Some people’s view of history is exaggeratedly person-centred. The development of society is supposed to be driven by single famous individuals. The resources for such a person is not spent a though at if it has varied. Weather is treated as irrelevant. Diseases they don’t think about unless such stuck the person. All these factors mattered for someone’s opportunities. Such opportunities can’t be taken for granted.
In reality different societies have been differently complex. Mostly they have become more complex over the course of millennia. However, there have of cause been setbacks. The Roman Empire had an administration which did not exist in Medieval Western Europe. I think it was not until the 16th century that a comparable administration arose. Single rulers could promote or discourage this development. But this would still have happened sooner or later.
More and more complex societies have arisen as a reaction to increased population density. This has been far from constant over historical time. The population has slowly grown during a few centuries. Then something has happened making the population shrink. It could be a pandemic killing tens of percent. Or a volcanic winter causing famine. If the society is already under pressure such can contribute to collapse.
Apart from climate change single weather events can matter. One group may exploit an advantage which the weather brings with it. Or extreme weather events could struck one of the groups to a particularly high degree. Then their opponents did not have to do that much. In some cases nothing at all. Still some give them credit for having defeated their enemies. Such individuals don’t think of there being things outside human control.
Of cause single individuals may matter for the development of society. However, such are still limited by the society of their time. A very clear example is the Mongol Borjigin Temüdjin. He organised a modern army already in the 13th century. It mainly consisted of the adult men of herder peoples. I mean people making a living from keeping sheep and goats. Such are not capable of making so much themselves. They were dependant on arrows made in Muscovy. Such arrows could be used for their own bows. Their attempts to conquer Japan failed because seaworthy boats were simply too few. At one of their two attempts they were hit by a hurricane too.
The army under his leadership was still enormously destructive. It was common to run for the forest when war hit the area. In areas without forest people instead took refuge in the cities’ built-up area. Since they were already gathered the army could massacre millions. Moreover, irrigation systems found in dry areas were destroyed. Since crops could not be irrigated that resulted in famine. Combined Temüdjin’s army is estimated to have caused 10% of humanity’s death. I don’t think they cared an iota about the peoples they waged war on. Their ravaging through Europe was stopped by a chance occurrence. Temüdjin died in present-day China from injury after a hunting accident. There was not a single heir. Instead the areas were divided between his first wife’s sons. The commander in Europe was obligated to be present at this.
The states created by the Mongols were in turn toppled by Black Death. It killed 30% of the world’s population. If these numbers look too high this is a matter of population distribution. The very most of humanity has historically lived in Eurasia and North Africa. Building a civilisation is harder south of the Sahara. Neither did the Americas have such a large fraction. As late as in the late 15th century it was less than 1/5. Not to talk about Australia with a vanishingly small fraction. In Medieval times the world’s population was in the range of hundreds of millions.
There is a type of stories which I don’t believe in. It is about a ruler who would have had all members of certain group in society killed. I don’t think anything near that would have been possible before the Industrialism. Vital statistics did not exist in Europe until the 17th century at the earliest. Then it had large gaps. People which were not sedentary I don’t think even were registered. China had censuses earlier than any European country. But they only counted the Chinese and not ethnic minorities. In both cases information was missing on the social groups those were about. Moreover their killing would not have had the claimed effect. Killing all poor would not have eradicated poverty. People could still become poor from different causes. As long as these causes existed poverty could not be eradicated.
The Americas were depopulated during the 16th and 17th centuries. The Native American people’s conquerors have been accused of deliberately exterminating people. Something they were not capable of. The conquest of Mesoamerica and the Andes was done mainly with medieval weapons. (The firearms existing then were not reliable enough.) War neither kills as many as some apparently believe. Some Native Americans died as a consequence of economic overexploitation. The colonialists lacked knowledge of how little work-saving tools the Native Americans had. Which recurrently resulted in people working themselves to death. However, the very most of the deaths were caused by contagious diseases. Such also stuck peoples which had not been conquered. Please note it was a gradual decrease over several generations. Each one of these epidemics killed a smaller fraction. But they happened so often their combined effect was enormous.
During the same time period Spain failed to conquer England. The English fleet has been given the credit to having stopped the Spanish. At closer examination it has turned out the English could not do that. Instead the Spanish fell victim to weather and navigation error. Their fleet were hit by a storm sinking some of its ships. Afterwards the Spanish misjudged how far west they were. The consequence was loads of shipwrecks. Foremost they happened along Ireland’s and Scotland’s west coasts.
A few decades later the Thirty Year’s War happened. Some areas of Central Europe lost between 1/3 and 2/3 of its population. Such a large fraction did not die as some could escape. Out of the real deaths most were caused by diseases. Foremost it was plague spread by soldiers on the mach. Less than 1/8 was the result of famine. This was then caused by plundering and repeated crop failure. Also, other parts of the world suffered the later. The Little Ice Age was as coldest during the first half of the 17th century.
In the end it is the surrounding society giving opportunity to famous people. James Watt did not succeed due to personal characteristics. He succeeded because Britain had both necessary materials and a market for his invention. Even without such a person the development would often have happened. However, not right then and not in just this way. I think this at least applies to individuals which had invented or discovered something specific.
Uploaded on the 16th of October 2025.
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