Wittfogel, Karl (1896–1988)

Karl August Wittfogel was a well-known German American historian and a sinologist. Concerned primarily with humanity's relationship with nature, his work influenced geography, anthropology, and urban studies. The environmental historian Donald Worster credits Wittfogel with pointing out that nature was not passive but formed a strong force in shaping the history of humanity. Wittfogel is also known for his early Marxist thought and his later critique of Marxism.

Wittfogel was born in Woltersdorf, Germany, and received his PhD from the University of Frankfurt in 1928. In the 1920s and 1930s, he was an active communist and an avid critic of fascism. When Hitler gained power in Germany in [Page 3121]1933, Wittfogel became a target of the Nazis. He was imprisoned in a concentration camp until international support prompted his release. Wittfogel moved to the United States and acquired U.S. citizenship in 1939. He taught first at Columbia University and then at the University of Washington until he retired from teaching in 1966.

Wittfogel is primarily known for his view that water played a critical role in early civilizations, states, and cities. He was especially concerned with Asian civilizations. Wittfogel explains these views in his 1956 essay “The Hydraulic Civilizations” and in his most famous work, Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power, published in 1957. One central point of Wittfogel's hydraulic civilization thesis is that arid and semiarid societies required tremendous amounts of control and stern management of water resources. Wittfogel believed that water was a key resource for civilizations. Water was needed for irrigation and was vital for agriculture in arid and semiarid regions and often required large engineering projects that were built with forced labor. Wittfogel believed that this factor was especially important in the early development of Asian civilizations. He notes that other resources, such as soil and air, are as important to agriculture as water, but water differs in one principal way. Water can be stored. In Wittfogel's opinion, the control of water resources was such an important factor in the survival and development of Asian civilizations that he refers to them as hydraulic civilizations. Wittfogel believed that the control over water gave governments enormous power over people. According to Wittfogel, the rulers of civilizations in arid and semiarid areas eventually acquired a tremendous amount of control. Governments ruled strictly and monopolized their economies through “hydraulic government.” The word despotism in the title of his well-known work refers to this harsh control over the lives of masses of people. Some, such as Neil Smith, view his concern with Asian despotism as a slightly veiled critique of communism.