the native, largely sedentary population. 

What would often happen is the lower classes would settle and assimilate with the native agrarian/pastoralist population, while an upper nomadic class would become a new feudal class.  Often, this resulted in haphazard gestalt feudal states initially established as confederations of Nomads, with a later, more thoroughly sedentary Empire, combining the militaristic strengths of the Nomadic peoples with the organizational ability of sedentary peoples.

[DontSayBanana]

I misread the title as having something to do with Foundation and Empire.