"Tolkien's Modern Middle Ages"

[Kuruharan]

Originally Posted by Zigûr

EDIT: A couple of other thoughts occur: population decline might be compared to a medieval situation, that caused by the devastating Mongol invasions of Central Asia, the Middle East and Eastern Europe in the 13th Century, which perhaps (given their predilection for mounted soldiery) have some points of comparison with the Easterlings and their repeated invasions of western Middle-earth. Of course in Professor Tolkien's fiction, there is an immortal manipulator behind the scenes, which greatly extends things. The apparent population decline of Gondor, however, might also to some extent be a prediction of a modern scenario in which a relatively high quality of life (which Gondor appears to have had) can have extremely variable effects on birthrate and population growth - note that as many modern Western societies rely on immigration to support population growth and age, it was the mingling of the Men of Gondor with Middle Men that to an extent enabled their survival into the end of the Third Age (despite ugly racially-motivated resistance to this, as seen in the Kin-Strife, obviously an incisive narrative expression on Professor Tolkien's part with immense relevance to his context and beyond).

These are very good points.

I had not thought before about the potential parallel between Central Asia post-Mongols, which had achieved a high level of cultural development before the Mongols, and the depopulated state of Middle earth.

They were very similar in the sense of both being composed of vast stretches of wilderness with only a few isolated surviving population centers.

Originally Posted by Zigûr

"The Machine is our more obvious modern form though more closely related to Magic than is usually recognised."

I doubt Tolkien would think highly of the internet...