BIO 358 Lecture Notes - Lecture 22: Sulfur, Tokugawa Shogunate
13 May 2018
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Topic 22: Gunpowder and the emergence of the modern state
I.
● Early Modern State- ~600 years ago driven by gunpowder artillery
● Democratization of modern state- ~400 years ago driven by gunpowder handguns
● Modern demographic state roads and transportation
● Occurred explosively
● How to archaic states grow?- Conquest frontier and occupied territory 2pi*r and pi*r^2
● Frontier grows linearly and area is growing exponentially
II. Changes in LOCAL logic for archaic state elites over time:
● Less conquest wealth per capita coming back from the frontier
● Fewer per capita conquest opportunities of ambitious young elite members
● Lower return per unit policed within the existing state
● Returns on elite-elite coercion become too low to sustain the state
III. Changes in LOCAL logic for archaic state elites over time:
● ‘Cycling’- entrenched power and stability (as the empires grow, conflicts of interests between warriors
grow, and since they have no way of controlling conflicts of interest inexpensively, the empire shatters.
Over time, as empire grows, its flourishes and produces adaptive revolutions and then they shatters
● Elite warriors split up from their combined enterprise, and become warlords, taking over smaller
coalitions
● Mayans
● Romans
IV. Gunpowder artillery and the enforcements within the early modern state
● Black powder = charcoal + Sulfur + Potassium
● Black powder artillery and fortifications- “castle busters”
○ With the invention of gunpowder artillery, state cyclings cease- more stable, capacity to manage
conflicts of interest between elite emerges- early modern state rises
○ Most contemporary states are descendant from those early modern states because they remained
stable and still governed by elite warriors
V. Gunpowder artillery and the consolidation of the early modern state
● Gunpowder invented in China ca. 1000 AD, and then to Europe
● Western Europe (1300 AD)
Document Summary
Early modern state- ~600 years ago driven by gunpowder artillery. Democratization of modern state- ~400 years ago driven by gunpowder handguns. How to archaic states grow?- conquest frontier and occupied territory 2pi*r and pi*r^2. Frontier grows linearly and area is growing exponentially. Changes in local logic for archaic state elites over time: Less conquest wealth per capita coming back from the frontier. Fewer per capita conquest opportunities of ambitious young elite members. Lower return per unit policed within the existing state. Returns on elite-elite coercion become too low to sustain the state. Over time, as empire grows, its flourishes and produces adaptive revolutions and then they shatters. Elite warriors split up from their combined enterprise, and become warlords, taking over smaller coalitions. Gunpowder artillery and the enforcements within the early modern state. Black powder = charcoal + sulfur + potassium. Black powder artillery and fortifications- (cid:2522)(cid:457)astle (cid:456)usters(cid:2523)
