Distribution

Finally, a quick look at the overall geographical distribution of large empires. Over the long run, empire formation used to cluster strongly along the frontier between the agricultural societies that stretched from the Atlantic to the Pacific and the steppe populations bordering them to the north and sometimes also to the south (Figure 2.12).

Structural tensions between agriculturalists and herders on both sides of this ec­ological transition zone may have been particularly conducive to large-scale empire building. Steppe empires have been shown to have fed off and responded to state formation in nearby sedentary societies, and more complex feedback loops might also have influenced the latter process. From a global perspective, this is currently the most economical model to account for divergence in outcomes in the long term, between more intensive and larger-scale empire formation in and close to fron­tier regions and often more muted scaling-up in the protected rimlands of Europe, southern India, Southeast Asia, and Japan. The absence of universal empire from much of post-Roman Europe accords well with this model, as does more extensive imperial expansion by the more exposed polities of Kiev, Lithuania, and especially Russia.^[246]

An alternative focus on global population share rather than territorial size removes the numerous spatially extensive but thinly populated steppe empires fea­tured in Table 2.1.

A more fine-grained picture emerges from a “heat map” that measures the like­lihood of a particular area being part of an imperial state in excess of one million square kilometers that lasted for at least a century (Figure 2.13).

The data sets reviewed in this chapter show that large-scale comparisons can help us identify broader patterns and underlying causes that might otherwise remain submerged in a morass of historical detail. More complex analyses would also be

Figure 2.13. Probability of being part of large polities (>1,000,000 km²/1 century) at 100-year intervals, 600 bce to 1500 ce (probability rising from medium grey = low to black = high; light grey = zero). (a) 600 bce-400 ce. (b) 500-1500 ce.

Provided by James Bennett (University of Washington), on November 9, 2017, drawing on the data underlying Turchin, Currie, Turner, and Gavrilets 2013, 16386, who provide analogous heat maps for states of >100,000 km².

fruitful, for instance by relating territorial or population size to empire duration or other variables such as spatial elongation or ecological diversity.^[248] The relationship between the size of empires and their capital cities likewise invites systematic com­parison.^[249] Regularities in outcomes in different parts of the world might be traced back to shared influences ranging from climate change to social-economic and political-military interaction.^[250] Much work remains to be done.

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