This list is not
exhaustive, but it is indicative of the wide area in which domestic
growth takes place.
Paralleling their domestic expansion, civilizations expand
geographically up to the point of diminishing returns, determined by the
growth of overhead costs. This process has taken the civilization, its
personnel, its institutions and practices into territory not heretofore
occupied, sometimes with the consent of the "foreigners", but more often
in the teeth of their determined and long-continued opposition.
Expansion of a civilization is of necessity a movement from an urban
center and beyond the urban center. Each civilization has been built
around one or more urban nuclei which accepted and practiced expansion
as the primary law of their beings.
Expansion takes many forms. It may be peaceful, as travel is peaceful.
It may be competitive, as trade is competitive. It may be economically
aggressive; the search for markets, for raw materials, for investment
opportunities carried on simultaneously by representatives of long time
rival cities, states, empires. It may be a movement for a place in the
sun; mass migration, colonization. It may take the form of planned
military invasion having as its purpose the conquest and occupation of
foreign territory; the subjugation of the citizenry of the conquered
lands; the establishment of an alien government in the conquered
territory; the reduction of the "natives" to the status of second class
citizens in their own homelands; exploitation of the natural resources;
the levying of tribute; the imposition of taxes and the expropriation of
moveable articles such as bullion, works of art and other treasure by
the invaders, conquerors and occupiers.
Pages:
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164