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Pandemics in Roman Empire correlate with sudden climate changes
Pandemics in Roman Empire correlate with sudden climate changes A new temperature and precipitation proxy record shows that periods of rapid cooling align with the civilization’s three worst disease outbreaks. Physics Today 77 (4), 17–18 (2024); Plankton living in the Mediterranean Sea some 2000 years ago have helped researchers to uncover a correlation between climate change […]
Rome Was Eternal, Until It Wasn’t: Imperial Analogs of Decay
Rome Was Eternal, Until It Wasn’t: Imperial Analogs of Decay The tricky part is distinguishing the critical dependencies–those resources the empire literally cannot do without–from longer-term sources of decay and decline. In response to my recent post What If There Are No Analogs for 2024?, an astute reader nominated the Roman Empire as a fitting analog. Longtime […]
Lessons from the Unraveling of the Roman Empire: Simplification, Localization
Lessons from the Unraveling of the Roman Empire: Simplification, Localization The fragmentation, simplification and localization of the post-Imperial era offers us lessons we ignore at our peril. There is an entire industry devoted to “why the Roman Empire collapsed,” but the post-collapse era may be offer us higher value lessons. The post-collapse era, long written off […]
When in Rome
When in Rome Over its last one hundred years, the State steadily devalued the currency by 98% The high cost of government—particularly, growing entitlements and perpetual warfare, coupled with a diminished number of taxpayers, led the government to massive debt, to the point that it could not be repaid. Those citizens that were productive began […]
Governments have been screwing up their supply chains for 2,000 years
Governments have been screwing up their supply chains for 2,000 years On the evening of March 16th in the year 37 AD, one of the most controversial emperors in Roman history appeared to be dying in his bed. Friends and family gathered to pay their final respects to Emperor Tiberius, who had ruled for more […]
America’s Attila the Hun moment
America’s Attila the Hun moment In the year 435 AD, after several years of endless menacing from the nomadic Hun tribe, the Roman Empire was ready to make a deal. The Huns were fairly new on the continent; they had originally come from central Eurasia as recently as 370 AD. Yet in the span of […]
Biden Acting Like a Tyrant?
Biden Acting Like a Tyrant? The Roman emperor who marked the complete fall of the Roman Empire in the 3rd century, 260 AD, was Valerian (253-260 AD). In 259 AD, Valerian moved on to Edessa to challenge the Persians, but an outbreak of plague killed a significant portion of his legionaries, which weakened the Roman […]
Was the fall of the Roman Empire due to plagues & climate change?
Was the fall of the Roman Empire due to plagues & climate change? Preface. Harper (2017) shows the brutal effects of plagues and climate change on the Roman Empire. McConnell (2020) proposes that a huge volcanic eruption in Alaska was a factor in bringing the Roman Empire and Cleopatra’s Egypt down. In addition, there are other […]
Keeping the Balance
Keeping the Balance COMMENT: Civil unrest is defivately rising, your models are so good at looking far into the future! With incidents like this, I really find it interesting reading public comments on social media are empathetic and typically left leaning. I also find it interesting how ignorant the left are in not realizing that they are […]
The American infrastructure, ancient Rome and ‘Limits to Growth’
The American infrastructure, ancient Rome and ‘Limits to Growth’ Infrastructure is the talk of the town in Washington, D.C. where I now live and with good reason. The infrastructure upon which the livelihoods and lives of all Americans depends is in sorry shape. The American Society of Civil Engineers 2021 infrastructure report card gives the United States […]
Western Civilization has become a never-ending Jerry Springer episode
Western Civilization has become a never-ending Jerry Springer episode Early in the 2nd century AD, around the year 101, the Roman humorist Decimus Junius Juvenalis began publishing a collection of satirical poems poking fun at the Empire. Rome was already in serious decline by the time Juvenalis wrote his first poem. In the first century […]
It’s time to start thinking about inflation
It’s time to start thinking about inflation In the year 215 AD, the young Roman Emperor Caracalla, then just 27 years of age, decided to ‘fix’ Rome’s perennial inflation problem by minting a brand new coin. Caracalla’s predecessors over the previous several decades had ordered an astonishing debasement of Roman currency; the silver content in […]
