Collapse of States and Empires: c. 600 BCE - 600 CE
AP Concept: 2.2 The Development of States and Empires
Key Concepts
Economic Reasons
Political Reasons
Social Reasons
Nomadic Invasions
Environmental Reasons
Key Concepts
- Imperial societies collapsed due to a variety of reasons
- Empires typically collapsed in part due to issues with collecting taxes. Sometimes specific classes were exempt from paying taxes, and sometimes the government grew too large to pay its debts through taxation
- The Han dynasty (collapsed c. 220 CE) could not raise enough taxes because scholar officials were exempt, and peasants frequently evaded paying tax collectors
- The Roman Empire (collapsed c. 476 CE) could not tax church land, and landowners effectively evaded paying tax collectors. The empire could not maintain roads, and trade suffered
- The Gupta empire (collapsed c. 550 CE) could not raise enough taxes to pay the army
- Another factor in imperial collapse was government's inability to assert control over powerful landowners or independent regions
- The Han dynasty was unable to control powerful landowners
- Individual territories, who had been permitted to retain control, eventually overpowered the Gupta government
- Struggles for power also plagued empires and contributed to their collapse
- Between 235 and 284 CE, dozens of emperors fought for control of the Roman Empire, and ultimately the empire was divided in two, which contributed to the collapse of the western portion
- Conquest by other empires ended empires, as with Philip II's conquest of Greece (338 BCE) and his son Alexander the Great's conquest of Persia (330 BCE) and northwest India (by 323 BCE)
- Drastic changes in population size contributed to weaknesses in empires
- Population increase during the Han dynasty weakened the peasants' ability to pay taxes
- Population decrease due to disease in the Roman Empire weakened the farming population
- Typically, weakened empires could not defend against nomadic invasions, once factors above had contributed to their decline
- Rome fell to the Visigoths in 476 CE when the army could no longer defend against Germanic invaders
- The Gupta empire fell to the White Huns, once the government was too weak to respond
- Thousands of years of destructive agricultural practices finally took their toll on land in Africa and Eurasia
- Growing the same crops in the same region depleted the soil of nutrients
- Irrigation deposited salt, which eventually turned land infertile; it also changed the power and courses of rivers, which increased problems from flooding (as in Mesopotamia and China)
- Land near agricultural and urban areas became deforested, as people relied on wood for fuel and shelter
|
Related Links: AP World History Quizzes AP World History AP World History Notes Transregional Networks: c. 600 BCE - 600 CE |