Prior to the First World War, the potential for the emergence of a state from the lands beyond the River Jordan was almost non-existent. There was no significant urban concentration to act as an embryonic power centre around which political and economic power might coalesce; indeed, Amman was a deserted village until the 1870s. Neither was there much sustainable prosperity in the area from which an economic surplus capable of supporting the complex structures of a modern state might be drawn. Moreover, there was little sense of a collective community on which the ideology of a state might be built.