Abstract
This chapter views the trend and cyclic components of the major absolute and relative indicators of world dynamics. We show that the second millennium ce saw a rather remarkable change in the trends of technological development, population and GDP dynamics as compared to the first millennium ce. While the growth of relative indicators (first of all, GDP per capita) was still quite weak in 1000–1800 ce, many absolute indicators (population, GDP, cumulative number of inventions, and so on) followed pronounced hyperbolic upward trends, which we will try to explain in this chapter. Starting from the Neolithic Revolution, the world population became 100 times larger by 1800. Although the wellbeing of the population did not change much in terms of relative food consumption, technological progress was remarkable and made it possible for a much greater number of people to live on the planet. As for the cyclic dynamics, we will briefly describe the nature and impact of sociodemographic cycles (basically inherent to all complex agrarian systems). The early stages of globalization (along with climatic changes) were directly related to the gradual synchronization of sociodemographic cycles throughout many parts of the Afro-Eurasian world-system.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
The growth rate was much slower than it is today.
- 2.
Calculations here are based on the list of main inventions in the timetables compiled by Hellemans and Bunch (1988).
- 3.
It is necessary to emphasize that the hyperbolic trend of technological development is an old one and traceable from the Neolithic Revolution.
- 4.
Hereinafter, GDP is measured in 1990 international dollars (Geary–Khamis dollars) unless stated otherwise.
- 5.
- 6.
An interesting feature of the Song cycle is that its crisis phase did not end with a demographic collapse but rather with skyrocketing growth of the carrying capacity of land due to various administrative reforms and technological innovations (Korotayev et al. 2006b: 55–56). It was an example of efflorescence.
- 7.
This type of growth implies relatively high growth rates (more than 2% annually). Moreover, GDP growth is paralleled by GDP per capita growth, which becomes possible due to accelerating technological progress.
References
Abel, W. (1934). Bevölkerungsgang und Landwirtschaft im ausgehenden Mittelalter im Lichte der Preis- und Lohnbewegung. Schmollers Jahrbucher 58, Jahrgang.
Abel, W. (1935). Agrarkrisen und Agrarkonjunktur in Mitteleuropa vom 13. bis zum 19. Jahrhundert. Berlin: P. Parey.
Biraben, J. N. (1979). Essai sur l’Évolution du Nombre des Hommes. Population (French edition), 34(1), 13–25.
Chandler, T. (1987). Four thousand years of urban growth: An historical census. Lewiston: The Edwin Mellen Press.
Chase-Dunn, C., & Hall, T. D. (1997). Rise and demise: Comparing world-systems. Boulder: Westview Press.
Chase-Dunn, C., Manning, S., & Hall, T. D. (2000). Rise and fall: East-west synchronicity and Indic exceptionalism reexamined. Social Science History, 24(4), 727–754.
Christian, D. (2004). Maps of time: An introduction to big history. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Chu, C. Y. C., & Lee, R. D. (1994). Famine, revolt, and the dynastic cycle: Population dynamics in historic China. Journal of Population Economics, 7(4), 351–378.
Clark, G. (2007). A farewell to alms: A brief economic history of the world. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Galloway, P. R. (1986). Long-term fluctuations in climate and population in the preindustrial era. Population and Development Review, 12(1), 1–24.
Goldstone, J. A. (2002). Efflorescences and economic growth in world history: Rethinking the ‘rise of the west’ and the industrial revolution. Journal of World History, 13(2), 323–389.
Hartwell, R. M. (1966). Markets, technology, and the structure of enterprise in the development of the eleventh-century Chinese iron and steel industry. Journal of Economic History, 26(1), 29–58.
Hellemans, A., & Bunch, B. (1988). The timetables of science. A chronology of the most important people and events in the history of science. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Ho, P.-T. (1956). Early-ripening rice in Chinese history by Ping-Ti Ho. Economic History Review, 9(2), 200–218.
Klimenko, V. V. (2003). History and climate in the medieval age. Oriens, 1, 5–41. in Russian.
Komlos, J., & Nefedov, S. (2002). A compact macromodel of pre-industrial population growth. Historical Methods, 35(2), 92–94.
Korotayev, A. V., Malkov, A., & Khaltourina, D. (2006a). In KomKniga/URSS (Ed.), Introduction to social macrodynamics: Secular cycles and millennial trends. Moscow.
Korotayev, A. V., Malkov, A., & Khaltourina, D. (2006b). In KomKniga/URSS (Ed.), Introduction to social macrodynamics: Compact macromodels of the world-system growth. Moscow.
Kremer, M. (1993). Population growth and technological change: One million B.C. to 1990. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 108(3), 681–716.
Maddison, А. (2010). World population, GDP and per capita GDP, A.D. 1–2008. Accessed December 16, 2016, from http://www.ggdc.net/maddison
Malthus, T. R. (1978[1798]). Population: The first essay. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
McEvedy, C., & Jones, R. (1978). Atlas of world population history. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Meliyantsev, V. A. (1996). East and west in the 2nd millennium: Economy, history, and modernity. Moscow: Moscow State University Press. in Russian.
Mokyr, J., & Voth, H. J. (2010). Understanding growth in Europe, 1700–1870: Theory and evidence. In S. Broadberry & K. H. O’Rourke (Eds.), The Cambridge economic history of modern Europe (Vol. 1, pp. 7–42). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Nefedov, S. A. (1999a). On the demographic cycles in the history of Babylonia. Manuscript (#54930) deposited in the Institute of Scientific Information on Social Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow. Accessed March 18, 2017, from http://www.hist1.narod.ru/Science/Babilon/Vavilon.html (in Russian).
Nefedov, S. A. (1999b). On the demographic cycles in the history of ancient Egypt. Manuscript (#54931) deposited in the Institute of Scientific Information on Social Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow. Accessed April 2, 2017, from http://www.hist1.narod.ru/Science/Egipt/Egipt.html (in Russian).
Nefedov, S. A. (2000). On the demographic cycles in the history of China (14th–19th centuries). Manuscript (#128367) deposited in the Institute of Scientific Information on Social Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow. Accessed April 6, 2017, from http://www.hist1.narod.ru/Science/China/China1.html (in Russian).
Nefedov, S. A. (2001). On the demographic cycles in the history of India. Manuscript (#556324) deposited in the Institute of Scientific Information on Social Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow. Accessed March 14, 2017, from http://www.hist1.narod.ru/Science/India/india.html (in Russian).
Nefedov, S. A. (2003). Theory of demographic cycles and social evolution of ancient and medieval societies of the East. Oriens, 3, 5–22.
Nefedov, S. A. (2004). A model of demographic cycles in traditional societies: The case of ancient China. Social Evolution and History, 3(1), 69–80.
Postan, M. (1939). Revision in economic history: The fifteenth century. Economic History Review, 9(2), 160–167.
Ryabinin, A. L., & Uvarov, P. Y. (2012). Sung empire in China. In A. O. Chubaryan, V. I. Vasiljev, P. Y. Uvarov, & M. A. Lipkin (Eds.), World history. Vol. 2. Medieval civilizations of the west and the east (pp. 322–337). Moscow: Nauka. (in Russian).
Turchin, P. (2003). Historical dynamics: Why states rise and fall. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Turchin, P. (2005a). Dynamical feedbacks between population growth and sociopolitical instability in agrarian states. Structure and Dynamics, 1(1), 3.
Turchin, P. (2005b). War and peace and war: Life cycles of imperial nations. New York: Pi Press.
Turchin, P. (2008). Modeling periodic waves of integration in the Afro-Eurasian world-system. In G. Modelski, T. Devezas, & W. R. Thompson (Eds.), Globalization as evolutionary process: Modeling global change (pp. 161–189). London: Routledge.
Turchin, P., & Korotayev, А. (2006). Population density and warfare: A reconsideration. Social Evolution and History, 5(2), 121–158.
Turchin, P., & Nefedov, S. (2009). Secular cycles. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
UN Population Division. (2016). United Nations. Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Population Division Database. Accessed December 1, 2016, from http://www.un.org/esa/population
Usher, D. (1989). The dynastic cycle and the stationary state. American Economic Review, 79(5), 1031–1044.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Zinkina, J. et al. (2019). Global Dynamics 1–1800 ce: Trends and Cycles. In: A Big History of Globalization. World-Systems Evolution and Global Futures. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05707-7_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05707-7_4
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-05706-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-05707-7
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)