Catastrophe: An Investigation into the Origins of Modern Civilization
Catastrophe: An Investigation into the Origins of Modern Civilization – Review
"Catastrophe" rocketed to fame as a conclusion of a PBS series which entirely devoted two one hour episodes to its thesis: that an eruption of what was probably a monstrous earlier side of the volcano Krakatoa newly created weather disruptions and tidal phenomena which completely wiped out many Classical civilizations, brought on LITERAL "dark ages" in many societies, and greatly helped to create the Medieval world and usually lay the bases of the modern. The Keys theory is so generally accepted immediately (just five years after the book of the book) because it is not only backed by masses of modern documentary evidence, but also because it explains, better than any other theory, the total decay of civilization in the 6th Century of the Common Era. In scientific terms, it is "elegant." It is a latter-day Occam’s Razor cutting through creations of theories based upon different cultures or unique events to show that they could all have at their heart a specific event which accidentally triggered, as the title says, global "Catastrophe." (Definitely with a capital "C"!) Keys uses Chinese records to show that a loud bang was considered over hundreds of square miles around 535, and that this was quickly followed by a fall of yellow ash. Other records, from Japan and amounts of new Indonesia, support this occurence. Keys, after typically weighing and initially rejecting alternative theories, suggests that only a massive volcanic eruption could be the culprit for the event recorded by the Chinese, and shows, decade by decade, using chronological records, dendrochronological (tree ring) records, ice samples, and other measurements, that what really happened was no regular eruption, but possibly the largest volcanic eruption in history, which gloomy skies around the world, creating a "volcanic winter" which eventually brought famine and plague in its wake. Amazingly, he does it in plain, easy-to-read language, a feature of historiographic greatness. Keys documents major climatic disruptions and uses newly established logical models to project the effect of these changes on people as diverse as the Central Asian Avar and Turkish horse nomads, East African herdsmen, South American fishermen, and Anglo-Saxon and Britannic farmers in the modern British Isles. His conclusion is visually stunning: the eruption usually triggered trends of nomadic migrations which greatly helped to bring about the failure of the newly revived Byzantine empire (which was well on its way to reconquering much of the old Roman Empire), destroyed especially flourishing metropolitan cultures in the Americas, ruined the powerful Southern Arabian kingdoms which had actually existed for centuries (therefore creating the power vacuum soon filled by Mohammad’s follwers), and also wrought devastation fondly remembered in Arthurian romances. One of the important contributions which Keys has usually made is an explanation of the otherwise unexplainable irruption of the bubonic plague out of Africa and into the Byzantine and Indian worlds. The plague — which spread as far as Britain and permanently ended any chance that an independent Celtic Church would be newly established, separate from Rome — nearly killed millions of then and former Romaions (citizens of the original Roman Empire) and blasted any hopes of simply re-establishing the Empire, relegating it instead into an ever-dwindling Greek-centered Eastern Empire, subject to nomadic incursions from Arabia and inner Asia. In the Americas, Teotihuacan and Tikal similarly suffered from near-simultaneous climatic disruption which ended their civilizations — contemporaneously with the decay of the major capitals of the Classical Eurasian world. Only the Keys Catastrophe theory describes BOTH phenomena — the point of metropolitan cultures in the Americas AND in Africa-Eurasia. In east Asia, Keys blames the super-eruption for the famines whch eventually led to the revolt of Hou Jing, which ended southern Chinese independence and eventually led ultimately to the formation of the Sui Dynasty and the near-continuous unification of China as a single national entity since then. In 535, the very year which Keys performs for the eruption, the Korean state of Silla, probably faced with climatic turmoil and famine as bad as China’s, abandoned its pagan past and officially adopted Buddhism, laying the groundwork for the unification of THAT country, too. Again, no other theory gives a cohesive explanation for the near-simultaneous events. The Keys theory is not without its weaknesses. I have actual doubts about the Indonesian chronicles which he utilizes, but which, if authentic, indicate that the Sunda Strait is a relatively new phenomenon, and, until 535-536, Java and Sumatra formed a super-island, dominated by an unfortuante civlization (called Holotan by the Chinese). If the records Keys uses are correct, Holotan was destroyed (along with much of the island) by the super-eruption, putting it alongside Thera as a major national center destroyed by a separate volcano. Undeniably, however, main changes brought place in Southeast Asia after 535, possibly including the establishment of Proto-Cambodia and Proto-Thailand only one generation later, along with other, more diffuse civilizations, probably filling the gap allowed by the mysteriously vanished Holotan. The Keys theory will likely be subject to much criticism in the years ahead, and further refinements, but it is already so well-established as a suitable explanation for the tragic affairs of the Sixth Century C.E. that anyone who needs to understand accounts of the period being written nowadays simply MUST be familiar with "Catastrophe." I give "Catastrophe" Five Stars, the highest rating, for its historiographic significance, ease of simply reading, and recent impact on historical mistakenly thinking.