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No one can claim having more superior jeans. Even the feared Mongols fell out of fashion. (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/historymemes@lemmy.world
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[–] 3 points 1 year ago (10 children)

That sounds like Gun Germs and Steel which is a very problematic book.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (9 children)

    Would you mind explaining whats problematic about it? Seems pretty logical from the comment you replied to no?

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (7 children)

    GGS's core argument leans very heavily into environmental determinism, which is generally not regarded as a serious comprehensive argument for societal differences.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (6 children)

    Thanks for expanding on it. Do you know what other theories bring up as the reason why it happened to be Europe that came to dominate?

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (5 children)

    One which I brought up elsewhere in the thread is an old one - that Europe discovering, plundering, and then exploiting the Americas gave them the boost they needed to extend that hegemony to the rest of the world. They 'lucked out' into finding a bunch of 'easy targets' and a massive amount of land once they were done butchering.

    Noneofurbusiness brought up capitalism, which is another common explanation - capitalism, for all of its faults, gave Europe in the 17th century AD an unprecedented period of sustained growth, which not only fueled Europe's ambitions, but also the later Industrial Revolution which would extend its advantage even further.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Makes sense but that also requires Europe to have the resources, animals and geography to encourage naval expeditions. The Americas didnt come to Europe, presumably because of the lack of large domesticated animals (?)

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Of course - there are a great many factors behind Europe being the ones to discover the Americas, and not vice-versa. But, importantly, many other Old World regions had the same access to material goods and technology that Europe did - China in particular - but did not end up discovering (or exploiting) the Americas.

    The point in rejecting environmental determinism is not the rejection of environmental factors, but the rejection of determinism - history is a vast field, and even small changes can arrest entire civilizations.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    You're jumping ahead a bit there, because before they stumble on the Americas, they've still got to have the ability and willingness to sail thousands of miles into unknown territory. Which basically no one else did.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    But plenty of people did? There are no end of expeditions to nowhere in world history, some success, most not. Hell, the only reason Columbus succeeded was because he was wrong about the size of the world - otherwise, he would've ran out of supplies long before landfall.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    It’s way too neat of an answer to a complex question.

    Diamond is an ophthalmologist and a bird watcher. He is in no way in any regard an anthropologist, sociologist, or historian. He’s a hack who keeps pushing his ascientific notions because it got him fame.

    Reddit’s askhistorians FAQ has a whole bit about this book and its issues.

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