The political history of the world is the history of the various political entities created by the human race throughout their existence and the way these states define their borders. Throughout history, political systems have expanded from basic systems of self-governance and monarchy to the complex democratic and totalitarian systems that exist today. In parallel, political entities have expanded from vaguely defined frontier-type boundaries, to the national definite boundaries existing today.
Prehistoric era
The primate ancestors of human beings already had social and political skills. The first forms of human social organization were families living in band societies as hunter-gatherers.
After the invention of agriculture around (7,000–8,000 BCE) across various parts of the world, human societies started transitioning to tribal forms of organization. Food surpluses made possible the development of a social elite who were not engaged in agriculture, industry or commerce, but dominated their communities and monopolized decision-making. Nonetheless, larger societies made it more feasible for people to adopt diverse decision making and governance models.
There is evidence of diplomacy between different tribes, but also of endemic warfare. This could have been caused by theft of livestock or crops, abduction of women, or resource and status competition.
The three-age system of periodization of prehistory was first introduced for Scandinavia by Christian Jürgensen Thomsen in the 1830s. By the 1860s, it was embraced as a useful division of the "earliest history of mankind" in general and began to be applied in Assyriology. The now-conventional periodization in the archaeology of the Ancient Near East was developed in the 1920s to 1930s.Oriental Institute Communications, Issues 13–19, Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 1922, p. 55.
Ancient history
The early distribution of political power was determined by the availability of fresh water, fertile soil, and temperate climate of different locations. These were all necessary for the development of highly organized societies. The locations of these early societies were near, or benefiting from, the edges of tectonic plates.
The Indus Valley Civilization was located next to the Himalayas (which were created by tectonic pressures) and the Indus and Ganges rivers, which deposit sediment from the mountains to produce fertile land. A similar dynamic existed in Mesopotamia, where the Tigris and Euphrates did the same with the Zagros Mountains. Ancient Egypt was helped by the Nile depositing sediments from the East African highlands of its origins, while the Yellow River and Yangtze acted in the same way for Ancient China. Eurasia was advantaged in the development of agriculture by the natural occurrence of domesticable wild grass species and the east–west orientation of the landmass, allowing for the easy spread of domesticated crops. A similar advantage was given to it by half of the world's large mammal species living there, which could be domesticated.
As the cooling and drying of the climate by 3800 BCE caused drought in Mesopotamia, village farmers began co-operating and started creating larger settlements with irrigation systems. This new water infrastructure in turn required centralised administration with complex social organisation. However, there is archaeological evidence that shows similar successes with more egalitarian and decentralized complex societies. The first cities and systems of greater social organisation emerged in Mesopotamia, followed within a few centuries by ones at the Indus and Yellow River Valleys. In the cities, the workforce could specialise as the whole population did not have to work for food production, while stored food allowed for large armies to create empires. The first empires were those of Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. Smaller kingdoms existed in North China Plain, Indo-Gangetic Plain, Central Asia, Anatolia, Eastern Mediterranean, and Central America, while the rest of humanity continued to live in small tribes.
Middle East and the Mediterranean
The first states of sorts were those of early dynastic Sumer and early dynastic Egypt, which arose from the Uruk period and Predynastic Egypt respectively at approximately 3000BCE. Early dynastic Egypt was based around the Nile River in the north-east of Africa, the kingdom's boundaries being based around the Nile and stretching to areas where oases existed. Upper and Lower Egypt were unified around 3150 BCE by Pharaoh Menes. This process of consolidation was driven by the crowding of migrants from the expanding Sahara in the Nile Delta. Nevertheless, political competition continued within the country between centers of power such as Memphis and Thebes. The prevailing north-east trade winds made it easier to sail up the river, thereby helping the unification of the state. The geopolitical environment of the Egyptians had them surrounded by Nubia in the smaller southern oases of the Nile unreachable by boat, as well as by Libyan warlords operating from the oases around modern-day Benghazi, and finally by raiders across the Sinai and the sea. The country was well defended by natural barriers formed by the Sahara on both sides, though this also limited its ability to expand into a larger empire, mostly remaining a regional power along the Nile (except for a conquest of the Levant in the second millennium BCE). The lack of timber also made it too expensive to build a large navy for power projection across the Mediterranean or Red Seas.
Mesopotamian dominance
Mesopotamia is situated between the major rivers of Tigris and Euphrates, and the first political power in the region was the Akkadian Empire starting around 2300 BCE. They were preceded by Sumer, and later followed by Babylon, and Assyria. They faced competition from the mountainous areas to the north, strategically positioned above the Mesopotamian plains, with kingdoms such as Mitanni, Urartu, Elam, and Medes. The Mesopotamians also innovated in governance by writing the first laws.
A dry climate in the Iron Age caused turmoil as movements of people put pressure on the existing states resulting in the Late Bronze Age collapse, with Cimmerians, Arameans, Dorians, and the Sea Peoples migrating among others. Babylon never recovered following the death of Hammurabi in 1699 BCE. Following this, Assyria grew in power under Adad-nirari II. By the late ninth century BCE, the Assyrian Empire controlled almost all of Mesopotamia and much of the Levant and Anatolia. Meanwhile, Egypt was weakened, eventually breaking apart after the death of Osorkon II until 710 BCE. In 853, the Assyrians fought and won a battle against a coalition of Babylon, Egypt, Persia, Israel, Aram, and ten other nations, with over 60,000 troops taking part according to contemporary sources. However, the empire was weakened by internal struggles for power, and was plunged into a decade of turmoil beginning with a plague in 763 BCE. Following revolts by cities and lesser kingdoms against the empire, a coup d'état was staged in 745 by Tiglath-Pileser III. He raised the army from 44,000 to 72,000, followed by his successor Sennacherib who raised it to 208,000, and finally by Ashurbanipal who raised an army of over 300,000. This allowed the empire to spread over Cyprus, the entire Levant, Phrygia, Urartu, Cimmerians, Persia, Medes, Elam, and Babylon.
Persian dominance
By 650 BCE, Assyria had started declining as a severe drought hit the Middle East and an alliance was formed against them. Eventually they were replaced by the Median empire as the main power of the region following the Battle of Carchemish (605 BCE) and the Battle of the Eclipse (585 BCE). The Medians served as the launching pad for the rise of the Persian Empire. After first serving as vassals, under the third Persian king Cambyses I their influence rose, and in 553 BCE they rose against the Medians. By the death of Cyrus the Great, the Persian Achaemenid Empire reached from Aegean Sea to Indus River and Caucasus to Nubia. The empire was divided into provinces ruled by satraps, who collected taxes and were typically local power brokers. The empire controlled about a third of the world's farm land and a quarter of its population. In 522 BCE, after King Cambyses II's death, Darius the Great took over power.
Greek dominance
As the population of Ancient Greece grew, they began a colonization of the Mediterranean region. This encouraged trade, which in turn caused political changes in the city-states with old elites being overthrown in Corinth in 657 BCE and in Athens in 632, for example. There were many wars between the cities as well, including the Messenian Wars (743–742 BCE; 685–668 BCE), the Lelantine War (710–650 BCE), and the First Sacred War (595–585 BCE). In the seventh and sixth centuries, Corinth and Sparta were the dominant powers of Greece. The former was eventually supplanted by Athens as the main sea power, while Sparta remained the dominant land-force. In 499 BCE, in the Ionian Revolt Greek cities in Asia Minor rebelled against the Persian Empire but were crushed in the Battle of Lade. After this, the Persians invaded the Greek mainland in the Greco-Persian Wars (499–449 BCE).
The Macedonian King Philip II (350–336 BCE) conquered much of Greece. In 338 BCE, he formed the League of Corinth to liberate Greeks in Asia Minor from the Persians, with 10,000 troops invading in 336 BCE. After his murder, his son Alexander the Great took charge and crossed the Dardanelles in 334 BCE. After Asia Minor had been conquered, Alexander invaded Levant, Egypt, and Mesopotamia, defeating the Persians under Darius the Great in the Battle of Gaugamela in 331 BCE, and ending the last resistance by 328 BCE. After Alexander's death in Babylon in 323 BCE, the Macedonian Empire had no designated successor. This led to its division into four: the Antigonid dynasty in Macedonia, the Attalid dynasty in Anatolia, the Ptolemaic Kingdom in Egypt, and the Seleucid Empire over Mesopotamia.
Roman dominance
The Roman Republic became dominant in the Mediterranean Basin in the 3rd century BCE after defeating the Samnites, the Gauls and the Etruscans for control of the Italian Peninsula. In 264 BCE, it challenged its main rival Carthage to a fight for Sicily, starting the Punic Wars. A truce was signed in 241 BCE, with Rome gaining Corsica and Sardinia in addition to Sicily. In 218 BCE, the Carthaginian Army general Hannibal marched out of Iberia towards Italy, crossing the Alps with his war elephants. After 15 years of fighting, the Roman republican army beat him and then sent troops against Carthage itself, defeating it in 202 BCE. The Second Punic War alone cost Rome 100,000 casualties. In 146 BCE, Carthage was finally destroyed completely at the end of the Third Punic War.