Lesson 4-3: Lifecycle of Civilisations, Part 11: Barbarians

The role of barbarian invasion in the demise of a civilisation is a cliché. Barbarians are not necessarily destructive. They may supply order and renew cultural vigour. Barbarian invasions come in waves affecting the whole of the world island. They are associated with periods of global transformation, such as the Early/Middle Bronze Age and the Bronze/Iron Age transitions. Barbarian invaders are motivated by the wealth and opportunity presented by civilised areas. Barbarians invade civilisations in two ways: when the civilisation is strong, as economic migrants; when the civilisation is weak, as political office-holders and later conquerors. James C Scott explains that barbarians are by definition those peoples who live in areas beyond the reach of the civilised state, thus being free from its laws and taxes. Not only do barbarians come to the civilisation, but people from the civilisation may escape into the barbarian areas to evade the control and exploitation of the civilised core in a process called secondary primitivism. Barbarian invasions do not come out of the blue but arise as a natural part of the civilisational lifecycle. The barbarians can be seen as the ‘dark twin’ of the civilisation playing a role in its evolution. As the civilisation declines, its capacity to generate wealth and supply governance declines, and the barbarian areas tend to be hardest hit. The resulting poverty and disorder put pressure on barbarians to gravitate towards the civilisation for what remains of its prosperity and power. There are three ways in which civilisations bring into existence the barbarian confederacies that attack them: (1) by invading barbarian lands in search of resources, thus stimulating resistance; (2) by encouraging the previously independent barbarian groups to unite against their common enemy; (3) by supporting the rise of barbarian leaders to provide counterparties with whom they can negotiate and draw up treaties. Since the civilisation produces the barbarian confederacy, a corollary is that, when the civilisation collapses, the barbarian confederacy often collapses too.
This is part of 'Module 4: Cultures and Civilisations' within the lecture series 'An Introduction to Theoretical History'.
Course textbook: An Introduction to Theoretical History by Marc Widdowson (Amarna Ltd, 2024, 584 pages).
E-book: https://tinyurl.com/3hp8t8mp
Print book: https://tinyurl.com/92puak75