The book Metropolis by Ben Wilson - focusing on cities more than the empires that may or may not have been around them - provides an alternate view where societal complexity and trade and cultural development are much more linked through cities - a mostly-virtuous cycle of proximity and trade enabling specialization and unlocking additional development.
This bit from the linked article makes me wary of their correlation/causation jump: "But she thinks the time between advances in agriculture and military technology and the development of social complexity is too long to be confident about their impact. She says a lag time of 300 to 400 years between the arrival of ironworking and horses and the rise of an empire suggests “military technology must be viewed as a very remote predictor of the outcome.”"
Part of Metropolis, though, can also be read as a cautionary tale about neglecting weapons development. The problem is that someone else can always be a bigger asshole: a thriving trade network across many different civilizations in the Indian Ocean was wrecked, conquered, and colonized by religious-driven aggression by the Portuguese when European civilization finally caught back up and was much more armed since Europeans had spent the time just before that in years of fighting amongst themselves.
This bit from the linked article makes me wary of their correlation/causation jump: "But she thinks the time between advances in agriculture and military technology and the development of social complexity is too long to be confident about their impact. She says a lag time of 300 to 400 years between the arrival of ironworking and horses and the rise of an empire suggests “military technology must be viewed as a very remote predictor of the outcome.”"
Part of Metropolis, though, can also be read as a cautionary tale about neglecting weapons development. The problem is that someone else can always be a bigger asshole: a thriving trade network across many different civilizations in the Indian Ocean was wrecked, conquered, and colonized by religious-driven aggression by the Portuguese when European civilization finally caught back up and was much more armed since Europeans had spent the time just before that in years of fighting amongst themselves.