Collapse

Guy Middleton wrote: Do civilisations collapse? I suppose he wants to invoke Betteridge's law of headlines, and the thrust of his essay is "no." A lot of things remained after the "collapse," not least of which are the people and many aspects of the culture.

It's worth having a look at, for reminders of how complicated changes can actually be. But he overstates things. If you lose the "critical mass" of engineers and craftmen, certain things that once were part of the culture decay and a society may never get them back again. OK, cool--you still speak sort of latin and like garum. But the aqueducts in your valley broke and you don't have running water anymore--no more socializing in bathhouses. Your culture changes.