Guns, Germs, and Steel, a theory originally derived by Jared Diamond, has been attributed to the fates of human societies and empires throughout history. Yet while guns and steel are discussed often in terms of the success of various empires, germs and diseases are often overlooked or stated in a way that minimizes and backgrounds its effect on the course of history. The truth is, diseases have ultimately helped contribute to the fall of countless empires and may have even taken more lives than weaponry or other methods used by conquerors to conquer the conquered. An example can be seen with the Roman Empire. Historians have commonly attributed the fall of the Roman Empire to violence, moral corruption, and economic collapse —an idea most aggressively championed in Bryan Ward-Perkins’ book, The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization. However, in recent years historians have also started to revisit the fall of the Roman Empire with an openness to the importance of environmental factors, including climate change and pandemic disease.
Due to decreased populations, fewer defended the borders. This led to an increase in the frequency of invasions, allowing for the battles to take even more Roman lives. While exact death tolls are uncertain, the outbreak is estimated to have taken the life of about 7 or 8 eight million victims. By comparison, the worst defeat in Roman military history, Battle of Cannae (during the Punic War II, 216 BCE), claimed around 60,000 lives. Another example can be seen with the onset of the collapse of the Inca Empire before the Spaniards officially took over.
With the disease weakening the working class, agricultural output dropped, leading to starvation and even more death, ultimately enabling the Spanish quick access to the wealth and control of the Inca empire. The Roman and Inca empires are not unique in demonstrating mass destruction and death due to disease rather than military conquest. The same theme is present in the fall of the Han Dynasty, the Ottoman Empire, and countless more. This ultimately reminds us of the fragility of human societies in the face of nature and leads us to reflect upon our precarious dependence on the fickle planet that we call home.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |