Peter Christensen
Iranshahr: Iranshar: the Fragile Empire

Agrarian empires must be studied in their specific geographic and historical context. Karl Wittfogel’s now widely rejected attempt to establish a direct connection between irrigation and despotic states, shows that irrigation in itself is not a very useful concept in the classification of societies. A brief outline of the history of Iranshahr between 500 B.C and 1500 A.D, illustrates how irrigation interacted with a number of variable features such as ecological conditions, political constellations and the presence of nomads. Although human interaction with physical environment remains important for our understanding of historical change, we need to be cautious in applying generalising categories to specific societies of the past.