Why did M.E. Rothwell avoid becoming a traditional academic historian despite his expertise in history and geography?

He resisted specialization, bureaucracy, and academia's tendency to begin with critique rather than first learning the subject itself. He describes encountering figures like Carlyle, Freud, and Herodotus only through arguments against them, not as live thinkers in their own right, which drove him away from deconstructive academic approaches.

How do geographic constraints explain the emergence of cities in ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt differently than agricultural surplus alone?

Rivers, deserts, wetlands, and arable strips forced people into close proximity, creating compression that produced new social technologies like hierarchy, kingship, councils, and irrigation systems. This geographic constraint contrasts with more open environments where people could simply move away rather than submit to dense political order.

Can geographic constraints that caused individual suffering still be justified by their role in civilizational competitiveness?

What is bad for individual flourishing may be adaptive for the group; cities, agriculture, and states were miserable innovations that nevertheless won through competitive advantage. At the civilizational level, constrained societies often developed institutions that made them more competitive, even though early city life involved disease, hierarchy, war, and coercion.

Chatting with M.E. Rothwell

History, the universe, and everything

By Peter Banks · May 4, 2026 · Updated August 24, 2026 · Read on Substack

Summary: A conversation with M.E. Rothwell explores how geography, technology, and culture drive human history, challenging academic specialization that separates these disciplines. The discussion emphasizes geography's underappreciated role in shaping cities through constraint and compression, examining whether institutions born from geographic pressure are adaptive despite causing individual hardship. The conversation extends from deep history—including theories of Homo sapiens outcompeting Neanderthals through cooperation—to modern geopolitics, questioning whether Western continuity has created dangerous assumptions and whether globalization is erasing civilizational alternatives.

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Why I write Cosmographia — Cosmographia

1. 00:00 — Introducing Cosmographia

The conversation opens with Mikey explaining his Substack persona and the inspiration behind Cosmographia. He describes his interest in history, geography, and the medieval “cosmographical” way of seeing the world: not as separate disciplines, but as one vast interconnected map of theology, astronomy, history, and place. The aesthetic is deliberately old-world: dusty libraries, old maps, forgotten manuscripts, and Victorian-explorer energy.

2. 03:30 — Against Academic Silos

The discussion turns to why Mikey did not become a traditional academic historian. He describes resisting specialization, bureaucracy, and the modern tendency within academia to begin with critique rather than first learning the thing being criticized. The conversation broadens into a critique of “deconstructive” history: Carlyle, Freud, Herodotus, and other older figures are often encountered only through the arguments against them, not as live thinkers in their own right.

3. 11:30 — The Three Forces of History

Mikey lays out his core framework: human history is driven by geography, technology, and culture. Technology and culture get most of the attention — agriculture, Christianity, gunpowder, the printing press — but geography is often treated as too obvious or too uncomfortable to discuss. Yet geography quietly structures what kinds of societies can form, what pressures they face, and what moral systems become plausible.

4. 15:00 — Geography, Cities, and Constraint

The heart of the conversation begins with urbanization. The key idea is that cities did not emerge merely because of agricultural surplus. They also required constraint. In Mesopotamia and Egypt, rivers, deserts, wetlands, and arable strips forced people into close proximity. That compression produced new social technologies: hierarchy, kingship, councils, irrigation systems, and eventually states. The hosts contrast this with more open environments, where people could simply move away rather than submit to dense political order.

5. 24:00 — Were Constraints Good?

The conversation then asks a harder question: are geographic constraints good or bad? On the individual level, early city life may have been awful: disease, hierarchy, war, crowding, and coercion. But at the group or civilizational level, constrained societies often developed institutions that made them more competitive. This leads to a recurring theme: what is bad for individual flourishing may be adaptive for the group. Cities, agriculture, and states may have been miserable innovations that nevertheless won.

6. 36:00 — Homo Sapiens, Neanderthals, and Group Selection

The discussion zooms out into deep history. Mikey raises the possibility that Homo sapiens outcompeted Neanderthals not because we were individually stronger or smarter, but because we copied each other better and cooperated at larger scales. From there, the conversation moves into multi-level selection: individuals, tribes, civilizations, and perhaps humanity itself as a kind of emerging meta-organism. The darker implication is that individual human freedom may be historically temporary — a stage before incorporation into larger social machines.

7. 48:00 — Anglo Continuity, Decline, and Global Flattening

The final stretch turns toward the modern West. Anglo society is described as unusually continuous: unlike France, China, Japan, or India, England passed into modernity without a single revolutionary rupture. That continuity produced extraordinary confidence, but also a dangerous assumption that history no longer applies. Mikey pushes back from the British side, noting stagnation, loss of confidence, and a culture increasingly uncomfortable with its own history. The conversation closes by comparing globalization to the Roman Mediterranean: cities become more diverse locally, but the world becomes more homogeneous overall. London and New York may look more multicultural, but also more alike. The danger is that humanity may be losing civilizational alternatives just as it becomes one planetary culture.