It is from such sources that we get, not just our notion of empire as handmaiden to civilisation, but also our contemporary image of life before and beyond empire as being small-scale, chaotic and largely unproductive.
We need to think critically about how that shapes our understanding of the past and other cultures.
For some scholars today, the claims prove that empires are obvious and natural structures for human beings to inhabit, or even attractive political projects that, once discovered, we have reproduced again and again over the longue durée of history.
This shows that we can feed people and protect the planet at the same time, as long as we use a balanced mix of farming methods.