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This social complexity needs significant amounts of energy or other forms of wealth. When the Roman Empire confronted problems like the shortage of energy, it created new layers of social class, infrastructure, and bureaucracy to deal with the challenge (Tainter 128).
With Tainter's theory in mind, it is clear that the Roman Empire came down because these increasing complexities led to the negative marginal returns (Tainter 188). As such, the agricultural output of Rome slowly decreased while the population increased (Skoll 64). A combination of these two factors led to a drop in the availability of per-capita energy. The Romans adopted short-term measures to overcome this problem by conquering their neighbors to bag their energy surpluses such as grain, slaves, and metals. Sadly, in the long-term, this solution only exacerbated the problem because as the empire continued to expand, the costs of sustaining garrisons, communications and the government also increased (Knutsen 90). In the end, this cost became so huge that such that the empire's strategy of acquiring more territory could not even address new challenges like…
Under the ruling of their new king, Alaric, the Visigoths decided that they deserved gold in order to live in decency. Since the Roman government refused to support the Germanic tribe, the Visigoths marched on Rome, defeating the numerous forces gathered to defend the city. In spite of the fact that the Romans were better experienced in warfare they did not stand a chance before the more powerful Germanic
E. The voices who argue that America should and could be an imperial superpower, but lacks sound practical judgment. The thesis of this paper is that the history of the Roman Empire can be matched to that of the United States in terms of economy, political power, as well as aspirations. In this sense, present day America is very similar to fourth of even fifth century Rome; this poses one stringent
Both were established as the preeminent nation during their respective heyday, both used their internal structure of semi-democratic rule to establish their "right" to impress other nations to their way of life, both made exceptional use of false rhetoric to convince others of their preeminence, and both stretched their militaries to the point of breaking - more than once. Additionally, research demonstrates that the decline in American popularity coincides with
Ottoman Empire In 1683, when the Ottoman forces were besieging Vienna, the empire reached its high-water mark and then began its slow, steady decline after suffering a major defeat in this battle. Only very gradually did Europeans come to perceive it as the Sick Man of Europe, however, since it was still formidable enough to play an important role in the defeat of Russia in the Crimean War of 1854-56. This
One of the most brilliant contributions of the Byzantium is its contribution to modern music and the development of what the world has come to appreciate as the foundations of classical music. The Byzantine "medieval" (Lang, 1997), in fact, the Byzantium influence is considered to be critical to the development of the Greek music and the relative genius behind Greek music (Lang, 1997) The quoted sovereign melody (Lang, 1997) is the
Collapsing Certainties Theme of Collapsing Uncertainties The Collapsing Birth Rate in the Developed World Human beings perceive events, individuals, and objects in different manners in relation to the circumstances and understanding. This is vital towards the development of concept of reality with the aim of continuous leadership, caring, and forms of goodness. This is an indication that human beings believe in whatever they see and purport to be ideal thus generation of