Escape from Rome: Summary and Critique
In 2019, Escape from Rome: The Failure of Empire and the Road to Prosperity (hereafter referred to as Escape from Rome) was published, and it injected a new line of thinking into the long-standing debate on the causes of the “Great Divergence”. Popularised by Kenneth Pomenarz in his book of the same name (2000), it refers to the distinct and exponential divergence of socioeconomic fortunes between Western Europe and the rest of the world:
The causes of the Great Divergence is one of the central topics of economic history, and of great significance, if we seek to increase economic growth of developing countries. As expected, the field has many theories, schools and approaches, and this is the question to which Escape from Rome provides a novel contribution.
The main argument of Escape from Rome is as follows: the fact that no subcontinental, hegemonic empire re-emerged in Europe after the fall of the (Western) Roman Empire was the single most important precondition for modern economic growth, industrialisation, and later Western global dominance. This failure of empire represented the beginning of a trajectory towards subsequent “competitive fragmentation of power” (p. 9), laying the foundations for persistent polycentrism and generating transformative developmental dynamics. Contrast this to China which experienced serial imperial state formation instead. Therefore, this can be considered the “Great Escape”, a political divergence in state formation that clearly and fundamentally broke with earlier conditions in (Roman) Europe, and from the rest of the world post-Roman. This then led to the classical economic “Great Divergence” of Western Europe. The book attempts to show that the “road to prosperity” had deep roots which began in late antiquity.
Escape from Rome is written by Professor Walter Scheidel, the Dickason Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Classics and History at Stanford University. He is the second-most cited Roman historian in an active faculty position, and has previously published works in comparative history, such as State Power in Ancient China and Rome (2015) and Rome and China: Comparative Perspectives on Ancient World Empires (2009). He is currently planning more works on counterfactual history, which is one of the two main methods used in Escape from Rome. His Stanford faculty profile describes him as “particularly interested in connecting the humanities, the social sciences, and the life sciences”, a (commendable) multidisciplinary approach which he brings to Escape from Rome.
Summary
Main Arguments
In the Introduction (“The Great Escape”), Scheidel reaffirms the importance of this research question — the causes of the Industrial Revolution and modern economic growth — by briefly describing the discontinuity in Europe before and after the Industrial Revolution, as well as the divergence between East and West, in terms of economic growth and the benefits it conferred in a variety of dimensions.
In Part 1 (“The European Anomaly”), Scheidel shows that the unique “one-off empire” (p. 38) of the Romans and the subsequent persistent fragmentation represented the first divergence of post-Roman Europe from its past, and from other parts of the world, which engaged in serial imperial state formation instead. Scheidel uses demographic data to show that there is a substantial variation among various macro-regions in the average proportion of a regional population under the control of the largest polity, with East Asia having a score that is more than twice that Europe and only moderate fluctuation over time (69% in pre-Song to 77% in post-Song). In contrast, there was a massive break between Roman (53%) and post-Roman (20%) time periods. Scheidel notes this is remarkable because regions which were able to support empires in the past should be expected to keep doing the same, and this was indeed the case in the rest of the world.
In Part 2 (“Why Rome?”), Scheidel explains the formation of the Roman Empire was caused by two (highly unique) main factors (which were never replicated again later). The first factor, explained in Chapter 2 (“Core”), is the combination of high rates of military mobilisation and integrative capacities (the co-option of conquered peoples through alliances and citizenship), at levels not attained by other parts in western Eurasia at the time. This led to the creation of a highly capable and aggressive imperial core. In Chapter 3 (“Periphery”), he explains the second factor, which was Rome’s position at the margins of a civilisational political-military-network zone originating in the Fertile Crescent, which resulted in limited competition. This was coupled with prolonged domestic political stability and a lucky combination of circumstances that allowed Rome to establish effective naval hegemony in the Mediterranean at an early stage of its expansion. Therefore, Roman superiority in intensity (military participation rate), scale (size of population mobilised) and integrity (cohesiveness among decision-making ruling class, and more generally, the stability of the polity), which are the critical conditions of military success according to Scheidel, compared to rival polities, led to its eventual rise.
These two conditions were not repeated for a long time after the fall of the Roman Empire, when “competitive polycentrism had already hardened to an immovably stable state system” (p. 122): Roman rule had extended the boundaries of the original political-military network to the North Sea, while large-scale military mass mobilisation on the levels of the Roman Empire was not seen in Europe until the French Revolution, and even then, states were subject to outside interference. Rome’s many unique advantages and unlikely sequence of events, not having occurred again, meant that no future Roman-like empire returned to Europe.
At the same time, Scheidel also considers the contingency of Rome’s rise through the use of counterfactuals (Chapter 4: “Counterfactuals”), minimal rewrites of history which could have hindered Rome’s rise. He acknowledges that the world beyond Italy was not merely waiting to be conquered, but a potential source of threats. He considers potential counterfactuals on the Italian peninsula, the eastern empires and domestically. Scheidel suggests that Alexander the Great was a potential opportunity to derail Roman expansion, which was still in its early stages. However, superior Roman capabilities, from the 3rd century BCE onwards, made this more unlikely. Therefore, Rome’s rise was both highly contingent, in the sense that it depended on its foundational preconditions, and also robust, once these preconditions were in place. In other words, the rise of the Roman Empire was not strictly inevitable or overdetermined, yet it was not completely random nor accidental either.
In Part 3 (“Why Only Rome?”), instead of considering the popular historiographical question of why Rome fell (famously encapsulated by Edward Gibbon’s six-volume The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire), Scheidel instead considers a non-event. Specifically, why did nothing like the Roman Empire ever re-emerge in Europe? Indeed, as all empires would eventually fall given some time, the failure of Rome after more than 400 years of existence is less surprising than the consistent failure of future polities to replicate its success. Rome’s success was thus an anomaly, not its fall. As mentioned, the fall of Rome represented a “double divergence” (p. 127): within Europe before and after the fall of Rome, and between post-Roman Europe and other parts of the world.
Having explained the two unique factors which led to Rome’s rise in Part 2, Scheidel proceeds to trace the first of this double divergence, by considering chronologically, the post-Roman dominant imperial states which could have potentially re-created an empire in Europe from the 6th to the early 19th centuries, but why they failed to do so. (In Part 4, he would continue his investigation of the relative lack of “empire-bearing structures” by comparing Europe with other parts of the world.)
In Chapter 5 (“From Justinian to Frederick”), he considers the Byzantine Empire under Justinian I, the Arab conquests of the 8th century, the Carolingian Empire in the 9th century, and the German empire of the 10th to 13th centuries. In Chapter 6 (“From Genghis Khan to Napoleon”), he considers the Mongol expansion in the mid-13th century, the Habsburg empire in the 16th century, the Ottoman Empire in the 16th to 17th centuries, and the French under Louis XIV to Napoleon. From the pattern across these cases (the “general analytical taxonomy that can be used to frame […] investigations of the end of any one empire”, p. 129), Scheidel concludes that a range of factors worked together to decisively prevent the rise of another hegemonic empire, leading to “fifteen centuries of fragmentation” (p. 212). Key factors hindered state formation beyond a certain scale: the weakening of centralised state authority and state capabilities prevented scaling up, and an increasingly extensive and resilient state system balanced against, and contained, potential hegemons. By explicitly using counterfactuals, Scheidel argues that structural constraints and systematic disparities between core and periphery were so pervasive that no minimal rewrite of history would have a realistic chance of re-creating a Roman-like empire.
Therefore, polycentrism in post-Roman Europe was permanently robust, due to broad trends that were more impactful than specific events, and as a result, proved impossible to overcome. Byzantine and Habsburg attempts at hegemony were thwarted by geopolitical dynamics and organisational limitations. Frankish and German rulers were hindered by internal fragmentation. The sheer demographic heft of Europe hindered Ottoman and French attempts. While post-Roman dominant states had a reasonably strong core and “scale”, two factors which allowed for Rome’s rise, it was offset by low military mobilisation at the core (“intensity”), weaker political “integrity”, and better rivals whose capabilities improved, thus preventing advantages from being kept to one, unique state. As a result, European polycentrism hardened over time and was difficult to overcome: As states rebuilt their capabilities, the state system became more durable and resilient. Along with the balancing of different sources of social power within individual polities, it prevented conquests from within. Meanwhile, external powers lacked the overwhelming advantage to offset the challenges of distance and logistics, and thus, prevented conquests from without.
In Part 4 (“The First Great Divergence”), Scheidel explains why large-scale imperial formation continued serially in other parts of the world, which allows him to identify more fundamental differences (p. 220) not limited to the European experience. He systematically compares the trends in state formation between Europe and China, which represented an ideal counterpoint to post-Roman Europe’s persistent polycentrism, given its unusually resilient imperiogenesis. From this comparison, in Chapter 7 (“From Convergence to Divergence”), he identifies the proximate causes as “the interplay of pre-existing conditions and the preferences of particular conquest regimes and fiscal systems” (p. 258).
Still, while they were highly impactful, Scheidel also accounts for their relative prevalence, in other words, the ultimate level of causation (or “fundamental features that acted upon these historical processes”, p. 220) which greatly influenced the chances of successful imperiogenesis. Scheidel argues that geographical and ecological conditions and cultural traits influenced macro-socio-political development. Specifically, in Chapter 8 (“Nature”), the proximity and exposure to the steppe was a crucial determinant of imperial state formation in both Europe and East Asia. Drawing upon work by Turchin, Scheidel argues that the steppe contained nomadic societies which posed a serious military threat, thus incentivising sedentary populations to unify, pooling and scaling their military capabilities so as to effectively respond (p. 274). Scheidel then links his work to that of Ko, Koyama & Sng (2018), who showed that political centralisation into a single empire was more effective in countering a one-sided threat, while a fragmented state system is more resilient to a two-sided threat. The latter would be true if military power projection by external opponents was not efficient, as was the case in Europe. Scheidel explains that the absence of strong steppe inputs satisfies this condition.
Since regions that were ecologically well-equipped to support large empires did not, Scheidel argues this supports a causal link. With this, he objects to Hoffman (2015)’s dismissal of geographical factors vis-à-vis political history, as he believes Hoffman (wrongly) conceptualises them as independent factors. Instead, Scheidel argues that “[p]olitical outcomes, such as patterns of state formation, were in no small measure contingent on geographic factors” (p. 305). In contrast, ecological factors were generally not decisive, and its inputs often indirect. It was when steppe cultures were developing that their influence steadily grew.
The preconditions of geography and ecology then shaped and reinforced culture and ideas through the outcomes they brought about. In Chapter 9 (“Culture”), Scheidel shows how different state-building patterns became associated with different sets of cultural traits (e.g. writing systems, religion, imperial ideology) which promoted or inhibited imperiogenesis to different extents. These cultural traits contributed less to state capacity in Europe but more so in China. In China, a single writing system, the state’s co-option of religion and a secular belief system better supported state integrity and capacity by lowering the cost of political unity. In medieval Europe, ideologies limited state capacity while cultural and linguistic diversity hindered unity. (Nevertheless, since empires can generally accommodate variety, these cultural constraints on universal empire in Europe were relatively weak. Low state capacity was more impactful in restricting imperiogenesis.)
Given these fundamental differences in physical, institutional and cultural properties, China and post-Roman Europe had a persistent, long-term and robust divergence in the extent of their political fragmentation. Whereas China saw cyclical formations of a hegemonic empire, Europe was characterised by its enduring absence. Scheidel terms this the “First Great Divergence”. Scheidel summarises his arguments with a matrix of features conducive, or antithetical, to imperial formation on a large scale, which was the case in China and Europe respectively.
The fiscal performance and/or intensity of military mobilisation, in other words the extent to which central state authorities manage to appropriate resources for their own purposes (“state extractive capacity”) was lower in the sub- and post-Roman polities of Latin Europe compared to the principal Chinese states who were better able to count and tax their population. In Europe, it almost declined universally from an already low base. Geographic integration, steppe effects and cultural/ideological integration was overall, more conducive to imperial state formation in China than in Europe. Similar to state extractive capacity, state power and stability declined in Latin Europe, and oscillated between medium and high levels in China (represented by the double-headed arrow between relatively capable regional states and centralised hegemonic empire, but never quite succumbed to greater fragmentation). In contrast, the regional polities in Latin Europe are at best weak (or at least, were shifting from strong to weak, as indicated by the arrow), even the Carolingian empire was not as capable as the northern Chinese kingdoms from 500–900 CE (though this is uncertain, as indicated by the question mark).
Some of these factors were natural endowments, others “operated over the long-term”, while others still were more “narrowly circumscribed and contingent” (p. 332). The most important was the unidirectional nature of European developments compared to the back-and-forth in the Chinese experience, and the relative levels of state capacity and scale (the dominant trend was imperial restoration in China and inter- and intra-state fragmentation in Latin Europe).
Along with the consistent patterns in historical outcomes and the lack of plausible counterfactual outcomes, this “trifecta” suggests that Europe was a priori less likely to be brought under a hegemonic empire (in Scheidel’s words, it was “substantially [and causally] overdetermined” (p. 220, p. 330). In contrast, East Asia had highly favourable conditions for imperiogenesis, with South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa having intermediate conditions that resulted in oscillation between large-scale empire and capable regional polities, and thus, the lack of consistent trends. Scheidel argues this would be true regardless of which factors — geographical, ecological or cultural — we choose to privilege.
In Part 5 (“From the First to the Second Great Divergence”), Scheidel then argues that the political “First Great Divergence” between Roman and post-Roman Europe (Parts 2 and 3) and between Europe and other parts of the world (Part 4), wherein Europe was persistently fragmented, was an essential precondition for modern, industrial economic growth, and thus the classical “Great Divergence”. Scheidel first provides an overview of the various competing (and complementary) theories which seek to explain the causes of the Industrial Revolution — political and economic institutions, global connectivity, and culture — in Chapters 10 (“Institutions”), 11 (“New Worlds”) and 12 (“Understanding”) respectively, whilst recognising that such categorisation is arbitrary and severs potential connections. Scheidel, as with a long line of scholars, agree that realistic accounts are likely multifactorial, and proceeds to describe some.
Scheidel then argues that the “First Great Divergence” would be still be a critical cause regardless of which of the various theories on the causes of the Great Divergence are prioritised, as they would all indispensably depend on, in varying but consistently large degrees, the absence of any Roman-like empire and the resultant polycentrism between and within polities. Interstate and intrastate fragmentation sustained the competitive dynamics and constraints on authority that are at the core of the principal (and overlapping) explanations of industrialisation modern economic growth. A hegemonic empire would have interfered with the stable state system that sustained institutional variety and the productive competition for resources and innovation. Although Rome fell a long time ago, and its effects would not be experienced for centuries, a protracted building up was necessary.
(Scheidel also considers theories that are not dependent of polycentrism, most notably the demographic theories of the North-western European marriage pattern and the Black Death, and environmental ones, such as the nature of waterways. However, he argues that these non-political explanations are “best seen as contributions to our understanding” and are still “generally predicated on [and mediated by] specifically European modes of state formation” (p. 500). In other words, they could complement, but not independently replace as a rigorous alternative, the causal chain from fragmentation to the Industrial Revolution.)
Scheidel also argues that while this outcome was not a foregone conclusion, the underlying dynamic of polycentrism would not have taken place just as easily in somewhere other than Europe. The European (or even specifically British) style of polycentrism was essential and foundational to the creative destruction that led to the Industrial Revolution and the (Second) Great Divergence. (However, Scheidel is careful in explaining that his argument is not Eurocentric, only that it was specific to the European/British historical record, but not necessarily exclusively so; if “comparable conditions surfaced in some other part of the world, they might very well have produced similar results” (p. 501) and conversely, if these conditions had been absent from Europe, modern economic growth would not have happened.)
Finally, in the Epilogue (“What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?”), Scheidel considers whether a hegemonic empire, which first created some degree of share culture but later disappeared for good, was more conducive to the European economic breakthrough, compared to a counterfactual scenario in which no such empire had ever existed in the first place. While he maintains that Rome’s absence had a significantly greater impact, Scheidel concedes that Roman cultural traditions did mediate the long-term negative consequences of the disappearance of Roman imperial power, by providing an essential counterweight to intensive fragmentation and unproductive competition. It created a “‘goldilocks scenario’ of a Europe that was not too united but not too splintered either”, and thus, in Mokyr’s words, combin[ing] the best of fragmentation and consolidation” (p. 514). Two Roman-era legacies — Latin as a shared elite language and Christianity as a shared belief system backed by a single transnational organisation — facilitated the exchange of people, goods, and ideas across political and ideological boundaries (e.g. in the Republic of Letters). As Scheidel recognises that this goes beyond the bounds of defensible counterfactual reasoning and towards runway conjecture, he leaves this open: The Roman Empire may have been important in laying some crucial foundations for the Great Divergence and the transition to modernity, but it could just as likely be the case that its residual cultural unity may not have mattered, in terms of meaningful impact, compared to competitive fragmentation.
Background of Discussion
Scheidel’s work represents an extension of the long tradition of scholarship that has attributed modern European development to long-lasting political fragmentation and the institutions which emerged from it.
Of course, there are critics of this school of thought, most notably the “California School”, who, considering modern China’s economic growth, argued that unity was the basis of being an economic centre of gravity. Instead, the fragmented West’s dominance was due to accidental factors, such as the difference in the availability of resources, and hence, industrialisation is a fairly contingent and relatively recent phenomenon (Vries, 2010).
Another critique was by Epstein (2000), who also argued that market integration was hindered by the “freedoms” granted to towns and guilds, and what was needed for growth was the centralisation of state power and the expansion of state capacity, instead of constraints on the executive (quoted in Broadberry, 2015). Of course, this can be reconciled when we recognise that a balance is needed, between a state strong enough to enforce property rights, yet not so strong that it can appropriate all the gains from trade. Indeed, Dincecco (2010, quoted in Broadberry, 2015) argues that European economic development depended on a fiscally centralised yet politically limited regime, to provide public goods and ensure efficient spending of public revenues, whilst protecting private wealth creation, respectively.
Nonetheless, the premise of a united East and fragmented West is a major explanatory variable in most economic history literature (Morris, Scheidel & Lewis, 2008). Bosker, Buringh & Van Zanden (2013) argued that political fragmentation, and the development of local authority which made cities less dependent on the state, eventually evolved into a dynamic market-oriented urban system. Cheney (2012) argued that Europe’s political fragmentation, with its many cities, guilds and the Catholic Church, resulted in (the unintended, positive consequence of) growth-enhancing institutional innovations, as such legal entities were repurposed for business in the form of long-lived corporations. These could then successfully engage in multiple, large, long-lived, long-distance, risky projects.
Cox (2017) showed that growth correlations were greatest in the most fragmented and parliamentary areas; individual cities became more significantly tied to urban growth if they became part of a parliamentary realm; and spill-over effects due to competition between rulers were significant. Therefore, Cox argues that Europe’s political fragmentation interacted with her political innovations of self-governing cities and national parliaments to facilitate the “economic liberty” which unleashed faster and inter-connected urban growth.
Scheidel’s Contribution
Scheidel provides a valuable contribution to this discussion through an exploration of the potentially deeper origins of the “Great Divergence”. By focusing on the foundational features in the post-Roman Middle Ages, which underpinned future modern economic growth, he provides support for robustness of this outcome. Indeed, Scheidel shows that polycentrism and absence of a hegemonic empire were the norm in post-Roman Europe. Therefore, it was more likely that Europe, instead of other regions, was the one which diverged towards modern economic growth; in Scheidel’s words, the “outcomes appear to have been overdetermined” (p. 18).
However, there is an anomaly in this robust pattern — the Roman Empire. Therefore, economic historians who attribute the Great Divergence to Europe’s post-Roman fragmentation should consider the rise and fall of the Roman Empire, since its very existence was evidence that Europe was not always polycentric. If fragmentation made the modern world, it had a clear beginning in Rome’s fall.
By considering the issue from a much deeper historical context, Scheidel, a professor of classics and Roman history, provides an intriguing contribution to the Great Divergence debate. He has linked modernity (the Industrial Revolution) to trends from much further ancient history (the fall of Rome), and thus provides an even more long-term view of the Great Divergence. With this, Scheidel is suggesting much deeper roots for the Industrial Revolution, as opposed to other theories which attribute the causes to just the two centuries before the Industrial Revolution, or even to more recent contingencies.
Data, Evidence, and Research Method
Scheidel is upfront that he is confronting what he calls a “Very Big Question” (p. 30). In the Introduction, he even bemoans that the search for the causes of modern economic growth and the Great Divergence has largely been abandoned by professional historians, at least based on his personal experience. He states that in so doing, the field loses the benefit of trans-disciplinarity that professional historians can bring.
Scheidel is thus upfront that he is approaching this topic as a historian of ancient Rome, in contrast to economists or economic historians who are “lead[ing] the pack” (p. 20) in this line of research. He admits that his profession may predispose him to have an “affinity for the long run” (p. 20). Nevertheless, he suggests that it is perhaps because of this very external perspective which allowed him to conclude that the “many competing and complementary explanations of [the Great Divergence]… have something in common… in developments that commenced a very long time ago” (p. 20).
Scheidel uses two approaches to support his causal arguments. The first is historical comparison. He makes two broad categories of comparison, one across space and one across time. The first is between Europe’s post-Roman fragmentation and persistent imperialism in other parts of the world (mainly China, and in lesser detail, other parts of Asia and North Africa). The second is the comparison between the rise of Rome with the failure of successor European polities to re-establish a hegemonic empire.
Scheidel explains that the method of historical comparison allows him to “clarify the specific profile of individual cases” (p. 21) through contrast. By “alienating” (p. 22) what is familiar, in terms of time and place, to a particular case, he transcends those peculiarities. This allows him to avoid a limited, narrow-minded outlook, and better considers factors that are constant across cases. Considering other cases can also better question supposedly well-established causal accounts and generate new problems and insights.
Nevertheless, Scheidel admits that his comparative approach is mainly “asymmetric”. This means he is mainly interested in describing and explaining one case — Europe — through contrast with others. These other cases are thus not as comprehensive, nor brought in for their own sake, even fully researched. They are just sketched as a background. He does provide a more balanced argument in Chapters 7 to 9, when he equally compares post-ancient developments in both Europe and China, so as to better identify variables that lead to shared or divergent outcomes.
The second research method that Scheidel employs is counterfactuals, or “what if” scenarios. He explains that this is a method he “explicitly recourse[s] to”, due to his motivation to discover the robustness (and contingency) of his account. Scheidel explains that counterfactuals force historians to confront the weaknesses of various accounts. On one end of the spectrum, it challenges deterministic assumptions that deviations from what had happened would supposedly only be short-lived or the outcomes would have happened anyway. On the other end of the spectrum, it also confronts highly contingent accounts, in which minor contingencies would supposedly have produced a drastically different outcome from actual history. Counterfactuals also allow us to assess the relative importance of various factors.
Indeed, the key question posed by counterfactuals is how little change would have had to happen for history to unfold differently and significantly in terms of development. Scheidel therefore adheres to the “minimal rewrite rule”, where the least amount of tweaking of actual history (its conditions or its actors) would be applied, so as to avoid arbitrary intervention. In addition, ideally, counterfactuals should be consistent with well-established historical facts, trends, and cause-and-effects, so as to be reasonable. He also attempts to be clear about the flow of reasoning from antecedent(s) to consequence(s).
At the same time, Scheidel recognises that counterfactuals inevitably have second-order effects which would complicate the prediction. In general, the more these effects add to the complexity of counterfactual scenarios, the weaker the argument. It is also unavoidable, in general, because of the length of time which would have passed: The more time unfolds from the counterfactual change, the less control the historian has over the thought experiment. Scheidel therefore restricts counterfactual scenarios, and their outcomes, in the short-term, and thereby, avoid discussion of second-order effects.
Scheidel admits that his counterfactual scenarios are based on a desired end in mind. Therefore, he does not consider counterfactual changes with the highest probability, and then explore its outcomes. Instead, given the aim of this book, he seeks to identify the critical junctures, actual or potential, which would have led to a significantly different long-term outcome, compared to actual history. Nevertheless, he argues that if we uphold the “minimal rewrite rule”, not straying far from what could plausibly have happened, and if it is still not possible to obtain a significantly different outcome, then actual historical developments (and non-developments) would be revealed to have been quite robust. Such robustness would thus contain the “greatest” risk of designing counterfactuals that only support our own preconceived notions.
Critiques
1. On the detailedness of data and evidence
Because Scheidel’s theory has to contend with vast scales of space and time, generalisations and identifying patterns are unavoidable, and may even be helpful in consolidating vast history or generate insights. Scheidel himself acknowledges that, because of the “scale of the challenge inherent in this project, he “need[s] to survey different periods in a brutally reductive way, shunting aside infinite nuance”, resulting in a “parsimonious” account “focus[ed] on the big picture” which “most historians [would find] irremediably ‘reductive’” (p. 21).
A straw man critique would thus be to contend that his work, albeit being more than 600 pages in length, is not detailed or rigorous enough in terms of evidence and explanation. Of course, much more data and evidence would always be better in substantiating an argument, or arguments. Nevertheless, his 44 pages of References and 66 pages of Notes (endnotes) should go some way in showing that his analysis is at least supported, to some extent, by others. Scheidel recognises the variety in content and perspective is “bound to irritate… microscopically inclined historians” (p. 26). At the same time, he hopes that any critique of his work, to be valid, would “draw[…] on a similarly broad canvas — or… an even broader one”, or otherwise “show[…] why the canvas is too broad, or the wrong one” (p. 27).
2. On the reliability of data and evidence
While Scheidel supports his argument with much empirical data, especially demographic evidence that hegemonic empire was absent in Europe compared to other regions, he also recognises that “the population size of early societies is not normally reliably recorded or otherwise empirically known”. He attempts to take steps to ensure some degree of consistency across space and time, as described in his technical note at the end of the book. He also assures us that “we no longer have to worry about the problem of (gu)es(s)timating historical GDP or other poorly documented metrics” which “far exceeded any plausible margin of error” (p. 6).
Nevertheless, we must keep in mind the potential limited reliability. Indeed, in his “Technical Note to Chapter 1”, Scheidel acknowledges that the “only resource” he used was the Atlas of World Population History (1978), compiled by Colin McEverdy and Richard Jones. This is because, according to Scheidel, it is “the only resource that provides the required level of internal coherence and consistency” (p. 533). He also admits that “the charts provided… serve as a means to a very specific end”. Nevertheless, he suggests that they are not “incompatible with the historical record” and “advise[s] readers not to use these tentative reconstructions in ways that go too far beyond this limited objective: they are based on controlled conjecture, and are not to be mistaken for historical ‘facts’” (p. 535). In another example, in Scheidel’s substantiation of Roman economic growth, he acknowledges it would only be the case “if we are prepared to interpret a variety of archaeological proxy data as a rough reflection of output or consumption trends — admittedly a big and rightly contested ‘if’” (p. 504).
Of course, we should not unfairly blame Scheidel for not using the most reliable evidence to support his claims, if such evidence is unavailable at all. As always, if possible, we should strive for more reliable evidence. Perhaps newer findings and methods could be used to generate more reliable historical information, or confirm the existing evidence. As the saying “garbage in, garbage out” implies, if there is reason to be wary of the evidence, we need to keep this in mind, and apply healthy (though not unproductive) scepticism to the implications and conclusions.
3. On qualitative reasoning
Scheidel also admits that his reasoning relies on “a great deal of qualitative reasoning”. The text is mainly narrative, and his counterfactual approach means he is considering non-events, of which there is no available empirical data forcing him to engage essentially in qualitative thought experiments.
Nevertheless, Scheidel should be commended on avoiding absolutes and trying to establish degrees. For example, as seen in Table 2, he considers the various degrees of state extractive capacity and stability, as well as both the level (high, medium, low) and change in direction (increasing or declining). At the same time, he also avoids the ‘linearity trap’ of causation: Whilst he is firm in his argument that “caseless struggle that ushered in the most dramatic and exhilaratingly open-ended transformation in the history” (p. 502), in the Epilogue, he also concedes that too much fragmentation and competition could be unproductive and the residual common legacies of Latin and Christianity could have been important in facilitating the cooperation which led to the Industrial Revolution.
The qualitative approach could also be partly be due to the nature of the book, which seems to be written for a larger, everyday general audience. Perhaps it needed some artistic license in order to ensure appeal and understanding. In addition, some factors, such as culture (for example, Scheidel argues “the nature of belief systems” is a proximal cause of persistent European polycentrism), may be unquantifiable.
Still, qualitative explanations run the risk of being a “sleight of hand”, with the choice of words subtly shaping the argument towards one’s desired end, and making it difficult to critique either way. Therefore, some quantified data, reasonably applied in a model, could better establish causal relationships and help identify the relative importance of various factors. Indeed, the use of quantification and social scientific models is a key feature of cliometrics, or “new economic history”. The cliometric approach would no longer merely seek to broadly describe and explain events qualitatively, but use sophisticated econometric and statistical methods to actually verify arguments. Indeed, one of the foremost practitioners, Fogel (1964), developed carefully framed models to control variables and econometrically test a counterfactual hypothesis (Gilderhus, 1996). While Scheidel does use quantitative data, he mostly does not subject them to econometric methods or models.
(Of course, we should note that Scheidel is approaching this research topic as a historian, and thus should not be faulted for taking the historian’s approach. Still, this topic has had seen valuable contribution from economic historians, whose econometrical research methods he could work with to strengthen his argument).
4. On the use of counterfactuals
We can also critique about the use of counterfactual history as a research method. The use of counterfactual reasoning to establish causal inferences is hotly debated in historiography. The prominent historian E. H. Carr famously dismissed counterfactual history as a “parlour game” (MacWatters, 2016; Talbot, 2009), describing counterfactual analysis as arbitrary, speculative and self-serving (Levy, 2015). With an infinite number of things that could have happened, and the temptation of constructing “counterfactuals of convenience” to bolster one’s preferred historical interpretations or political preferences, counterfactuals should not be readily accepted as rigorous (Levy, 2015).
However, Scheidel very reasonably points out, and I am inclined to agree, that counterfactuality is inherent in any historical account that seeks to go beyond more description, and instead provide some account of causation. This is because any argument on causation ultimately makes the assumption that the actual outcome would not have occurred if those very same causes it purports to be important are different. As Woodward (2003) explains in his book on causation, Making Things Happen, “One ought to be able to associate with any successful explanation a hypothetical or counterfactual experiment that shows us that and how the manipulation of the factors mentioned in the explanation would be a way of manipulating or altering the phenomenon explained.”
With this in mind, Scheidel commendably established some guidelines of his use of counterfactuals. His “minimal rewrite rule”; attempts to clarify antecedents, consequents and causal paths; consistency with well-established historical trends; and his avoidance of second-order effects are similar to some of Levy (2015)’s proposed standards and best practices for valid counterfactuals.
Still, we may politely question to what extent Scheidel successfully follows his “minimal rewrite rule”. How much is considered too much? On the other end of the spectrum, we can also ask if not allowing for second-order effects also unproductively limits investigation into worthy topics. Even if we accept limiting second-order effects, on a methodological level, we can also ask what is the right definition of a first-order versus a second-order effect. In addition, as Scheidel admits that his counterfactual scenarios are teleological, we can ask whether he successfully avoided defining counterfactuals that supported his own preconceived notions. Of course, I am not saying that Scheidel was wrong or unsuccessful — that I am in position to judge. Perhaps supporting work by other (economic) historians will help improve or corroborate Scheidel’s work.
Ultimately, we must sympathise with historians due to the very nature of history, the evidence under consideration. Unlike science, in which variables can be controlled in empirical experiments, and predictions falsified (a famous criterion set by the philosopher of science Karl Popper to be considered a “scientific” theory), history strictly only has a sample size of “one”. For example, as Scheidel recognises, research into Rome’s fall has focused on “single-case studies” (p. 129). As such, the whole past cannot completely be replicated and ‘replayed’, with the variable in question removed and the outcome observed. As Scheidel admits, the “congruence of different factors makes it harder to identify the essential variables” (p. 332).
(Of course, if we relax our requirement that all variables must be absolutely the same, then we could have more ‘samples’ — this is the assumption behind Scheidel’s first method — historical comparison — in which he transcends the peculiarities of time and place and only considers factors that are present across different cases. However, this raises another problem — are we excluding, a priori, relevant causes, even if they are unique to the European experience? Despite concerns that these Eurocentric interpretations may not ‘politically correct’, uniquely European factors could still have a causal impact.)
While counterfactuals may not be perfect, there seems to be no equivalent of scientific experimentation for historians. Therefore, we may have to accept that “an analysis of the validity of those counterfactual implications is the only within-case way of assessing the validity of causal arguments” (Levy, 2015).
Still, that does not mean that counterfactual reasoning is not a valid historical method. If counterfactual analysis is transformed from mere imaginative speculation to a rigorous system of disciplined thinking (explicit, theoretically-grounded and logically-acceptable), and used with other methods such as process tracing and the comparative method (which Scheidel does), then it can be an additional methodological tool for evaluating causation in a complex world (Levy, 2015).
5. On chance versus determinism
Scheidel’s argument also brings up several debates regarding the historical process. The first is between chance (contingency) and determinism. Scheidel reminds us that “it is all too easy to err on the side of determinism — the notion that observed outcomes were the ones most likely to occur — or on the side of contingency — the notion that things might just as readily have turned out completely differently” (p. 110). While he argues that “Europe’s breakthrough was not a highly contingent process that might just as readily have taken place elsewhere” since “a protracted build-up was necessary”, he is careful to acknowledge that it was “by no means inevitable” (p. 14).
However, it seems that Scheidel, overall, believes that the balance between determinism and contingency tends more to determination and less to contingency, especially as more time passes. (Here, there is related historiographical debate about the nature of history — is it progressive or without pattern?) Specifically, Scheidel argues that that Europe was a priori less likely to be brought under a hegemonic empire, and the long-term absence of a hegemonic empire (post-Roman European polycentrism) was permanently robust. For example, while he recognises the custom of dividing the realm among the king’s sons as “specific to the Frankish experience”, he considers it “not in any meaningful way contingent [as] it was the product of deeply rooted structural conditions” (p. 158). Indeed, Scheidel argues that enduring European polycentrism was not due to chance, because it was derived from its physical environment. It was “in no small measure because of where [Europeans] lived” (p. 502). (He clarifies that he is not arguing for geographical determinism, just that geography and ecology made certain outcomes more likely, and therefore, European polycentrism is, in that sense, not accidental.)
We can contrast this to Hoffman (2015)’s characterisation of the political history of Europe: “the outcome was not at all preordained” (p. 17; 65–66). Indeed, Hoffman suggests that if the Carolingian Empire did not collapse and persisted longer, for example, if Louis the Pious did not change the succession plans, something that Scheidel also acknowledges (p. 156), then Europe may have remained a hegemon. Hoffman even suggests that if the Carolingian Empire had persisted long enough for its rulers to reshare the incentives of elites, then it might have time to loosen the ties regional elites had to local society, allowing loyalty to the central government to take root. Over time, it would have reversed the cultural evolution of parochial altruism, and allow Western Europe to be durably unified (p. 173–174).
If so, this suggests the authors have some differing views about whether there had been sufficient time, since the fall of Rome, for fragmentation to be deeply embedded in European political structure, and thus, for polycentrism to be persistently robust. Hoffman argued it was not and the outcome still contingent, whereas Scheidel disagrees that “it could have been averted if particular events — successions, wars, and so on — had turned out differently.” (p. 158).
Both authors also had slightly different views regarding other counterfactuals in later European history, which again reflect their different positions on the contingency-determinism spectrum. While Scheidel argues that Habsburg hegemony “was improbable even in the short-term” (p. 204) and the French quest for hegemony, from Louis XIV to Napoleon, “could not be maintained” (p. 211), Hoffman (2015) was more open to the idea: “if one of these monarchs had somehow annihilated the others and become a European hegemon, then learning by doing would have screeched to a stop, for no one would have dared challenge the hegemon.” (p. 66), We should note that Hoffman does not explain this counterfactual in-depth, merely to support his main point that political history was not inevitable.
We may politely ask if Scheidel’s approach is at least partially teleological; with a given end in mind (European polycentrism), all factors that contributed to it are prioritised, while factors that would have led to a different outcome are brushed aside, albeit carefully.
However, one case in which Scheidel acknowledges that the “contingency” interpretation has equal strength the impact of residual Roman legacies. In particular, Scheidel acknowledges that “there is at least a good chance that imperial Christianity was in fact essential in bringing about much later breakthroughs” (p. 520). If true, then “we would find ourselves in the remarkable position of having to attribute the emergence of the modern world to a highly contingent chain of events, from the Disciples who spread the faith to Paul of Tarsus who made it more accessible and on to the emperor Constantine and his sons” (p. 519).
Overall, Scheidel’s careful nuance would avoid criticisms levied against historians who fall too much into either the “determinism” or “contingency” school of history. Indeed, Scheidel properly recognises the “real question is just how much this trend owed to compound and reinforcing effects, and how far these effects reached back in time”. Scheidel’s “own answer, of course, is that their roots were very deep indeed” (p. 26). Nevertheless, he admits that in there was a “self-sustaining and self-reinforcing process of decentralisation”, albeit “in different ways depending on local conditions” (p. 240), where “greater political fracture allowed greater cultural diversity, and vice versa” (p. 313, p. 327), alongside a “dialectical dynamic of empire and ideology” (p. 326). This mutual reinforcement between ideology and incentives also occurred in China (p. 395).
Nevertheless, while interesting, the debate on the extent of determinism and contingency in history is difficult to definitively ascertain, again because of the single sample size of “one”. Similar to what Scheidel reminds us in a different debate (internal versus external forces resulting in the fall of Rome), “[t]hough ever-tempting… [it] may well prove to be a dead end” (p. 129).
6. On agency versus structure
The second issue that Scheidel’s arguments bring up is the significance of individual agency versus structure in historical causation. As Scheidel himself recognises, because he is confronting a “Very Big Question” that spans across centuries and across various regions, and given his profession as a historian of ancient Rome, it may predispose him to have an affinity for the long run. By considering such a vast scope of space and time, Scheidel, inevitably or necessarily, had “focus[ed] on the big picture”, such as “empire-bearing structures” (p. 131). This, he admits, “most historians [would find] irremediably ‘reductive’”. Indeed, he acknowledges he has “survey[ed] different periods in a brutally reductive way, shunting aside infinite nuance” (p. 21).
Indeed, Scheidel argues that “broad trends proved more influential than specific events” (p. 212) in Europe’s persistent fragmentation. Most of the causes of persistent European polycentrism that Scheidel identified, both proximate and ultimate, are broader structural forces, such as economic systems, belief systems, geography and ecology. This analysis mainly abstracts on key trends and tends to focus on broad generalisations applied to all case studies.
However, the unique human agency of individual historical actors arguably has a role to play as well, especially if they are in positions of great power and authority. The question is, how important is it, relative to broader structural factors?
We must not forget the many unique micro-causes that contributed to those specific events, even if those events were considered in a larger context to distil broader trends. This is not a critique of the large variety of events and perspectives considered. Instead, this is regarding each historical event under consideration. Each of them could have significant unique causes, which are ‘micro’ in the sense that it applies only to that particular case study. While individual incidents may be outside the purview of macro-historians, due to reasons of practicality or approach, they should be considered for a comprehensive historical account (Hekster, 2016).
(Note: This is also related to the contingency-determinism debate, since micro-level causes would better support the view that the historical process is a matter of contingency; whereas macro-level structural causes, given they apply to a society or polity at large, and are generally more resistant to change by individuals, would better support a relatively deterministic or teleological perspective.)
Scheidel did, commendably, acknowledge some individual or micro-level human agency-related inputs which could have significant counterfactual consequence, notably Alexander the Great’s possible interruption of Rome’s rise and the aforementioned unique Frankish custom of dividing territory among male heirs which allowed for polycentrism.
However, overall, Scheidel assigns more weight to broader structures: “Structural properties and systematic disparities between core and periphery were the principal driving forces. Much the same was true of the post-Roman period, as general conditions and broad trends proved more influential than specific events” (p. 212).
For example, Scheidel describes Napoleon and Hitler as “blips” in history and their impact “relatively modest and utterly ephemeral” (p. 36) in terms of establishing a hegemonic empire. According to Scheidel, “by the early nineteenth century, the European state system — forged of centuries of inconclusive warfare and self-strengthening reforms — had become too deeply entrenched, too large (thanks to Russia), and too capable of drawing on external resources (thanks to Britain) for any one party in Latin Europe to overpower and control all the others” (p. 210).
While Napoleon’s and Hitler’s empires were remarkably short, one could reasonably argue that if it had not been for perfectly plausible actions or non-actions by these historical actors, each wielding significant power to shape history, specifically the invasion of Russia by both dictators, then European history could have turned out very different, with the establishment of a sustainable post-Roman hegemonic empire.
Regarding Hitler, military historian Antony Beevor argued that if he had maintained the new status quo after defeating France (an actual plan to invade the Soviet Union had not emerged until December 1940), and steadily built up his power, he would have been in a very strong position and even repel a Soviet threat. Still, because of Hitler’s hatred of Bolshevism, and his view that the invasion of the Soviet Union was his life’s mission (Kowalski, 2019), it would seem that he always intended to invade Russia, and thus this counterfactual may be less probable. However, many historians have pointed out that the 5-week delay in Hitler’s invasion of Russia, Operation Barbarossa, was a central factor in determining the outcome of the war in the east (Salevouris, 1989).
For Napoleon, Parker (1990) notes that the reasons for his decision to invade Russia were complex, and “moved through 3 stages: an awareness that war with Russia, always possible, was actively looming; a recognition that one issue was so vital that he would have to attack; then the decision to attack”. Any point on this chain could have plausibly been broken with a minimal rewrite of history. If Tsar Alexander III had not violated the Treaty of Tilsit and adhered to the Continental System, the 1812 invasion may not have proceeded. Indeed, many of Napoleon’s closest and most trusted counsellors advised against invading Russia and the decision remained unavowed for many months (Parker, 1990). Alternatively, Napoleon could have won his war against Russia. Fuller (1998)’s compelling analysis has shown that the decisive factors in Napoleon’s defeat in Russia were due to “the errors and accomplishments of both combatants”, which suggests the outcome was more a matter of chance (Drohan, 2006).
Indeed, if, as Scheidel acknowledges, “a string of highly contingent victories between 1805 and 1807 was needed to turn [Napoleon] into Europe’s momentary hegemon”, then it would not be unreasonable for Napoleon to have made a similarly contingent decision not to invade Russia (or stay in Moscow for longer than necessary), which would have preserved Napoleon’s Grand Army and his empire. Scheidel also acknowledges that “[h]ad [Napoleon] been more restrained in his objectives, it might have been possible for France to make and preserve gains over the longer run, most plausibly by establishing hegemony or even direct rule over continental Europe west of Prussia and Austria” (p. 211). Even though Scheidel also argues that that counterfactual still “would not have created an empire of ancient Rome’s demographic pre-eminence, and would have kept Britain’s position largely intact” such that “modern economic growth and industrialisation could have proceeded unabated” (p. 212), he admits that a French invasion of Britain “was likely blocked by the considerable superiority of the British navy”. If so, as historian Dan Snow (2016) has noted, “England’s and then Britain’s navy was not pre-destined for greatness” and the French navy was superior to the English at certain times in the 17th century.
Of course, these many rewrites of history would seem to violate the “minimal rewrite” rule of counterfactual reasoning. However, a “minimal rewriting” presupposes the canvas to be rewritten, in this case, actual human history. However, there is no reason to suggest that the chain of minor, contingent events of our historical reality (A, B, C, …), which led to our historical outcome, is any more probable than an alternative history with a different set of (similarly probable) minor, contingent events (A’, B’, C’, …) which could have led to a different outcome in the same historical context. Such rewriting is still a “minimal rewrite”, just of multiple events, consisting of one-off individual decisions, into highly plausible alternative one-off decisions. The structures of human society and polities are still present and the same. One could argue that our set of minor, contingent events is not any more likely than another set.
If so, then Scheidel’s suggestion that “the persistence of certain trends in the long-term… raises the very real possibility that the institutional and organisational features that sustained these robust trends were themselves embedded in and moulded by more fundamental preconditions” (p. 258), albeit reasonable, may not necessarily be true. The persistence of trends does not mean their causes must be structural. It could be the case that multiple contingent, micro-level events, borne of human agency, happened to result in the same outcome each time. Of course, this is difficult to prove or disprove, again due to the nature of history with a sample size of “one”. Ultimately, it also depends on the historian’s perspective — do they consider contingent individual agency to have a sufficiently huge impact?
(Another argument, which Scheidel also considers, is that any conqueror who is ambitious enough to attempt to re-establish a hegemonic empire will ultimately undermine their own success, since it would result in overreach, prompting a decisive response against that empire, threatening its survival or sustainability. As was the case, Napoleon and Hitler’s empire was eventually confronted with a huge constellation of power — the Coalition and the Allies — who defeated and ended their empires. But is this human behaviour evidence of structure or the power of human agency?)
In conclusion, the debate between individual human agency and wider structures is a long-standing one in social theory (Martin, 2016), and historians differ in their treatment of the importance of individual agency versus structure (Pomper, 1996). Indeed, the view of history which prioritises human agency, as represented by ‘great man theory’, is itself subject to serious criticism. Ultimately, the question is whether human will is able to override, or escape the influence of, existing embedded structures, or are individuals, despite their best efforts, are ultimately subject to wider structural forces. (There is also a chicken-and-egg question about structure and agency — which came first? If humans created structures, then could we overturn them? If structure has always existed in some form, then how did it arise without human agency?) It could also be a question of time: At what time scales do agency or structure have more impact?
The point here is not to discount Scheidel’s account of the causes for European polycentrism, for which he provides good support. Martin (2016) has even suggested that the agency-structure debate is flawed, since the concepts of a structural ‘entity’ and freely-acting ‘individuals’ are fictions; instead, he argues that structure emerges from, and exerts influence on, the interactions and decisions of people. However, to assuage historians who place more emphasis on human agency, Scheidel could consider further improving his argument, by further justifying, in some areas, why the impact of a contradictory human agent would be outweighed by the structural tendency for fragmentation and polycentrism.
Future Research and Further Extensions
The impressive scope of history that Scheidel considers is courageous and commendable in itself. Each chapter (even sub-chapters), each historical period, and each theory he considers could be its own book. In that sense, Scheidel is ultimately constrained by the incredibly extensive scope he has set for himself, which not even 600 pages, or even a lone historian, can cover. Given the vast scope of this research question, further research and future extensions can be suggested, as Scheidel himself also recommends throughout the book.
One is to expand on the number of alternative cases compared to Europe. Scheidel admits that North Africa and some parts of Asia already have lesser detail than China. He also a priori excludes Southeast Asia, Mesoamerica, and western South America due to being “substantially smaller” than the macro-regions of state formation under his consideration (Europe; Middle East and North Africa; East Asia). However, Scheidel admits that Southeast Asia was also characterised by persistent polycentrism (p. 48), and thus “had more in common with Europe” (p. 330), being similarly far from the steppe as Europe. Perhaps adjustments could be made to ensure micro-regions are also considered, which could better support (or improve upon) Scheidel’s argument. Scheidel only briefly mentions Southeast Asia in passing, and only has around 1 page of discussion on page 303.
Of course, this could simply be due to the lack of historical data from these regions, and it is unreasonable to expect one individual historian to have in-depth knowledge of other historical regions, of which the available knowledge itself could also be limited. Still, more research of these different regions and time periods, which have limited information, could have an even greater impact in informing, even transforming, current theories, since it represents not an extension of current knowledge, but completely new ones. Indeed, Scheidel recognises that Southeast Asia was also characterised by persistent polycentrism (p. 48), and was far from the steppe, and thus “had more in common with Europe” (p. 330). If so, why didn’t Southeast Asia embark on its own industrial revolution? Perhaps adjustments could be made to include micro-regions for consideration.
Therefore, greater collaboration among historians (both “big history” historians and those specialising in a specific region or time period), as well as with academics in other disciplines, would better add to the vast repository of information needed to inform the debate on this “Very Big Question”.
Another future extension is to include more quantitative reasoning into Scheidel’s predominantly qualitative account, perhaps through quantitative models. Of course, some variables, such as culture, are intangible and thus, necessarily qualitative. At the same time, quantitative evidence are also be open to their own methodological criticisms, beyond the reliability of the data. Using quantified proxies for qualitative variables can be challenged on its relatedness. Even if we attempt to quantify intangible factors, such as Ian Morris did in his Social Development Index, it is open to other criticisms involving the assigning of values and weightage of factors. Such criticisms are unproductive by themselves; we should not discount these methodological tools even if they are not absolutely perfect. As such, in general, the field would benefit from more quantitative data, applying modelling techniques, even if it provides just an alternative research method.
Conclusion and Final Thoughts
The 600-plus page tome was certainly very readable and entertaining, especially if one has a broad-based interest in world history. Scheidel brings us through a large expanse of history; almost two millennia from the Roman Empire to Napoleon and across several regions. He also commendably considers, albeit briefly, regions that have, based on my limited knowledge, generally been ignored by researchers. The focus has been on Europe versus China, while regions like Southeast Asia have been given limited attention (perhaps also due to limited evidence).
The scope of history that Scheidel considers is therefore courageous and commendable in itself. Each chapter (even sub-chapters), each historical period, and each theory he considers could be its own large book. Therefore, Scheidel is ultimately constrained by the incredibly extensive scope he has set for himself, which not even 600 pages, or even a lone historian, can cover. And despite this, in my opinion, he has done a fantastic job. Scheidel is also upfront and respects the intelligence of the reader, explaining his methodology whilst acknowledging the limitations. He is humble and open to criticism and further improvement.
One final thought is, I think, worth reflecting. While Scheidel makes a strong argument that the absence of empire was the single most important precondition for modern economic growth, industrialisation, and later Western global dominance, one must be careful not to overly prize fragmentation and discount unity. We should not forget that there are also positive consequences of imperial rule, and negative consequences of political fragmentation. Not only is empire the most stable political organisation for 2,500 years (Harari, 2014), the case could be made that the people living in empires had a more decent life than their counterparts in post-Roman Europe up to the Industrial Revolution. Indeed, the apex of empires has been characterised as an age of stability and prosperity, as in the Pax Romana and Pax Mongolica. In contrast, western Europe during the Middle Ages was “poor, violent, [and] politically chaotic” (Hoffman, 2015).
At the same time, the time required, after Rome’s fall, to spark the Industrial Revolution spanned more than a millennium, and the suffering of the peoples during that time should not be discounted. It would be hard to justify to the people then that their conditions were necessary just so future generations would be better off. If there are lessons for developmental policies, it is that the people along the way should not be forgotten. Managing the transition is just as important as the outcome. Scheidel concurs: “Empire was an effective and successful way of organizing large numbers of people in agrarian societies.” (p. 15) and “[his] assessment should not be mistaken as a judgment of the Roman empire and its contribution to human welfare at the time” (p. 503). Perhaps the fall of Rome should be, as is tradition, considered a tragedy, as well as something bad to escape from.
Furthermore, while industrialisation and modern economic growth have many advantages — which in fairness, it does — it also has serious negative impacts, such as ecological degradation, the collapse of the family and community, consumerism, and unhappiness (Harari, 2014). The industrialisation of warfare led to mass killings, and the development of nuclear weapons is arguably part of that process. While the value of some of these negative impacts is admittedly subjective, Harari (2014) questions if modern generations are truly happier than previous generations.
In conclusion, it is my opinion that, overall, the book has succeeded in providing a strong argument for a potential grand narrative (to the extent that it exists) that seeks to answer the Very Big Question of the cause(s) of the Great Divergence, with good explanations and justifications. With a wealth of supporting evidence and justification, the core of Scheidel’s argument would be difficult to challenge. As Scheidel hopes, any critique of his work, to be valid, should “draw[…] on a similarly broad canvas — or… an even broader one”, or otherwise “show[…] why the canvas is too broad, or the wrong one” (p. 27). At the very least, Escape from Rome provides a useful summary of the many theories on the Great Divergence for students of economic history.
Indeed, the critiques in Section 2 are less about his arguments proper than they are about the detailedness and reliability of data (Sections 2.1 and 2.2), improved methodologies (Sections 2.3 and 2.4) and alternative historiographical approaches (Sections 2.5 and 2.6). Here, more data and a more rigorous approach is always better, and perfection is impossible, so Scheidel should not be unfairly blamed if data is unavailable or held to an impossible standard. At the same time, Scheidel’s methodology and structuralist perspective are equally valid in historical analysis.
To whatever extent you may agree, Scheidel has certainly succeeded in positing a thought-provoking question about the legacies of the Roman Empire for modern economic growth, beyond culture and traditions. How we could apply his insights to further economic growth, if the causes of the Great Divergence are in the distant past, is another question worthy of its own treatment.
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