Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

The Energy-Climate Continuum pp 131–140Cite as

When Things Went Wrong

  • Chapter
  • First Online:

  • 491 Accesses

Abstract

The lessons to learn from Rome and Eastern Island are quite obvious, and we will see there is no need to detail them when going through each case. But some characteristics of our present times are equally featured by our two cases and are worth emphasizing.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   29.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD   37.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    The ORBIS system. See orbis.stanford.edu.

  2. 2.

    “Serica” means “silk” in Latin. Regarding the way Romans perceived China, see De Rome à la Chine: Sur les Routes de la Soie au Temps des Césars, by Jean-Noël Robert [2].

  3. 3.

    Publius Papinius Statius, Silvae, book IV.1.14–15, [3, p. 249]. “Bactra” was the capital of “Bactria,” an empire located toward the actual Afghanistan and founded by a remnant of Alexander’s army. Its disintegration around 130 BC is the first historical event recorded in both Roman and Chinese documents [1, p. 272].

  4. 4.

    The situation is quite similar to the present day difficulties rich countries have in reducing their public debt. France’s debt, for example, has grown nearly steadily since 1970 (see http://www.insee.fr). The whole country has been used to spend more than it earns for at least 40 years. It is therefore designed to work this way. And France is obviously not the only one in this situation. In October 2013, the USA faced default due to an impossibility to raise the debt ceiling. It has to spend more than it gets. It is also designed this way.

  5. 5.

    The denarius went from 98 % down to 58 % silver, between 69 and 200 AD [8, p. 135].

  6. 6.

    Slaves were an important part of the Empire machinery. During the third century AD, they would amount to some 10 % of the total population. But the wealthiest 1.36 % of Roman society would own 49 % of them [9, p. 59]. The rich Seneca (4 BC–AD 65), tutor then advisor to emperor Nero, wrote in his Epistulae morales ad Lucilium (87.2) that he was travelling light taking only “very few slaves - one carriage-load” (probably 4 or 5, [10]).

  7. 7.

    Those who know the movie also know it must not be confused with the “Judean People’s Front.”

  8. 8.

    The largest ever found was 20 m high and weighted about 270 tons. It was found lying and unfinished [13, p. 113].

  9. 9.

    The estimated date of colonization varies from 600 to 1200 AD [18, 19]. But the reasoning holds even with the latest date.

  10. 10.

    See Ref. [29] for more on wars in traditional societies.

References

  1. I. Morris, Why the West Rules—for Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future (Profile Books, London, 2010)

    Google Scholar 

  2. J.N. Robert, De Rome à la Chine: Sur les Routes de la Soie au Temps des Césars (iUniverse, Bloomington, 1999)

    Google Scholar 

  3. P.P. Statius, D.R.S. Bailey, Silvae (Harvard University Press, Caecilius Statius, 2003)

    Google Scholar 

  4. J.A. Tainter, T.W. Patzek, Drilling Down: The Gulf Oil Debacle and Our Energy Dilemma (Springer, New York, 2012). SpringerLink: Bücher

    Book  Google Scholar 

  5. M. Weber, The Agrarian Sociology of Ancient Civilizations (Verso Books, World History Series, 2013)

    Google Scholar 

  6. Colin McEvedy, Richard Jones, Atlas of world Population History (Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1978)

    Google Scholar 

  7. R. Taagepera, Growth curves of empires. Gen. Syst. 13, 171 (1968)

    Google Scholar 

  8. J. Tainter, The Collapse of Complex Societies. New Studies in Archaeology (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1990)

    Google Scholar 

  9. K. Harper, Slavery in the Late Roman World, AD 275–425 (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2011)

    Book  Google Scholar 

  10. J.A. Madden, Slaves in the Roman Empire: numbers and origins. Classics Ireland 109, 3 (1996)

    Google Scholar 

  11. W.R. Stephens, The fall of Rome reconsidered: a synthesis of manpower and taxation arguments. Mid-Am. Rev. Sociol. 7, 49 (1982)

    Google Scholar 

  12. The voyage of Captain Don Felipe González: in the ship of the line San Lorenzo, with the frigate Santa Rosalia in company, to Easter Island in 1770–1. Preceded by an extract from Mynheer Jacob Roggeveen’s official log of his discovery of and visit to Easter Island in 1722. Number v. 13 in New light on Drake: a collection of documents relating to his voyage of circumnavigation, 1577–1580. Hakluyt Society, 1908

    Google Scholar 

  13. P.G. Bahn, J.R. Flenley, Easter Island, Earth Island (Thames and Hudson, London, 1992)

    Google Scholar 

  14. J.F. de Galaup, Atlas Du Voyage de La Pérouse (1797)

    Google Scholar 

  15. K. Routledge, The Mystery of Easter Island (Cosimo, New York, 2007)

    Google Scholar 

  16. J.R. Arnold, W.F. Libby, Age determinations by radiocarbon content: checks with samples of known age. Science 110, 678 (1949)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Daniel Mann, James Edwards, Julie Chase, Warren Beck, Richard Reanier, Michele Mass, Bruce Finney, John Loret, Drought, vegetation change, and human history on Rapa Nui (Isla de Pascua, Easter Island). Quat. Res. 69, 16–28 (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  18. Terry L. Hunt, Carl P. Lipo, Late colonization of Easter Island. Science 311(5767), 1603–1606 (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  19. Helene Martinsson-Wallin, Susan J. Crockford, Early settlement of Rapa Nui (Easter Island). Asian Perspect. 40(2), 244–278 (2001)

    Google Scholar 

  20. Anthony Cole, John Flenley, Modelling human population change on Easter Island far-from-equilibrium. Quat. Int. 184, 150–165 (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  21. J.A. Brander, M.S. Taylor, The simple economics of Easter Island: A Ricardo-Malthus model of renewable resource use. Am. Econ. Rev. 88(1), 119–138 (1998)

    Google Scholar 

  22. M. Bologna, J.C. Flores, A simple mathematical model of society collapse applied to Easter Island. EPL 81, 48006 (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  23. Jared Diamond, Easter Island revisited. Science 317(5845), 1692–1694 (2007)

    Google Scholar 

  24. J. Flenley, P. Bahn, The Enigmas of Easter Island (Oxford University Press, UK, 2003)

    Google Scholar 

  25. A. Mieth, H.R. Bork, Humans, climate or introduced rats which is to blame for the woodland destruction on prehistoric Rapa Nui (Easter Island)? J. Archaeol. Sci. 37(2), 417–426 (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  26. M. Prebble, J.M. Wilmshurst, Wilmshurst. Detecting the initial impact of humans and introduced species on island environments in Remote Oceania using palaeoecology. Biol. Invasions 11(7), 1529–1556 (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  27. C. Junk, M. Claussen, Simulated climate variability in the region of Rapa Nui during the last millennium. Clim. Past 7(2), 579–586 (2011)

    Google Scholar 

  28. J.M. Diamond, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail Or Succeed (Penguin, Harmondsworth, 2006)

    Google Scholar 

  29. J.M. Diamond, The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies? (Viking, New York City, 2012)

    Google Scholar 

  30. P. Bahn, Anthropology: head to head. Nature 476(7359), 150151 (2011)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  31. P. Bahn, J. Flenley, Rats, men—or dead ducks? Current World Archaeology 49, 8 (2011)

    Google Scholar 

  32. W.J. Thomson, Te Pito Te Henua, or Easter Island (Government Printer, South Africa, 1891)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. ETSI Industriales, Universidad Castilla La Mancha, Ciudad Real, Spain

    Antoine Bret

Authors
  1. Antoine Bret
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Antoine Bret .

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2014 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Bret, A. (2014). When Things Went Wrong. In: The Energy-Climate Continuum. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-07920-2_10

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-07920-2_10

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-07919-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-07920-2

  • eBook Packages: EnergyEnergy (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation