| To be fair most of the books take place in either total wastelands or areas ravaged by war once you leave the Shire. - The civilisation of men east of Isengard apart from the Shire was more or less destroyed by the Witch King of Angmar before the books. - Frodo and Sam spend books 2 and 3 wandering swamps, desolate mountains, and eventually Mordor (specifically avoiding roads and civilisation to avoid being caught). - The rest of the fellowship spends book 2 in Rohan - most of their economy seems to be rearing horses on pasture rather than growing crops (not an uncommon situation in the pre-modern past) - They then spend book 3 in and around the front lines of the war between Gondor and Mordor. Gondor is also explicitly depopulated - it had been ravaged by plague in the years beforehand. That’s why Gondor is so weak. Tolkien’s world probably could have contained more of a realistic agricultural economy, but it does seem that the reason the world outside of the Shire feels so desolate is that Middle Earth is more or less in the process of total societal collapse. Also Elves are weird and it’s not entirely clear what they eat or how they maintain their civilisation in the forests… |