From Political Fragmentation to a Unified Empire

The previous chapter explores how human society evolves from hunting-gathering to agriculture. Agricultural settlements gave rise to civilizations and political states. In this chapter, we explore how agricultural settlements evolve from multiple competing states to a unified empire. Historically, ancient China had a tendency toward a unified empire, whereas Europe had a tendency toward political fragmentation. However, there was also an extended period of political fragmentation in ancient China before a unified empire became the norm with the establishment of the Qin dynasty in 221 BC, which is often known as the first dynasty of Imperial China. During the Warring States period from 481 BC to 221 BC, there were seven major states (including the Qin state) and many minor states competing with each other. Therefore, an interesting question is why ancient China evolved from multiple states to a unified empire, whereas medieval Europe largely maintained its political fragmentation. In other words, “where did this political fragmentation come from? Why was Europe decentralised and characterised by competition among relatively small powers, while extensive regions of Asia were controlled by monolithic mega-empires?”…