NATS 1840 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Karl August Wittfogel, Indus River, Mesoamerica
7 Mar 2016
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Lecture 2 ancient civilizations and technological determinism. Tool use for hunting and gathering (2 million years ago) Irrigation agriculture, management of flood water and fertilization, agricultural surplus and population increase. Management of surplus led to centralized government, taxation. Hydraulic engineering included: canals, dams, reservoirs, ditches, land drainage, artificial lakes. Slave labor, centralized bureaucracies, armies, tax collectors, scribes, specialized labor, priests, educational institutions. Environmental circumscription: society restricted to particular areas due to need for water, slavery. 1100 c furnaces, mining, smelting, metal currency, specialized labor. Large engineering projects, slavery or conscripted labor. Employment of workers in the off season, government power. The hanging gardens of babylon, the great wall of china, the grand canal, the. Writing and mathematics in all civilizations, practical orientation, surveying, calculating and recording taxes, managing agricultural surplus, exchange. State schools, writing and economic transactions, transfer of knowledge, literary and religious traditions.
