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> Grow some crops? An invading army will come and steal and trample them. That's why so many great civilizations were founded in places with good geographic ba
by DennisP 4y ago
> Grow some crops? An invading army will come and steal and trample them.
That's why so many great civilizations were founded in places with good geographic barriers around a productive interior. Ancient Egypt for example had the Nile and was surrounded by vast deserts, which weren't feasible to cross at the time. On the other end of history, the US has similar advantages.
- stjohnswarts 4y agoI assure you that people crisscrossed the deserts in North Africa and the Middle East all the time in ancient days. Egypt's big advantage was its ability to produce lots of food along the Nile River and settle down and focus on something beyond survival.
- DennisP 4y agoEgypt was a civilization for about 1500 years before the camel was domesticated. Before the camel, you weren't going to get an army across six hundred miles of desert, and Egypt was easy to defend from anyone trying to enter along the Nile. Egypt's food production was certainly critical to its success, but its isolation was both its defense and its downfall. Other civilizations competed with each other and advanced their technology, while Egypt existed happily in isolation, unaware of new technologies like bronze and chariots. After the camel, along with ships able to carry significant cargo, Egypt's food production became a juicy target, and it was conquered by one civilization after another.