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By Luke Kemp
Goliath’s Curse: The History and Future of Societal Collapse by Luke Kemp is an ambitious, all-encompassing grand narrative in which readers are invited to think globally and with the historical depth of at least 5,000 years. The book is a reader-friendly synthesis of the history of more than 300 states, although the author is aware that 99.99% of the earth’s population in these millennia are missing from the historical record. The word “future” in the subtitle suggests that Kemp writes for social activists, but how readers respond to this book depends in part on their own notion of societal collapse. His book is more relevant if you fear ecological vulnerability, less relevant to those who fear nuclear annihilation.
As long ago as the Hebrew Scriptures and Plato, pessimists and the faint-hearted have worried about the future of their society. It does seem natural to imagine that societies age like individuals: resilience turns into vulnerability and fragility. It has always been difficult to get people to cooperate in order to collectively accomplish anything. Today, societal collapse is once again a hot topic. A shortlist of the causes includes the selfishness of a leader, competing elites, corruption, imperial overreach, environmental degradation, and invasion by enemies. In periods of social unrest, the population turns to authoritarian leaders.
Societal collapse (more dramatic than state failure) can be defined in different ways depending in part on whether the focus is state, society, or civilization. Kemp’s abstract definition of societal collapse is “fragmentation of different power systems … losses in hierarchy, population density, and energy capture” (p. 451). Rapid societal collapses are rare. Thus there is the nagging uncertainty about whether the same theory can explain both fast and slow disintegration. A washout is not quite the same as a flameout. The Roman Empire disappeared long ago, but we are still erecting imitations of Roman buildings; Roman literature is still read; Roman culture continues to have an impact on 21st-century popular culture.
A “goliath,” to use Kemp’s term, is any place where the elite has imperialist ambitions and, at least for a while, succeeds in expanding their domain. A goliath can be as small as a city-state or as large as the Ottoman Empire. Uruk, in ancient Mesopotamia (modern Iraq), may have been the first goliath. As you would assume from the Biblical story of David and Goliath (1 Samuel 17), eventually even giant warriors lose battles. The “curse” is that big centralized empires are always unstable. The bloodiest stage in the history of a goliath is typically its birth and expansion rather than its collapse. The average lifespan of a mega-empire is estimated by Kemp to be only a mere 155 years. A goliath is an interconnected hierarchy of power. The basic sources are An elite’s (1) exclusive decision making, (2) monopoly over the resources required for life, (3) threats, violence, and control of information, and (4) the characteristics of the controlled population, including their likelihood of moving outside the goliath’s borders, can all determine the risk of collapse. Societal collapse can come from the failures of any one or all of these sources. The more oppressive the society, Kemp generalizes, the greater the positive consequences for the society’s population when it collapses. A collapse is more than just something to fear. Inequality does come at a price, however: everyone loses when the exploited are not given full opportunities to develop their talents.
It is evident in the archaeological record that hunters and gatherers committed murder, but they lacked the social ties required for organized warfare. Ironically, agriculture, usually associated with human progress, provided one of the prerequisites for warfare: lootable resources, especially food. Corn and rice are comparatively easy to locate and preserve. It is easy to make wooden spears; more difficult to make metal swords. Technological innovation, even at this primitive level, gave the elite a monopoly over the most frightening weapons. Power then led to greater levels of inequality.
It was easier for hunters and gatherers to move away than it was for farmers, who were more likely to accept a lower status and greater exploitation when their alternatives were difficult. With agriculture came greater violence, inequality, patriarchy, and slavery. The transition to agriculture was not smooth. The forerunners of goliaths today were preceded by setbacks, reversals, and collapses. Hunting and gathering provides a healthy diet and one that requires less work than agriculture. In contrast, early cities were a disaster for health.
Goliath’s Curse, with nearly 100 pages of endnotes, is the kind of book that one would expect to be published by an academic press. But it is also a sort of trade book because the topic is financially interesting to publishers and authors. General educated readers are the targeted audience here, but the level of historical detail is challenging.
The strength of the book is the history. What is offered about the future is less impressive, and readers who are social activists probably already know most of the ideas in this concluding section of the book. There is a pamphlet by another author which promises to summarize the lessons for social change found in Goliath’s Curse. The pamphlet is unfortunately superficial and, at least in my interpretation, more optimistic than the book. I recommend sticking with the book.
If you are uncomfortable with the author’s interpretations, just look at the reference section. The doubts and controversies can be found there. I don’t think I have ever read a book with such fascinating references. Kemp has been accused of unintentionally exaggerating the dark side of governments and the positive side of collapses. One could argue that the reason the section on the future is the weakest part of the book is because past collapses are not a guide to the future. Kemp writes that “the modern world is simply an intensification of the past,” but he also contradicts this claim.
Of the 202 states existing in 1816, fifty have disappeared (ranging in size from the Ottoman Empire to Hawaii), thirty-five of the fifty ended violently (p. 287). During the European Ages of Discovery and Imperialism (1450–1920) saw societal collapses throughout the world but less often in Europe, although the region is prone to political instability. When the international influence of individual European nations declined, power passed to another European nation. Consequently, countries inhabited by Europeans and settlers of European origins have been spared the most severe psychological stress associated with societal collapse. This could be a disadvantage in confronting the future.
Goliath’s Curse begins with a sketch of the history of the first city founded in the United States. You probably cannot name it. I grew up about 200 miles east of its location. The retired residents of my hometown, escaping to Florida for the winter, would have named St. Augustine, Florida—founded in 1565—as the first city. The actual first city, older by centuries, is estimated to have housed a population of 10,000 to 15,000 inhabitants circa 1000 CE. Back home, it would never have crossed our minds that the collapse of the city of Cahokia (now Cahokia State Historic Site near Collinsville, Illinois) had little relevance to us. You might assume we ignored its history because of ethnocentrism, but Kemp states that it was also because the surrounding population had such fear of this city, whose inhabitants were guilty of human sacrifice, that their descendants chose to forget about it. Kemp always seems to have one theme in mind when he reflects on the nature of society—social inequality. Surely, he exaggerates its negative influence. He has little to say about cultural creations which give meaning to life. When I look at the illustrations of George R. Milner’s The Moundbuilders: Ancient Peoples of Eastern North America, I have a more positive interpretation of the people of Cahokia.
The chance of a global-wide societal collapse before the year 2100 is estimated in Goliath’s Curse to be between 20% and 50%. It is certainly more pleasurable to live in the present “moment” than to reflect on frightening futures. The result, as Kemp points out, is that we are “dramatically unprepared” for an unavoidable future collapse. In the past, societal collapses were temporary. In the near future, the disintegration of the “global goliath” may turn out to be more catastrophic, perhaps even permanent. Kemp calls it collective suicide.
Review by Stephen Harold Riggins, Professor Emeritus, Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador.