The Second World War was one of the wars in which economic factors played a decisive role. There were wars, such as the Mongol invasions, where economics didn't play a role at all: the Mongols conquered enemies dozens of times larger economically. In modern warfare, however, as combat is mostly mechanized (it was explosive power that created the damage and not muscle power), while states became more organized (and thus could transform the economic resources of their territories into armies and fleet),...

Population density

Extensive field survey research is enabling us to have a good idea of the overall trajectory of population density. Here is the result of field surveys conducted on the Albegna valley in central Italy, a core region of the mediterranean:


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Population densities reached their peak in the 50 BC to 100 AD period, in other sites the same pattern...

I am posting in my blog an old post of mine that I liked. It's my first blog post without statistics.

Some people believe that the Greeks were an exceptional civilization. That they were fundamentally different in nature from other civilizations. I do believe that. While others don't. However this blog post is not about IF the Greeks were different, but explaining WHY the Greeks were different. It is for discussing why Hellas evolved a rather different culture from other cultures....

Some have argued that Europe was not wealthier than China at the eve of the industrial revolution, circa 1800 AD, that only after this date that Europe pulled ahead of China. It is also argued that before 1800 AD all societies had similar living standards and that only after 1800 that divergences in standards of living emerged. Well, we need to collect empirical data to verify such claims.

First, we start by with a quote of Adam Smith, from the late 18th century and thus before 1800...