BIO 358 Lecture 22: Topic 22 - Gunpowder and the Emergence of the Modern State
Document Summary
Lecture 22 gunpowder and the emergence of the modern state. Where are we and what do we predict: project coercive threat in pursuit of cooperation, and self-interest. Scale of the modern world: an astonishing adaptive revolution, it is on a completely different scale, the modern state emerges from the presence of gun powder (~600 ad to present) Cycling in the archaic state entrenched power and stability : over time as empires grow, they flower and make spectacular revolutions. Then they shatter into elite who have opted out of the cooperative enterprise: archaic states soon begin to rebel and make fortresses and castles that are too expensive for the local government to attack. Gunpowder artillery and the consolidation of early modern states: originally invented ca. 1000 ad in china: advanced artillery originates in western europe ca. Japan a natural experiment in development of the early modern state: the japanese adopt the portuguese gunpowder weapon in 1542.
