Review and Commentary on Two Recent Books on Civilization Collapse

"1177 B.C. The Year Civilization Collapsed" (Newly Revised Edition) by Eric H Cline and "The End of the World is Just the Beginning" by Peter Zeihan

1177 B.C. The Year Civilization Collapsed

This book describes the Bronze Age international order that developed prior to this date and its subsequent collapse. The book is heavy on the archaeological details regarding findings that elucidated the history of this time, providing the reader with the reasoning and evidence used by historians to attempt to find the most likely set of events that took place. In this way it reads less top-down lecture and more respecting of the reader’s intelligence more than standard history books. There is also some nicely scattered bits of humor throughout that is well appreciated. A highly recommended read.

The author details the incredible complexity of international cooperation across the Eastern Mediterranean, encompassing modern mainland Greece and Cyprus (Minoans and Mycenaeans), Anatolia (Hittities and Assyrians), Babylonia, Syria (Ugarit), C’Naan, and Egypt. These civilizations were remarkably advanced for their time, and exhibited significant international cooperation. Trade routes were extensive, both commercially and between heads of state. Intermarriages, meetings of heads of state (the author describes the equivalent of a G7, for one), proxy wars, embargos, expat communities, and all other features of contemporary international political economy was present in that time.

Previously, the Bronze Age collapse was believed to be entirely the result of an unrelenting invasion of the Sea Peoples, a population whose origins were not precisely yet identified but could have been from upper Greece, mainland Italy, Sicily or North Africa. However, there were a number of calamities, including earthquakes and droughts as well as internal struggles, including rebellions and elite power struggles, that were later found to complicate the picture. Finally, the complexity theory of civilizations becomes relevant for the most comprehensive explanation.

The complex international order enabled resilience at first, namely invasions and famine in one empire prompted the heads of state to request assistance from the rest. Eventually, however, the accumulation of disasters broke the entire scaffolding. For instance, the Sea Peoples’ destruction resulted in the collapse of trade routes, and the subsequent drop in the trade of key metals for the production of arms damaged other empires’ ability to resist invasions.

The End of the World is Just the Beginning

Even if you are not particularly interested in reading about civilization’s collapse, Peter Zeihan’s recent work is a remarkable work of scholarship also worth reading. The premise here is the possibility that the United States will retreat from being the world’s maritime police, and what sort of devastation that could result in. An impressive display of comprehensive knowledge on the technologies enabling international shipping and logistics, the geology and geography of energy production potential and raw materials for modern manufacturing, and demography and history of monetary expansion across the world. It’s a great book to understand all the things that enable the advanced technological societies that we live in.

Zeihan’s main thesis is that at some point the USA will, due to escalating debt burdens requiring budgetary constraints and population aging hollowing out personnel, no longer guarantee the contemporary world order, specifically the safety of maritime shipping routines. Given significant interdependence for enabling contemporary society, the results will be catastrophic, with long range energy pipelines subject to sabotage and rendered worthless, just-in-time manufacturing becoming impossible raising consumer prices, and even starvation as mass food production and world distribution will be threatened. Countries that depend heavily on international trade, usually imports of food and energy and exports of manufacturing, will be particularly harmed. This makes East Asia the most vulnerable, with Europe and the Middle East next. China will be in particularly dire straits, with its manufacturing having been rolled out by an extraordinary expansion of the money supply and the rapidly declining population ensuring domestic demand will not recoup the costs of its overleveraged economy.

By contrast, he says the United States and its NAFTA vassals, having a solid supply of oil and gas as well as arable land will be more resilient in being able to be more self-sufficient. Following up in second place includes Japan’s navy and a potential of cooperation with Australia and Indonesia to establish a cooperative bloc in that region of the world as well as Argentina which also enjoys good geography (Brazil, due to its proximity to the equator, requires significantly higher costs and effort for maintaining its infrastructure). Russia has the raw resources to be self-sufficient but its vast size, unforgiving geography, and political leadership does not bode well for its future. Understandable with it being on the worst end of the Corruption Perceptions Index.

If I were to give one criticism of the book it’s that for such a comprehensive project, the endogenous relationship of demography and economics with culture and politics. He ignores culture completely and politics is treated as immutable and exogenous.

Reflections

Peter Zeihan uses the phrase “beyond terminal” and sometimes (too often, really) I forget this aspect - railing against the fading of the night is a rather pointless endeavor. And as Toynbee says, Civilizations typically are not destroyed, but commit suicide. So endemic dysfunction, corruption, decay, Orwellian language, etc. is par the course and to be expected in these times.

And unless you’re one of those weirdos who follows Bronze Age Pervert and thinks humanity peaked before 1177, then you would recognize that after the subsequent Dark Ages, the blossoming of Classical Ancient Greece, and then the Roman Empire, was a rather glorious upgrade.

In some some ways civilizations exhibit creative destruction just as Kondratieff economic cycles. In order to usher in the new, a period of calamity is the unfortunate necessity. A drastic decline of civilization’s complexity must happen for something to eventually develop out of the ashes.

In these times life is simply (note that simply is not equivalent to easily) enjoying the absurdity of it all, and finding the means to survive and be resilient to the ensuing chaos, while also finding humor and joy in the dark spectacle of humanity’s great tragedies. There’s also potentially another decade until serious calamities start taking shape.

As for Zeihan’s predictions, Argentina’s Millei seems promising, he is popular and yet has actually been able to slice away significant bureacratic dysfunction. Whereas the United States seems bent more on swinging patronage between left and right parasites, ballooning its debt to unsustainability. So whereas in the long run it may turn out self reliant and capable, there is likely to be some calamity in between now and then.

Rudyard Lynch’s analysis of Russian Civilization is pretty spot on, from my impressions. An important consideration is that its historical tendency towards singular strong man authoritarian rule makes it rather brittle - a significant change in Putin’s internal policy, his natural or otherwise demise, or broad political upheaval can easily make, in Lenin’s words “years happen in weeks” and entirely replace old institutions with new.

I remember once hanging out with a Hispanic friend who was making fun of white people’s awkward, and I said “but I’m white!” and he responded “fool, you ain’t white, you Russian.” I felt quite proud of that, and I didn’t know why at the time.

Nietzsche correctly pointed out Christianity’s obsessive meekness as bleeding its vitality, and I don’t see a future for Christendom. On the other hand, Cossack culture, with its blend of Steppe ferocity and Orthodox conscientiousness, could weather decline and chaos and create new more durable and functional institutions. Moriarty’s flagrant taunting of state authorities with that complex extra-state operation is a testament to what a combination of cunning ruthlessness and competence can accomplish.

Also before Milei, Russians are the most recent people historically to elect a radical Libertarian government. A little known fact about the Russian Revolution: in the first free full suffrage election of Russia in 1917 Constituent Assembly, the Bolsheviks only got 23% of the vote. The main victory at half the electorate went to Social Revolutionaries, who were a Libertarian Socialist movement. In the Civil War, there was a third force which “instituted” (it was more preventing other people from exerting authority than actually doing anything), for a large chunk of territory in Ukraine, a system with peasants owning the land, then some voluntarily forming communes, and otherwise a free market running, with no authority of landowners of government. Makhno's Green Army fought off both the Whites and the Reds until the Red Army got him with the "Help us defeat the whites, we promise we won't turn on you after" trick.

I see a peculiar resemblance to some of its values to Masai culture in this respect. A cool possibility would be some cultural and geopolitical alignment of a Russo-African-Horn future. A significant aspect of its greater future durability compared to Christendom is sociobiological, that is, the quote attributed to either Robert Michels or Oscar Wilde “Everything is about sex, except sex: sex is about power." People get squeamish on reading about such things, so I’ll leave the logic as an exercise to the reader.

But in a systems theory overall perspective: the people of Africa have more genetic, linguistic, and cultural diversity than the rest of the world combined. It, unfortunately, will, for a number of reasons, it will continue that it was have some of the most tragic large scale senseless suffering on the planet. However, once world trade collapses by Zeihan’s analysis, the dictators will no longer have enough mineral wealth to keep up their armies. See what happened to Assad. Ultimately the fact that institutions are less established presents a similar situation as the trough of a Kondratieff cycle, that is Schumpterian innovation promoting freed up resources after their collapse. But this would include all institutions, and so radical experiments will, by diversity, quantity, and civilizational selection, ultimately give rise to potentially new innovative civilizations, to ultimately, in 100 years or so, to give rise to a new international multipolar order with Resurrected Christ’s America, the Russian Libertarian Confederacy, and Free State of Argentina.

It’ll be interesting to see how Islam will turn out without the CIA and US marines doing their thing other there for some period of time. The narrative that Islam is doomed to sectarian violence falls apart when you consider the might-have-beens of Mosaddegh, Konstantin Kisin’s observations of Uzbekistan, and the spirituality of Sufism.

Let’s not forget India. While it will most certainly be the most hegemonic node of power in Asia, it is expected to not escape from the Middle Income Trap and get old before it gets rich. This would be exacerbated by shipping supplies shocks hitting electronics production affecting, e.g., IT industries. But if a Russian Libertarian Confedralism state develops, then with their enduring ties, Brahmins and Sikhs would go to study and come back to bring their ideas with them. India is a hot spot for cultural diversity, co it’ll take on well.

It’s all rather speculative and, obviously probabilistic, which Peter Zeihan acknowledges as well throughout, so respect to his good faith in that regard.

With that, hope everyone reading enjoys a cheerful rest of their day!