In Science (Jan 5 2007), Kathleen Morrison reviews After Collapse: The Regeneration of Complex Societies. The book sounds interesting. It is an edited volume focused of the neglected phases of reorganization and growth that have follow civilization collapse:

Glenn Schwartz’s introduction to After Collapse points out, however, not all of these phases have been equally well studied. Studies of state collapse and of the initial development of complex societies have continued to be counted among the big questions of archaeology. Why the regeneration of complex societies after episodes of collapse has not, to date, been a major focus of research can be attributed to an archaeological obsession with origins and in particular with “primary states,” those six places where complex polities developed without prior organizational models. The diffusionary logic that the idea of the state was somehow a sufficient condition for the emergence of complex polities has been long discredited, yet for some reason archaeological disregard for so-called “secondary state formation” has continued. Not only do the vast majority of cases of state development fall under this rubric, but so do instances of regeneration after collapse. Hence, the reasons for underanalysis of this important process are, if not clear, at least explicable. What all this suggests is that the examples presented in After Collapse have the potential to inform on processes of state (re)formation more generally; addition of these important cases can only add to our understanding of state generation as well as regeneration.

Schwartz notes that the study of state regeneration is, in large part, a study of “dark ages,” a term that, besides encoding value judgments developed under conditions of centralization, also refers to the paucity of textual information for periods after collapse. The negative valences of terms such as dark age and even collapse certainly reveal viewpoints firmly invested in text-based history (no period is darker than any other to an archaeologist) and in social hierarchy (what falls apart in a collapse are often structures of inequality). Archaeology, however, is well situated to address issues of change where texts disappear.

Here it is worth clarifying what contributors to this volume mean by collapse. As Schwartz enumerates, collapse “entails some or all of the following: the fragmentation of states into smaller political entities; the partial abandonment or complete desertion of urban centers, along with the loss or depletion of their centralizing functions; the breakdown of regional economic systems; and the failure of civilizational ideologies.” Note that this definition refers only to the collapse of complex political structures and that death and destruction are conspicuously absent. Although the focus of After Collapse is decidedly on continuity and renewal, archaeological studies of collapse itself have always recognized that civilizational traditions and peoples rarely disappear.

What, then, causes state regeneration and how does it proceed? Are, as Schwartz asks, such processes simply replays of earlier developmental episodes? Or are new strategies and trajectories involved? One might think, given the popularity of climate- and resource-oriented explanations for collapse, that many scholars would place regeneration at the feet of climatic amelioration or environmental regeneration. However, with the exception of Ian Morris’s careful exposition of the transitions from Mycenaean (Late Bronze Age) Greece through the Greek Dark Ages and on to the Classical Period, contributors to this volume have surprisingly little to say about environmental conditions. Perhaps this is because the Greek case, like the Classic Maya, is an example of what Bennet Bronson in this volume calls “genuine regeneration,” not simply the shift of a political or economic center but a transformation of the entire system. Indeed, the differences between Classical and earlier periods are profound (with perhaps little more than the memory of a lost heroic age linking them)–a shift even more substantial than that seen in the Maya region, albeit one covering much longer periods of time.

Contributors analyzing other regions (including Egypt, Peru, Cambodia, and Bronze-Age Syria) favor either Bronson’s “stimulus regeneration,” state building explicitly based on a hazily understood model distant in space or time, or his “template regeneration,” a revival process based on fully understood, well-recorded models, often states close to the revived polity in space and time. Although both of these terms evoke the language of early 20th-century diffusionism, they at least have the advantage of stressing the ways in which regenerating polities make use of existing models of and ideologies for systems of structured inequality.

While After Collapse also asks when regeneration might not appear, the volume presents only one such counterexample, Kenny Sims’s analysis of the upper Moquegua Valley, Peru. There complex political forms failed to regenerate after the fall of the Tiwanaku and Wari empires. Sims argues that restriction of local residents to client status and, at best, mid-level positions within the Wari administration left them without the wherewithal to (re)generate a centralized state. The general enthusiasm for Bronson’s memory and knowledge-oriented categories might reflect the selection of cases themselves, few of which are examples of more radical collapse, in which depopulation as well as deurbanization took place.

In many ways, both the strengths and weaknesses of After Collapse reflect larger trends in archaeology. Contributors carefully consider how, precisely, people managed (or failed) to regenerate a complex polity after a political collapse, including some interesting considerations of the ways in which collapse presented opportunities for previously marginal elites to become the central players in regenerated regimes. However, there is disappointingly little willingness to consider why, specifically, complex polities (re)emerged–to address the origins of the secondary state, to use the jargon. This is an important question, with implications for state formation in innumerable cases, well beyond the sample of collapsed polities. If, for example, as Lisa Cooper, building on the arguments of Yoffee and Adams, suggests of Bronze-Age Syria, village-based organization was actually more stable in the long term than urbanism, then perhaps the formation of a complex polity might itself constitute “collapse.” Such a perspective, suggested only half-seriously in Yoffee’s closing remarks, might actually be salutary in finally purging the discipline of its rise-and-fall thinking. This could bring us one step closer to using the great strength of archaeological research, its immense time depth, as a serious guide for contemporary considerations of the sustainability and continuity of civilizations in the face of rapidly changing natural and social conditions.

Two recent newspaper articles on the role of new Chinese trade with Africa. From the New York Times China’s African Adventure:

China is now one of Africa’s largest customers not only for oil but also for timber, minerals, cotton and other natural resources. China in turn has flooded Africa with cheap consumer goods. The I.M.F. forecasts that China’s trade with Africa will top $50 billion this year and could reach $100 billion by 2010. Over the last five years, sub-Saharan Africa’s growth rate has almost doubled, to 5.8 percent from 3 percent; economists attribute much of the increase to trade with China and other Asian countries.

The perils of Beijing’s Africa strategy in the International Herald Tribune:

Politically, China’s “hands-off politics” approach was initially a welcome change for many African leaders who bristled over the conditions imposed by the United States, Europe and multilateral institutions.

… Beijing’s unwillingness to press its state- owned firms on good governance and social responsibility is producing a backlash in several African countries. Last month, Gabon ordered the Chinese energy firm, Sinopec, to halt exploration in Loango national park after a U.S. conservation group accused it of desecrating the forest and operating without an environmental-impact study.Anecdotal evidence also suggests simmering grass-roots resentment of the growing Chinese presence. Legal and illegal Chinese immigrants are moving to Africa by the hundreds of thousands to work in extractive industries, construction and manufacturing, prompting charges that Chinese investors are taking rather than creating jobs.

Ultimately, African leaders have to decide whether Beijing’s “strictly business” strategy is compatible with the principles of transparency and good governance set out in their New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD). Every day brings new evidence that getting China to sign on to these principles will be critical for the continent’s long term development and stability.

The New York Times article China’s African Adventure goes on to present a US reaction to China’s increased trade with Africa:

The People’s Republic has declared 2006 “the Year of Africa.” The West had its own unofficial Year of Africa in 2005, and it is instructive to compare the two. The industrial nations conducted a sort of moral crusade, with advocacy organizations exposing Africa’s dreadful sores and crying shame on the leaders of wealthy nations and those leaders then heroically pledging, at the G8 meeting in July, to raise their development assistance by billions and to open their markets to Africa. Once everyone had gone home, the aid increase turned out to be largely ephemeral and trade reform merely wishful. China, by contrast, offers a pragmatic relationship between equals: the “strategic partnership” promised in China’s African policy is premised on “mutual benefit, reciprocity and common prosperity.” And the benefits are very tangible. Earlier this month, at a much-ballyhooed summit meeting in Beijing attended by political leaders from all but five African states (the ones that recognize Taiwan), the Chinese president, Hu Jintao, announced that China would provide $5 billion in preferential loans and credits over the next three years, effectively doubling aid to Africa, while canceling many outstanding debts. A dozen Chinese companies signed agreements for $1.9 billion worth of construction projects and investment.

If we believe that a model of development that strengthens the hand of authoritarian leaders and does little, if anything, to empower the poor is a bad long-term strategy for Africa, then we are going to have to come up with a strategic partnership of our own. And it is not only a question of what is good for the African people. The United States has a real security interest in avoiding failed states and in blocking the spread of terrorism in East and North Africa. What’s more, the United States already imports 15 percent of its oil from Africa, mostly from Angola and Nigeria; that figure is bound to rise and could even double, eventually making Africa as large a supplier of oil as the Middle East now is. China’s Africa policy shows that globalization is increasingly divorced from Westernization. We have grown accustomed to the idea that Africa needs us; it’s time to recognize that we, like China, need Africa.