This is an interesting book. First published in the late 80's, it warrants renewed attention nowadays in light of all the end-of-the world hysterias currently emanating from concerns over economic turmoil, religious strife, nuclear terrorism, viral epidemics, and climate change. Even if most of us don't believe the worst is yet upon us, it's hard not to worry with so many books and movies out there depicting post-industrial societies where humans are left with their animal needs and violent proclivities, but none of the protections afforded by modern civilization.

Joseph Tainter, though, is no hysteric. He's a buttoned-down scholar without any apparent pre-conceived agenda and certainly no intent to sensationalize. He's actually a little boring, and casual readers expecting lurid thrills from this book are likely to put it down after the first few pages. Like other students of history over the years, he seems haunted by the fact that so many of the world's once-vibrant civilizations have vanished for no obvious reason. The tasks he's taken on to himself here are to (a) catalogue the major lost civilizations (b)summarize known facts surrounding their rise and fall (c) distill the academic literature regarding the causes of societal collapse down to a handful common theories, and (d) establish the framework for his own general theory. Since it's obvious from the start of the book that he's ultimately looking forward into dynamics that might one day lead to the demise of our own world, this book really grabs your attention once you begin to suspect he may know what he's talking about.

Tainter starts with a brief survey of eighteen vanished civilizations around the world which provide the substance for his study. His professional discipline is archeology, and several of his societies are ones, like the Minoans and the Chacoans, about which archeology tells us everything we know, since they left no written records. For others, like the ancient Romans and China's Western Chou Empire, he intrudes onto historians' turf because the written record provides a key part of the story. In fact, his most comprehensive and interesting discussion is of the Romans. I got the impression that he may have developed his animating insights for this book through his study of Rome, since he manner in which he imposes them on the sketchier cases sounds a bit vague to me in places.

Tainter is obviously not the first researcher to become fascinated by societal collapse. The phenomenon has spawned a whole genre of literature and a host of causal theories. He summarizes them all for us and groups them into eleven broad categories, including resource depletion, natural catastrophe, invasion, social dysfunction, random concatenation of events, and so forth. He points out that none of these are mutually exclusive and that all have something to offer. In the end, however, he pronounces the existing literature inadequate to the task of explaining how and why thriving civilizations eventually disappear. Hence the motivation for his study.

He does point to economic theories, one of the eleven groups, as the one probably richest in explanatory possibilities. And with that observation he lays the groundwork for his own theory, which is based in economics but is capable of subsuming elements associated with the other frameworks. In getting to his subject, Tainter generally avoids the term 'civilization'. He prefers instead the more precise phrase 'complex society', by which he means a social system entailing elaborate division of labor and supporting management hierarchies, government and a robust military. He refers to resources devoted to these functions as the society's "investment in complexity". He then explains the "rise" of a society as the period during which investment in complexity is growing and people are enjoying returns on it in the form of growing wealth, culture and security. Or at least enough people are enjoying these things that social and political stability prevail. Golden ages then can be seen as sweet spots in history during which the benefits from complexity are growing and incentivising more investment in it, triggering virtuous circles. However, such a dynamic is inherently self-limiting and eventually self-destructive.

Two phrases which Tainter borrows from economics are "marginal cost" and "marginal return". Eventually, the marginal returns from investment in complexity - meaning the returns currently available - inevitably level off and then decline, while the marginal costs stay the same or even increase. The only way central authorities can so on supporting such costs is through taxation or currency debasement, unsustainable measures in a system where benefits are perceived as declining. A system so weakened becomes vulnerable to popular revolt or invasion, or lacks the will and resources to overcome other disasters. Tainter describes, for example, how the "barbarians" who eventually overran the Roman Empire were in many cases welcomed and even assisted by the Empire's population, who increasingly saw themselves as benefitting little from Rome's "complexity", even as Rome's tax collectors became more predatory than ever.

Like the good scholar he is, Tainter is cautious in his approach to his subject and modest in the claims he makes for his conclusions. His theory is rather fatalistic and seems to regard a society's collapse as pre-determined by its rise. He is an unusually good writer and casts his points generally in short, declarative sentences that are easy to follow. His ideas, however, are not so simple, and require careful study to absorb fully. The book is short - only 216 pages - but it took me a long time to finish. I found it well worth the effort, and recommend it to others interested in this subject matter.

I loved the scope and detail of the vast number of civilizations studied in this thought provoking analysis of societal collapse. As others have noted it is not an easy read in spots but well worth the effort.

In searching for a universal cause for collapse the author logically builds his case that the "Law Of Diminishing Returns" is the root cause of collapse since this law grows more and more impactful as societies increase in complexity to support growing populations. Eventually this cost burden becomes so great and the returns so small that the society collapses. I totally agree with the case he makes that as civilizations are driven toward ever more complexity to support an ever growing population the law of diminishing returns rears its ugly head ever more higher. Even maintenance of existing infrastructure eventually succumbs to this law.

However, where I feel the author is mistaken is when he casually applies this law to science which dooms a society from developing efficient solutions to serious problems. The reality is that science has always uncovered the secrets of nature slowly. Unfortunately science is knowledge based and has always been built gradually upon previous knowledge developed by many others over long periods of time. A wise society realizes that scientific research can put to practical use fundamental scientific knowledge but development of this knowledge has always relied upon long periods of scientific development to provide the basis of new technology. This is why basic science is generally not profitable for a business. It generally resides in universities/governments and the minds of those fascinated with nature. Understanding of the atomic/subatomic world came slowly over the ages but once the knowledge developed the applications came swiftly. So it is with biology. The steam engine could not have been developed without the knowledge developed by physics over many generation. When the basic knowledge is not developed throwing more money at a problem is a waste. Don't confuse technological development with science. Without the science the technology cannot happen.

What I found interesting about Joseph Tainter's treatise on civilizations is his application of economic theory to explain how they collapse. After a methodical review the two basic theories of why civilizations develop in the first place, the integration theory and the conflict theory, he launches into why he thinks economics is useful: it explains marginal returns.

In simple terms, societies are machines for solving social problems. As problems become more difficult, solutions become more complicated, eating into resources. Eventually, all societies are faced with marginal returns on their investment. Economics is a study of how supply meets demand and management of scarce resources.

Tainter begins by exploring the two concepts of civilization. Actually, it really does not matter whether you subscribe to the integration theory or the conflict theory. Economics helps explain complexity. Screw drivers exist because hammers weren't enough. Power drills were eventually developed and so on. Societies created such things as cash because lugging things around to exchange slowed commerce. Eventually, monetary policies developed to both explain transactions and allow regulation and taxation. Taxation pays for society.

Here is where the two theories on civilization diverge. Integration theory proposes that societies become more complex because of a growth in people's wants and needs. Conflict theory says that societies exist because an upper class wants to control the output of society to further their own comfort and avarice. Personally, I agree with Tainter that neither theory works, although many societies I've read about, including our own can lean in one of these directions or another. Tainter agrees that economic theory cannot explain everything. After all, society and people have a rational and irrational half. For example, he explains how the taxation of citizens in the later Roman Empire became so unbearable that citizens frequently welcomed invading barbarians; miners in one central European province went over to the barbarians en-mass. Meanwhile, the rich in Rome fled to the countryside to avoid being conscripted into a failing series of governments. Peasants were encouraged to migrate to the cities, where they became a burden, because Roman governments deprived them of even subsistence --- all went to taxes.

Getting back to Tainter's approach with economic theory, he supports this theory very well. There are figures showing the declining returns on increased investments in agriculture, medicine, education, pollution control, nutrition and scientific research. Taken as a whole it is very impressive.

Unfortunately, I think the author relied too much on Rome as an example. Perhaps it was one he was extensively familiar or just a well-documented example. There are several examples of societies that have moderated their behavior and survived, at least long enough to be taken over by the current, predominant western culture: e.g., Japan. Faced with resource problems since the beginning they showed a remarkable ability to adapt without the widespread famines that seemed to plague the Chinese.

As for the current crisis that western civilization is experiencing now, Tainter provides a few clues but no concrete predictions. He believes that the civilization will adapt and survive. I believe that instead it will break down. Some countries will be abandoned to their fate while others, such as India and the European Union will strive to exist as separate entities long after the collapse of the United States and China. Tainter believes, while providing a few historical examples as proof, that societies existing together, like the European Union, cannot collapse because they are bonded together in competition. I, however, feel that as collapse becomes inevitable, worrying about what your neighbors will do becomes less important than worrying about your own survival.

Eventually, we in the US will climb out of the hole created by our demise but generations to come will wonder at our foolishness.

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This review as written for another site, explaining the allusions to Amazon at the end...

The book was written in 1988--I like non-contemporaneous writings on topics that seem timely at present--and revised more recently. The book was recommended to me by a guy currently writing a book who was clearly coming up with Roman analogies that I found compelling. (I thought they were coming from Henri Pirenne, but they were from Tainter.)

I found the book to be scholarly, engaging, and still quite readable. (It's only 200 pages!) He avoids the term "civilization" like the plague because of its multitude of connotations, critiues a number of his predecessors (especially Toynbee), and then goes on to describe ideas about societal complexity and it's occasional rapid demise. He defines complexity as you might expect (division of labor, centralized organization, etc) and defines "collapse" as a marked and relatively sudden decrease in complexity. Tainter uses the Romans, Mayans, and Chacoans (New Mexico) by example. I, of course, found the Roman discussion the most compelling but the others had their place.

Tainter builds a case that complexity has benefits, but that there is a marginal rate of return that diminishes with ever increasing complexity to the point in which more complexity becomes detrimental. He pays adequate homage to the role of energy input and innovations. (For you techies, I was constantly thinking about the enthalpy-entropy battle and whether there is a non-linear relationship in which negative entropy simply costs way too much enthalpy.) A critical part of his presentation is to deconvolute causal relationships. OK: So the German tribes start beating on Rome. Why did this happen in the fifth century and not earlier? Why did environmental damage seem to blow out the Chicoans when they had mitigated the risk of droughts for centuries? (The answer is more interesting than you think.) There are a lot of superficial "causes" that had been thrown out to explain collapses, but Tainter makes and excellent case that many are effects and symptoms, not causes per se.

As an aside, I give a lot of five star ratings. One might ask why. Simple. I don't have time or patience to read bad books. I chose carefully.

Many people, ignorant of history, will tell you things are happening "for the first time ever" or that we've left the arc of history behind. Mankind has come too far, evolved too much, for history to tell us anything about the future. They talk about the "end of history."

In "Collapse", Tainter shows how quaint those notions are.

By examining the lifetimes of some of history's great empires, and delving through the anecdotes and data that surround their collapses, Tainter constructs a theory, based on simple principles, that explain why societies can only grow so big before they grow top-heavy, and ultimately implode.

If you've read Sir John Glubb's short and eye-opening book "The Fate of Empires", and wondered when someone else might come along to complete the work Glubb started, Tainter is it. Or, if you've noticed turbulence in your own society, and wondered where it might be headed, Tainter can tell you that too.

On a shorter timeline, Tainter makes you realize that every empire is doomed to die of old age eventually, just as every lifeform is.

But on a longer timeline, Tainter gives you hope: because even in the collapse of empires are sprinkled the seeds of the people who live within them's eventual renewal.

Heartily recommended. One of the most important books you will read.

Well presented, logical analysis of why and how complex societies collapse. Simple answer (according to the author): it is a logical response to declining marginal returns to an investment in complexity. The sort of "fall of Rome" collapse only occurs, according to the author, with isolated, dominant states.

Also according to his thesis, states that are embedded in a cluster of "peer polities" (as we find in the current globalized national environment) "cannot collapse" (at least not in the same way as Rome or the Mayans), but just continue to spend their way to oblivion, with government elites and bureaucracies employing coercion to derive smaller and smaller returns from the producers in society (who eventually get crushed out of existence). Nations/societies, absent some sort of new energy subsidy, will remain locked in to spending more to try to achieve an unachievable competitive advantage until they all degenerate in one gigantic global collapse. Very cheery.

The author's thesis is a helpful template. I really liked some of his descriptions of the fall of ancient civilizations. As an economic historian I agreed with much of his argumentation. I believe, however, that he overestimates the ability of people (including leadership) to always make rational choices, and underestimates the ability of leadership to help or harm society. One bad leader can do a lot of damage. He also underestimates the effect of culture (and the working out of religious beliefs in history) on the whole process.

Professor Tainter aimed to uncover the common denominator of major collapses of complex societies throughout history. That runs the risk of either producing an answer so vague and general as to be useless or shoehorning data where it does not belong. Instead, his analysis of marginal returns to investments in complexity allows for an empirically verifiable definition of conditions likely to lead to collapse without being so narrow as to preclude flexible application to widely different circumstances. He demonstrated the approach with credible explanations for the Roman, Mayan and Chacoan collapses. He distinguished what does and does not constitute a decline in marginal returns, gave examples of situations that produce declining returns, and described the context in which declining returns will or will not likely lead to collapse. Finally, Dr. Tainter did a fine job of demolishing some older theories of collapse. My main suggestion for future development of the theory would be to consider the interplay of complexity, technology, climate change, and resource depletion in the context of an updated understanding of "carrying capacity" where complex institutions are "carried" (with a variable cushion against collapse) at a "capacity" defined by resources with levels influenced by climate and technology.

I have been studying complex systems for a while and I wanted to read something that encompasses those ideas but brings the mathematical ideas down to clear examples and relatable real world history.

This book does do that. It dispels a lot of ideas about what a societal collapse would look like (not dystopian Armageddon, but lessening of complexity in the systems governing the society). Thinking about this and how it would work is entertaining enough, and the book is full of many other great insights.

It ties together tons of history, political and economic ideas with the thing you may feel has been missing, a real causal relationship between all of those.

I really like this book. It gives a good causal explanation of how a society could colaps. He defines his terms well

According to the second principle of thermodynamics, the level of energy of a system tends to equilibrium.

Should you wish to maintain a higher level of energy (or complexity) you'd need to use more energy; the higher the complexity of the system, the more energy you'll need to use.

Now, substitute system with society, energy with resources (both human and natural) and complexity with technical progress, laws and regulation, and you'll see why our too-complex society is doomed to failure.

The author analyzes many historical examples of complex societies of the past, foremost of all the Roman Empire, and the reasons why they collapsed under the weight of their own complexity and reverted to a simpler, slenderer society.

Are we doomed for a new Middle Ages? Read on and find out.

The Diminishing Returns of Civilisation

The Collapse of Complex Societies, Joseph Tainter, 1988

Originally published in 1988, Joseph Tainter’s The Collapse of Complex Societies remains, nearly thirty years later, one of the definitive works on the collapse of civilisation. It’s often cited in conjunction with Jared Diamond’s more succinctly-titled Collapse.

Tainter avoids the term ‘civilisation’ as a non-scientific value judgement, and prefers the term ‘complex society’. This is an example of two of the qualities that give Tainter’s work its special merit: his care for language, and his logic.

In a classic application of the scholarly method, Tainter reviews and criticises the compendious literature on the subject. He then proposes a new and, he argues, better hypothesis. He also shows, as he is required to do, that his chosen subject is ‘non-trivial.’

As Tainter points out, the interest in collapse is stimulated partly by the fall of Rome, but also by contemporary events. If civilisation has collapsed once, it can collapse again. ‘To some historians of the early twentieth century the twilight of Rome seemed almost a page of contemporary history.’

As a scholar and a scientist, Tainter defines collapse. He insists that it is a political process, and that it is ‘...a general process that is not restricted to any type of society or level of complexity’. Tainter’s general definition of collapse works well in the context of this study: ‘A society has collapsed when it displays a rapid, significant loss of an established level of sociopolitical complexity.’ It is about process as well as outcome.

Tainter pursues a general explanation. One of his objections to the theories current at the time that he wrote is that they are ad hoc. He also feels that they are simply inadequate as theories. ‘... [they] have suffered in common from a number of conceptual and logical failings’.

Tainter provides an overview of instances of collapse. The general reader will be aware of the Minoan civilisation, the Mycenaeans, the Western Roman Empire, Mesopotamia and the Lowland Classic Maya. It is historians who are more likely to have heard of the Harappan civilisation or the Hittites. Other examples – such as the Chacoans of the Southwest desert, the Hopewell culture of the Northeast and the Midwest, the Huari and Tiahunanco empires of pre-Inca Peru – would tend to be known rather to anthropologists and archaeologists. One of the incidental benefits of this book for some readers, I think, would be in providing pointers to unfamiliar aspects of ancient history and prehistory that they might wish to explore.

Tainter accepts that the picture in popular fiction and films of life after the collapse of industrial civilisation contains elements that are known historically from collapses in the past. He instances the breakdown of authority and law, squatting, a loss of population and a regression to local self-sufficiency. The possibility would be, as Tainter points out, catastrophic.

Tainter, as a scientist and a scholar, defines complex society. He points out that complexity, historically, is an anomaly. Most societies have been small, simple and kinship based. Complex societies are unequal and heterogeneous. Many of the characteristics of complex societies are in fact features of states: these would include such things as a concern with territorial integrity, and with maintaining legitimacy. Tainter discusses, and rejects, the idea of a ‘Great Divide’ between states and non-state societies. Societies which are not fully fledged states can be quite complex.

Tainter discusses the evolution of complex societies. There have been a number of theories. Tainter gives six examples of ‘primary’ states, those which have evolved independently: Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, Indus River Valley, Mexico and Peru. Bruce Trigger, in Understanding Early Civilisation, also cites Benin. In this discussion Tainter emphasises that states are problem-solving organisations. It is a reminder that it is difficult to understand the later history of states without identifying the problem they were originally intended to solve.

Tainter describes and analyses the literature of collapse in detail. This is the heart of his criticism of earlier theories. He is very thorough. He identifies eleven separate theories. These include resource depletion, catastrophe, invaders, mysticism and economics. Of these Tainter has most time for economics. These explanations are, in his eyes, logically preferable as they describe specific mechanisms or formulate a causal chain. Economic theories of collapse are thus open to criticism and can be tested and revised.

Catastrophe is one of the most popular explanations of collapse. Tainter sees it as among the weakest. Catastrophe theories invoke earthquakes in the Caribbean, volcanic eruptions in the Aegean and malaria or plague in Rome. The logical difficulty is that complex societies quite often experience catastrophe, and routinely - according to Tainter – do so without collapsing. As Tainter says: ‘It is doubtful if any large society has ever succumbed to a single-event catastrophe’.

Invaders are another very popular explanation. The Harappan civilisation, apparently, was destroyed by Aryans with chariots. Mesopotamia was overwhelmed by Gutians, Amorites and Elamites. The Hittites were brought down by the Sea Peoples. The Minoans were over-run by the Mycenaeans, and the Mycenaeans in turn were destroyed by the Dorian branch of the Greeks.

Tainter’s criticism is that a recurrent event, collapse, is here being explained by a random variable. The overthrow of a dominant state by a weaker people is not an explanation. If it does occur, it is a phenomenon which needs in itself to be explained. Tainter also points out that there is remarkably little archaeological evidence.

Tainter has great fun with the mystical explanations. There have been records of mystical explanations of collapse ever since there were civilisations to collapse and other civilisations to record them. They include ‘decadence’, Christianity, the disappearance of great men and the abandonment of ancient manners. Tainter dismisses them for their reliance on analogies with biological growth, their use of value judgements and their reliance on intangibles. In Tainter’s opinion, Oswald Spengler, the author of The Decline of the West, which had a powerful impact in Europe in the 20s and 30s, was ‘supremely mystical’.

Tainter’s new theory is at the heart of the book. To develop a general explanation Tainter draws on a concept from economics, that of ‘marginal productivity’ or ‘marginal return on investment’. Marginal cost, or marginal investment, means an increase expenditure or investment beyond the current level. Economists and cost accountants are very well aware that as expenditure and investment are increased, the marginal productivity – the output that results from extra investment - will decline. Eventually it will decline to nothing.

Tainter sees human societies as requiring investment and expenditure for their maintenance. Society has costs. Complex societies, he argues – and this I think is entirely reasonable – have greater costs per capita. Tainter’s thesis is that the benefits of investment in complexity characteristically, not occasionally, reach a point where they begin to decline. It is an elegant, not to say a sophisticated, point of view.

Tainter cites a number of instances. He asserts that farming, when it began, was a response to population growth. Many pre-historians would disagree with that. The origins of farming are quite difficult to explain. They would however almost to a man agree with his assertion that the marginal return on subsistence agriculture declines with every additional unit of labour that is added.

Tainter also uses the example of fuel. He points out that a ‘rationally-acting human population’ first uses the reserves that are easiest, and cheapest, to exploit. When it is necessary to use less easily-obtained resources, productivity automatically declines.

More sophisticated examples are the declining productivity of R & D and education. The decreasing effectiveness of R & D is very well documented. Tainter’s arguments for the declining productivity of increasing participation in education, and extending the years of education, are quite startling.

Tainter believes that additional costs will increasingly be seen as bringing no benefit to the population. Complexity will increasingly be perceived as a burden. Sections of society will resist, or attempt to break away.

Technological innovation, in Tainter’s eyes, is unusual in human history. The best way of maintaining growth and complexity is to find a new what he calls an ‘energy subsidy’ such as fossil fuels or nuclear energy, or – more traditionally – territorial expansion.

Having set up his theory, Tainter is now obliged to show that it is helpful in understanding collapse in particular cases. To do so, he analyses in detail three historical instances of collapse; the Western Roman Empire, the Classic Maya of the Southern Lowlands, and the Chacoan society of the American Southwest. The Chacoans are the people sometimes known as the Anasazi. According to Wikipedia, contemporary Pueblans do not like the latter term, and do not want it to be used.

The main costs of the Western Roman Empire were the army and the civil service. Under the Republic, the empire was self-financing. Conquests paid for themselves, in plunder, and more than paid for themselves. It was possible to reduce the tax liabilities of the citizenry quite dramatically.

Augustus, the first Emperor, terminated the policy of expansion. Trajan attempted foreign wars. Most Emperors followed Augustus policy. Without the loot of successful foreign wars, the imperial exchequer was hard pressed to meet the expenses of the state. Nero, in 64 A.D., debased the coinage. It was a stratagem that future emperors frequently resorted to. Plague, wars with Germanic tribes and inflation weakened the Empire. In the third century the Empire nearly broke up.

Diocletian (284-305) created an authoritarian regime designed to ensure the survival of the state. Government was large and the military was increased in size. There was coercion, conscription and regulation. The costs fell on a depleted population. Agricultural land was abandoned, further reducing the tax base and the revenue. In 476, the last Emperor was deposed by a Germanic king.

As Tainter says, ‘... the [Classic] Maya [of the Southern Lowlands] are ... a people whose greatest mystery is their abrupt departure from the stage of world history....’ The Southern Lowlands society collapsed between 790 and 890 A.D. While the Mayans had a script, which is increasingly well understood, much remains to be deciphered. The evidence of archaeology is therefore very important in understanding Mayan collapse.

As Maya civilisation evolved, there was a shift to more intensive agriculture, accompanied by deforestation. Fortifications were erected. The monumental public buildings, for which the ruins of the Maya cities are justly celebrated, were put up. There was social differentiation. Mayan civilisation was costly in human labour. The Mayan cities competed amongst themselves for increasingly scarce resources.

Collapse was swift. Complexity disappeared. Temples were neither built nor maintained. Stelae were no longer erected. Luxury items disappeared. Writing stopped. There was a major loss of population. As Tainter says, the nature of the final ‘push’ is not clear. That is important. What is clear is that the costs of complexity fell entirely on the agricultural population, and could no longer be sustained. There may in fact have been a short-term gain for the peasants – the surviving peasants, at least – when the cities fell.

‘Chacoan society of the San Juan Basin of north-western New Mexico...’ had no writing. It ‘...is known only from its archaeological remains.’ The region is arid, and surrounded by mountains. Chaco Canyon is its main feature. The canyon is ‘... an island of topographic relief and environmental variety....’ Its main advantage is tributary drainage. However the soil is poor, and the growing seasons are short. There is little permanent water. Drought is common.

It is a marginal environment. Around 900 A.D. complex regional system developed, designed to even out fluctuations in agricultural productivity. There is no parallel in this area of America in prehistoric times.

The distinctive attribute of Chacoan society is the ‘Great Houses’. They were large, and connected by roads. They had several hundred rooms, on multiple storeys, with elaborate masonry. The rooms were large and high-ceilinged with timber roofs. The Great Houses have a large number of storage rooms relative to their size. Their residents were people of higher status, while the bulk of the population lived in small pueblos.

The population grew to several thousand. Marginal land was cultivated. Building stopped in 1132 A.D. ‘By mid-to-late twelfth, or early thirteenth, century the Chacoan system had essentially collapsed.... After 1300 A.D. the region was essentially abandoned by agricultural peoples.’ The system had become costly and there were decreasing returns. The outlying Great Houses withdrew from the network. A severe, prolonged drought from 1134 to 1181 may have been the ‘final blow’.

All these three cases show that the costs of complexity increased. In the Maya Lowlands and Chaco Canyon there was a late surge of building. In the Western Roman Empire, it was the expansion of the army and the increase in size of the bureaucracy that imposed the costs. The population of all three societies, at the end, was declining or stagnant. In the case of the Mayans and the Chacoans, the abandonment of territory suggests environmental degradation.

Tainter says that collapse can be economical and rational. Simpler forms of organisation can be cheaper and more productive. He also points out that there is likely to be a considerable loss of population. The historical evidence is that those who survive are likely to be directly engaged in agricultural production. That has implications for a modern recurrence.

Tainter accepts that there is no ‘formal, quantitative test’ for his theory. Even in the relatively well-documented case of the Western Roman Empire, there is insufficient data. The theory does, however, appear to have explanatory value. Apart from anything else, it enables one historical case of collapse to be compared with another. I am not aware how widely it has been accepted in anthropology, archaeology and ancient history.

What gives me pause is that in cases like the Southern Lowland Maya and the Chacoans we do not know what was the ‘final push’ or the ‘final blow’. Without that, any evaluation of the theory must remain provisional.

This is one of the definitive treatments of a very important historical process, which many think is critically important to contemporary society. It impresses, above all its other merits, by its remorseless logic.

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