IMGx54

290 The Origin of CiviIisation

Table 5.1 Compantive Sizes of Empires (millions of square miles)

empire	DATĘ (approx)	SIZE
Egypt	c.1500 BC	0.8
China (size varied)	sińce lst Century BC	4
Roman	2nd Century AD	2
Umayyad	8th Century AD	5
Spanish	18th Century AD	5
Russia: 1. Peter the Great	AD 1689-1725	6
2.	c.AD 1850	8
British Empire
1.	1870	4.5
2.	1914	11.1

Source: G. & J.Lenski, "Humań Societies An Introduction to Macrosociology," 1978. p 192; M.Falkus & J.Gillingham, "Historical Atlas of Britain," 1981, p 142, (for sizes of the British Empire).

The Russian Empire is the lar gest political unit on the contemporary scene, but several trading and defence blocs haue emerged which could take ouer the role played by imperial regimes in earlier periods. The European Economic Community, founded in 1957 with only six original members, was increased to nine in 1972, and to twelve in 1986. The number of independent nations has also been increasing as the old colonial regions of the Third World achieue sowereign status. In 1945, at inception, the United Nations had 51 founding member nations. This grew to 76 by 1955, to 120 in 1965 and to 144 in 1975. Although by 1985 the membership was still enlarging, (it reached 159 nations, with the number of Third World members exceeding those of the industrial countries), the concept of a federated global state could yet be realised. It would operate along similar lines to the EEC or C0MEC0N, but would be based on a fully integrated political concept rather than being mainly a functional economic organisation.

Both their graphs are indirectly demonstrating the Łnherent exponential naturę of cultural actiwity, a concept that was explored in great depth in chapŁer 4. Successful cultures expand in size by gobbling up their smaller, morę wulnerable neighbours. It is this ratę of expansion which has the tendency to increase geometrically. Given Limę, the abaolute number of independent political States will fali but the owerall territorial size of the resulting empires will increase commcnsurately. The experience of the

the last forty years, with the exceptionally rap id break-up of the Europęan empires, especially the British Empire (Map 20) would seem, superficially, to eontradiet this long-term trend. However, on the ultra-long record we cannot judge one forty-year span, no matter how reuolut ionary, as indicative of the long-run trend, when the overwhelming euidence prior to 1945 does show the continuous acceleration towards large scalę political integration.

Map 19 Old World Empires Around AD 100

Indeed, the trend towards greater political unity accords with the concept that culture is autocatalytic, feeding upon the cross subsystem products of its own reactivity. This implies the possibility of an explosive climax resulting from the cycle of se 1 f-perpetuat ing changes. The slogan ' nothing succeeds like success’, reflects the trend by which successful cultures go on in the hour of their prime, to record ever greater successes. Carneiro also draws our attention to the underlying biological basis of this phenomenon, which we examined as part of the theoretical argument to support the ultima te emergence of one global civilisation: