Contemporary Sociology review                Christopher Chase-Dunn
May 227,1992                                      Sociology
                                        Johns Hopkins University
                                        Baltimore, MD. 21218

The Collapse of Ancient States and Civilizations, edited by
Norman Yoffee and George L. Cowgill. Tucson:  University of
Arizona Press, 1988.333 pp. Hard cover and paperback editions.
     This is an excellent collection of essays on the collapse of
ancient states and civilizations by historians, archaeologists,
one sociologist -- S.N. Eisenstadt -- and a political scientist.
It is important to readers of Contemporary Sociology because of
the growing number of sociologists studying very long run, large
scale social change. The editors, Norman Yoffee and George
Cowgill, organized a conference at the prestigious School of
American Research in Santa Fe in 1982, and the papers were
subsequently massaged into the present volume. The result is far
more book-like than most conference-produced volumes, a tribute
to the efforts of the editors. 
     This work accomplishes two purposes well. It is a digest and
critique of explanations of political and cultural demise. And it
provides expert overviews of the relevant research on
Mesopotamian, Mayan, Teotihuacan (valley of Mexico), and Han
Dynasty Chinese intersocietal systems.
     Norman Yoffee provides an introductory survey of the
literature about collapse from Spengler to Eisenstadt. He notes
that most evolutionary theories are about rise or growth, and
they usually contain assumptions about systemic equilibria and
continuity which are strongly contradicted by the boom and bust
character of social change in ancient states and civilizations. 
The development of precapitalist political, religious, economic
and social institutions is very far from the notions of stasis
and stagnation implicit in the ideas of "traditional society" or
the "asiatic mode of production."  
     Yoffee points out that very few systems experience
simultaneous collapse of everything, and therefore it is
necessary to examine the interrelations among different
institutional subsystems. He critiques the general systems
analysis of "cusp catastrophes" utilized by some archaeologists
as too abstract and vague to provide much understanding of real
historical systems. His precis of S.N. Eisenstadt is a marvel of
clarity which makes visible (possibly for the first time) a
useful model in which political centers extract resources from
dependent peripheries, and collapse when they are no longer able
to do so.
     Robert McC. Adams, now Secretary of the Smithsonian,
presents an overview of the subject he knows so well -- the
Mesopotamian world. Adams points out the irony that we have good
historical-structural explanations of the emergence of states in
Mesopotamia prior to the invention of writing because that is the
province of archaeologists, but there is much less understanding
of collapse because humanistic philologists are the resident
experts on Sumerian culture once documents have become available,
and they spend little effort trying to explain structural
changes. Thus, despite having more evidence, we have less social
science. Adams also affirms the importance of core/periphery
relations for understanding ancient Mesopotamia.
     Yoffee's substantive chapter is a summary of his argument
about the importance of ethnic group interactions in ancient
Mesopotamia. His presentation of the circumstances surrounding
the conquest of the Sumerian inter-city-state system by Sargon of
Akkad differs substantially (and in ways central to explanation)
from that proposed by many other experts on Mesopotamia (e.g.
Igor Diakonoff). It is tempting to dismiss these problems as
unresolvable given the limitations of the evidence, but similar
questions have been resolved as new evidence accumulates. As
sociologists we must be careful not to dismiss out of hand the
kinds of evidence that archaeologists employ. Yoffee's piece is
followed by an important contribution in which T. Patrick Culbert
summarizes a vast literature on the collapse of the Mayan states.
Culbert raises tantalizing questions about the connections
between Mayan decline and the just prior violent destruction of
the mighty Teotihuacan in the valley of Mexico, but he ends up
putting greater emphasis on environmental degradation. 
     Rene' Millon's fascinating summary of the literature about
Teotihuacan details the interaction between this vast hegemonic
state in Mexico and distant colonies and tributary regions. The
explanation of the complete, systematic, violent destruction of
the empire city in a short period of time remains a mystery. Were
the iconoclasts overexploited peasants and urban workers, or were
they semiperipheral invaders? 
     G.W. Bowersock's essay on the dissolution of the Roman
empire is the most disappointing chapter. Bowersock argues that
the Roman empire never collapsed and so there is nothing to
explain. Rather the "Roman" state merely moved to Constantinople,
and new states were set up in Italy by the Gothic emperors, who
were not really barbarians anyway. This, and Henri Pirenne's
earlier thesis about political but not economic collapse until
Islam cut off the trade with the East, are interesting
perspectives, but they do not completely vitiate the enterprise
of trying to explain the demise of imperial Rome. Something
significant must have happened to cause the population of Rome to
decline from 450,000 to 50,000 between A.D. 100 and 600.
     The essay by Cho-yun Hsu on the fall of the Han Dynasty is a
fascinating analysis of the role of Confucian literati and the
centrifugal effects of regionalism. His analysis of core and
periphery within the empire is excellent and he also acknowledges
the importance of so-called "external" relations with steppe
nomads. But both Hsu and Bennet Bronson (in the following essay
on "The role of barbarians in the fall of states") err in seeing
the steppe nomads as external. When the interactions of peoples
are so important that their social structures are interdependent
they ought to be considered as parts if a single intersocietal
system. This point was long ago made by Owen Lattimore and the
wonderful recent contribution by Thomas Barfield (The Perilous
Frontier: Nomadic Empires and China) confirms it.
     Eisenstadt's essay on the importance of institutional
differentiation in stabilizing post-axial age empires is an
important lesson for those who would lump all the tributary
states together. 
     I can attest that this book works well in an undergraduate
course on long run social change. The students are tantalized by
the overview of theories, and the focus on particular times and
regions puts meat on the bones.