2) RE: John Brown. He has an interesting family connection with US Grant, who has a good claim to being the white man who contributed most to the destruction of slavery in the US. When young, Grant's father, Owen, worked on the farm of John Brown's father, and knew the latter as a boy. According to Claude, Grant's "father regarded Brown as a person of great moral courage and purity of character, though also considered him a fanatic and extremist. Grant shared his father's mixed assessment. He considered Brown's attempt to overthrow slavery with fewer than twenty men at Harper's Ferry to be the act of an insane man."
Clot's biography of Suleiman the Magnificent is indeed enjoyable and accessible, but the definitive biography in English is now "Peerless among Princes: The Life and Times of Sultan Süleyman" by Kaya Şahin, published in 2023. Scholarly, but also very readable and impressively sourced.
Though Süleyman's successor Selim II was less-than-impressive, he did have enough sense to let the great Grand Vizier Sokullu Mehmed continue in his job. (Lepanto occurred on one of few occasions when Sokullu was overruled). The real trouble came when Selim's even less impressive successor Murad III destabilized the position of the grand vizierate and left it prey to factional infighting.
Nowadays many Ottoman scholars like to claim that the empire underwent a period of "transition" rather than "decline" during the 17th century, and even claim that the Janissary revolts were signs of supposed democratization. I think that's going too far (when an empire that can't defend its domains that sounds like decline!), but there is something to be said for the idea that the Ottoman's troubles stemmed more from structural issues than the variable quality of its rulers (some of whom were very capable, like the Köprülü viziers, or the short-lived Murad IV).
Your comment about rural life makes a lot of sense. We have romantic notions about living off the land and growing our own food but the reality is very different. Not to mention when people are in close proximity to each other, that creates a kind of efficiency that isn't possible in the outback.
The American empire will not need to conquer other lands to replenish its people l. It will just invite them all into the rural areas for their children to feed the cities.
Charlemagne had such a massive influence on Early Medieval Europe that the Slavic word for "king" (král, król, kralj) is literally derived from his name.
4) Hollowing out of rural areas. This looks like it is going to happen. According to Claude (did I mention my new best friend?) if we distinguish between areas that are Urban/Large Metro, Suburban/Small Metro, and Rural:
a) the fertility rate is least in the Urban category and largest in the rural category;
b) it was at or a bit above replacement in each category going into the Great Recession (2008);
c) it has been falling in each quinquinnium since than and is well below replacement in each area (1.7-1.9);
d) the share of the population that is elderly is greatest in rural areas
e) In the 20-39 age group, rural areas have a "strong male skew", urban areas have a mild female skew.
Fertility rates are based on the number of women, so the patterns of skewness of the sex distributions suggest hardly any more more babies per 100 people in rural than in urban areas, and about the same number as in suburban areas. Extrapolating linearly from current fertility rates (ignore the man behind the curtain in my previous comment, #3), it appears that both the population and the population share of rural areas is bound to decline, especially if the sexes continue their urban/rural sorting.
3) RE: S. Korean fertility rates. It's silly to extrapolate fertility rates over long periods of time, especially linearly. (The numbers that follow come via Claude) The estimated fertility rate in the US declined from ~7 in 1835 to 2.1 in 1935. The table below shows averages over 5 year periods after WW1:
Years Fertility Rate
1920-1924 ~3.2
1925-1929 ~2.8
1930-1934 ~2.3
1935-1939 ~2.2
1940-1944 ~2.5
1945-1949 ~3.0
1950-1954 ~3.3
1955-1959 ~3.6
1960-1964 ~3.4
1965-1969 ~2.6
1970-1974 ~2.0
1975-1979 ~1.8
In 1935, looking over the previous 15 years, one would have guessed the next 5 years would be below replacement, and that fertility would keep on falling thereafter. Instead, the rate began to rise during WW2 and continued to rise through the 1950s. Then began what was at first a slow and then a somewhat faster decline. Who can say with any confidence or accuracy where they will be 50-75 years from now?
1) "... the New World’s discovery had already begun turning civilization’s focus away from its Mediterranean core."
I would have thought that even then, the Mediterranean was on civilization's periphery, and the core was the Indian Ocean, the South China Sea or somewhere in between. It was not until the 19thC, that Europe's output overtook that of 1st India and then late in the century, China and all of Asia.
2) RE: John Brown. He has an interesting family connection with US Grant, who has a good claim to being the white man who contributed most to the destruction of slavery in the US. When young, Grant's father, Owen, worked on the farm of John Brown's father, and knew the latter as a boy. According to Claude, Grant's "father regarded Brown as a person of great moral courage and purity of character, though also considered him a fanatic and extremist. Grant shared his father's mixed assessment. He considered Brown's attempt to overthrow slavery with fewer than twenty men at Harper's Ferry to be the act of an insane man."
yep
Clot's biography of Suleiman the Magnificent is indeed enjoyable and accessible, but the definitive biography in English is now "Peerless among Princes: The Life and Times of Sultan Süleyman" by Kaya Şahin, published in 2023. Scholarly, but also very readable and impressively sourced.
Though Süleyman's successor Selim II was less-than-impressive, he did have enough sense to let the great Grand Vizier Sokullu Mehmed continue in his job. (Lepanto occurred on one of few occasions when Sokullu was overruled). The real trouble came when Selim's even less impressive successor Murad III destabilized the position of the grand vizierate and left it prey to factional infighting.
Nowadays many Ottoman scholars like to claim that the empire underwent a period of "transition" rather than "decline" during the 17th century, and even claim that the Janissary revolts were signs of supposed democratization. I think that's going too far (when an empire that can't defend its domains that sounds like decline!), but there is something to be said for the idea that the Ottoman's troubles stemmed more from structural issues than the variable quality of its rulers (some of whom were very capable, like the Köprülü viziers, or the short-lived Murad IV).
Your comment about rural life makes a lot of sense. We have romantic notions about living off the land and growing our own food but the reality is very different. Not to mention when people are in close proximity to each other, that creates a kind of efficiency that isn't possible in the outback.
More urban areas tend to have below-replacement fertility even in Utah https://gardner.utah.edu/news/fertility-rates-in-flux-county-fertility-rates-decline-but-remain-high/ Ancient Rome was also a population sink, replaced by the offspring of rural areas.
The American empire will not need to conquer other lands to replenish its people l. It will just invite them all into the rural areas for their children to feed the cities.
Charlemagne had such a massive influence on Early Medieval Europe that the Slavic word for "king" (král, król, kralj) is literally derived from his name.
A defining specimen, so to say.
The Jakobsson study of southern African genomes looks very interesting. I hope Razib has it on his list of papers to be covered.
4) Hollowing out of rural areas. This looks like it is going to happen. According to Claude (did I mention my new best friend?) if we distinguish between areas that are Urban/Large Metro, Suburban/Small Metro, and Rural:
a) the fertility rate is least in the Urban category and largest in the rural category;
b) it was at or a bit above replacement in each category going into the Great Recession (2008);
c) it has been falling in each quinquinnium since than and is well below replacement in each area (1.7-1.9);
d) the share of the population that is elderly is greatest in rural areas
e) In the 20-39 age group, rural areas have a "strong male skew", urban areas have a mild female skew.
Fertility rates are based on the number of women, so the patterns of skewness of the sex distributions suggest hardly any more more babies per 100 people in rural than in urban areas, and about the same number as in suburban areas. Extrapolating linearly from current fertility rates (ignore the man behind the curtain in my previous comment, #3), it appears that both the population and the population share of rural areas is bound to decline, especially if the sexes continue their urban/rural sorting.
3) RE: S. Korean fertility rates. It's silly to extrapolate fertility rates over long periods of time, especially linearly. (The numbers that follow come via Claude) The estimated fertility rate in the US declined from ~7 in 1835 to 2.1 in 1935. The table below shows averages over 5 year periods after WW1:
Years Fertility Rate
1920-1924 ~3.2
1925-1929 ~2.8
1930-1934 ~2.3
1935-1939 ~2.2
1940-1944 ~2.5
1945-1949 ~3.0
1950-1954 ~3.3
1955-1959 ~3.6
1960-1964 ~3.4
1965-1969 ~2.6
1970-1974 ~2.0
1975-1979 ~1.8
In 1935, looking over the previous 15 years, one would have guessed the next 5 years would be below replacement, and that fertility would keep on falling thereafter. Instead, the rate began to rise during WW2 and continued to rise through the 1950s. Then began what was at first a slow and then a somewhat faster decline. Who can say with any confidence or accuracy where they will be 50-75 years from now?
1) "... the New World’s discovery had already begun turning civilization’s focus away from its Mediterranean core."
I would have thought that even then, the Mediterranean was on civilization's periphery, and the core was the Indian Ocean, the South China Sea or somewhere in between. It was not until the 19thC, that Europe's output overtook that of 1st India and then late in the century, China and all of Asia.