Guns, Germs, and Steel PBS miniseries discussion thread.

[Epublius Rex]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten

vein attempt

vain attempt...

thank-you, so right. I must confess, reading a few people's posts makes it hard to stay on track. The use of misspelled words and improper verb usage makes it a tangle of convoluted thought.

[Epublius Rex]

Originally posted by Theben
Pretty crappy DanSing job too.

I read the book and didn't get a feel that Diamond thought geography was the sole determinant- just that it played an important role. And I agree, it's pretty hard IMHO to say otherwise. If one guy is in a desert and one in a lush orchard who do you think has a better chance of survival? Propagating? Having leisure time to think of something besides where his next meal is coming from?

Well, that's an extreme case, but lets use it with a slight change.

One man is in the jungle able to pluck the low hanging fruit, the other is on the barren steppes of Russia or the North American plaines. Nothing but grass and small animals as far as the eye can see.

Now who is more likely to succeed?

[Epublius Rex]

Originally posted by GePap


MOst of those differences you imply are far more economic than cultural. For example,herding people's ususally have small populations and mobile forces- for them conquest is the obvious way to go, as they simply can;t compete evenly with others in the colonizing bit, specially since farming in the new areas would probably be more successful than a pastoral experience. To say the the lands nearby are not easy to exploit is to make a geographic and economic arguement. And the Bushmen come from such marginal lands that they never have had the resources or populations to do anything but survive.

Much of this fits into Diamond's thesis, but much does not. Some aggressive cultures have picked one fight too many and have been erased from the list of active peoples. Others such as the Japanese have proven to be so adaptable that they have been successful as insular island people, as a small counterweight to an enormous neighboring empire, as an empire in their own right and as one of the planets most successful trading people, all within the space of a few centuries. They don't seem to be a great example of geographic determinism to my mind, but rather nimble adapters of culture depending on the situation.

Japan is not a small Island, and not that isolated either. Like Britian, it was more than large enough to develop a strong civilization, strong enough to ward of foreign invaders (helped here or there by random chance). Japan is actually a good example against "culture" as the driving force. After all, Japan followed China's example of closing itself of to the world, purging foreign influences, so forth, which put it at a horrible disadvantage by the time Perry came. Then Japan, without adopting any cultural traits from the west, but plenty of technology, made itself a world power. Japan did not become a world power by adopting western culture, only its tools to augment itself. The same culture that kept Japan isolated for 2 centuries made it leap to a great power.



The problem is this: 1. The capabilties of the software are based on the hardware. Software is designed for the hardware that exists, not the other way around. You can;t run Windows XP of a cell phone, so even before you start talking about who has what software, you have to know what software can be used.
2. Software does not make as much a difference as hardware when it comes to overall capabilties. Certainly it matters, but the huge difference between my computer today and mine 8 years ago have more to do with an 8 fold increase in RAM, a 15 fold increase in chip speed, a 40 fold increase plus is Hard drive space than the improvements between Windows 95 and XP.

Most of what you just wrote is a circular argument not worth responding to. Only someone who knows nothing of history would make that statement.

Empires have risen and fallen since the beginning of civilization. Blaming it on economics is far to broad of a brush stroke to have any validity. You are arguing, in some respect (I'm guessing here, perhaps giving too much credit..) the old "Guns or Butter" economic conundrum. Do we eat or do we make war. The problem with your assessment is that you are viewing history through the lens of the present instead of placing yourself there in the moment.

Going back far enough, everyone was a warrior and everyone a farmer or hunter gatherer. And even then, there were societies that conquered and societies that were conquered. The Huns extracted tribute from Rome, nor the other way around. Rome had immensely more wealth then the Huns, a nomadic people, could have ever hoped to accumulate. So, how was it that the Huns invaded and beat Rome? For that matter, how was it that the Goths not only invaded, but conquered Rome? Are you saying it had nothing to do with culture? Are you saying that is was luck?

WHat economic advantage did the Golden Hoard have over the Byzantine Empire and the Eastern Caliphate? The environment they rode out from to conquer China and Central Asia, Eastern Europe, and half of Islam, etc was no where near as wealthy as that which they conquered. The same can be said of the Hun, the Visigoths, the Goths, etc.

There is the complete hole in your circular argument. And I maintain the advantage all of those conquerors had over the those they conquered was cultural supremacy.

Japan was infinitesimally smaller then China, but they kicked China's rear. Japan has not a single natural resource other then it's people and their cultural beliefs. That alone puts lie to your hypothesis.

[Epublius Rex]

Originally posted by GePap


Care to detail them then, Klanman?

Cheap shot, as usual. Are you just a kid, I want to know before I bother with anymore of this. I mean, I haven't heard anyone speak that way (calling names, etc) since grade school.

First thing you need to learn, Gepap, is that the games you play on your computer are not real history. At best they are a cheap and simplified version of what might have been. Want to really learn? Read Gibbon, then read his bibliography.

Now, as to Japan-

First of all, your prior post agrees with the assertion that is culture that is the predeterminate, not geography, but I don't think you understood what you were writing just there.

Now, as to Japan and it's Westernization. I think you are the first person I have ever heard make that statement- I do mean "ever".

While hardly complete, this sums it up nicely:

http://www.tqnyc.org/NYC052087/western.html

Beyond that, when my families travels there began in the 1920's all anyone could remark was how amazing their progress toward modernization was in such a short time. "Modernization" was a euphemism, if you will, for "Westernization". It was the US, after all, that had opened up Japan. In fact, the reason for building the American cross continental RR's was to create a global shortcut so that all trade from Asia would go through America, rather then to Europe and thence to America. It was a bold plan and it worked. When they were completed, the change from European hegemony in trade immediately began to weaken while American hegemony began to rise. But I digress.

The Japanese chose to Westernize in order to avoid the fate of China, which became a colony. Could America have conquered Japan in the 1870's or earlier? Most assuredly. It would have been no more difficult then subduing the American Indians. But make no mistake, while the Japanese maintained their culture of the warrior class (Bushido?) they adopted, at the point of the gun, the Western world- the Americanized version. This transformation did not occur after WW2, it began in 1870's.

[Epublius Rex]

Originally posted by GePap
Oh, poor Drakie pooh. Its the company you keep Potemkin. Next time you decide what someone like ER says is funny and declaring how much you like them, think (thought its not like you do that very much)

Now, since you are obviouly incapable of doing it (anymore than you know European geography, it seems)

Here is a nice link:

http://www.aems.uiuc.edu/HTML/Handout1.htm

Simple overview. Lets look at the most relevant quote:

In addition to admiring Western technology, the Japanese in power were very interested in Western ideals, such as progress, democracy, equality, and freedom, which they felt had made the West (particularly the United States) strong. They felt that their country could achieve its potential only if all of its people could achieve their potential. Thus, the terms, "civilization and enlightenment," referred to Japanese appreciation of Western culture and values. Japanese leaders were especially interested in Western culture and values in the early stages of the Meiji Period.

The following new social institutions appeared during the Meiji Period.They are listed in order of their appearance, which gives some indication of the priorities of the new government.

* modern educational system (1872)
* universal draft (military conscription, 1873)
* new economic institutions (land tax, banks, government offices, etc., mid-1870s to mid-1880s)
* Constitution and Diet (two-house parliament, 1889-1890)

This leads to the question, how are those ideas "Western Culture"? After all, " progress, democracy, equality, and freedom" were not part of the European value system in parituclar when Europe began to expand outwards. How many people would call those the values of Habsburg Spain, the European state that began the great wave of world conquest by Europeans? IN fact, those notions were the outcomes of thought in the 17th and 18th centuries, well aftyer Europe had already been set on the path to global domination.

None of those values really applied to Russia either, yet it was carving itself the largest land empire since the Mongols, and was one of the great European powers.

another quote:

As time went on, however, many intellectual and political leaders became increasingly negative about whether Western culture and values fit Japanese society. One prominent example of this questioning of Western ways was with regard to the position of women versus men. Although many Japanese women called on government leaders to grant greater freedom to women during this period of change, few prominent leaders believed that women should have rights equal to those of men.

This gets to a deeper question: what was this "Japanese society"? Is that the true Japanese culture, with the other bits mentioned simply the technological superstructure on top of the true cultural basis?

Japan today is certainly one of the most modern states in the world when it comes to economics and technology. Its is an advanced Liberal democracy.

Is it then a Western country now?

Anyone who wants to tout the line "it is culture" that matters needs to answer that simple question- the question that has bedevilled countless modernizers since the beginning of the 20th century.

Wow! I should have just read on. Unbelievable how you can so deftly shoot yourself in your own foot with your own posts. Are you on drugs? You just proved both his and my statements.

By the way, you do know that Potemkin was a communist hero, right? And what you just did above, trying to "kill" him by associating him with me, whom you have labeled a racist, is a very very Stalinist type of thing to do- you know, false accusations and labels followed up by false accusations of association and therefore guilt by association. How very totalitarian of you. Your master would be proud.

As to your final question, you have again already answered and proved the assertion that culture is what matters. Before adopting change, the Japanese were an inconsequential entity. After adoption, they first rose to "greatness" as a short lived military empire. Once being conquered by a superior military force, the were in turn forced into total assimilation and became a Western nation in all relevant ways. As a result, they have become an economic powerhouse and have an economic empire that far and away outstrips the military one.

You need to think before engaging your fingers.

[Epublius Rex]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
I also wonder if we're being too glib in our charecterization of 16th century Spain. It wasnt all inquisitions, torture racks, and mystics, ya know. Spain at that time still had a considerable renaissance culture, and strong cultural influences from Italy and Flanders. It was really only toward the end of the 16th century, and esp in the the 17thc, that Spain turned inward on itself. And that was also when Spain went into decline, though the direction of causality is not quite clear.

Rapid rise in wealth and resulting inflation destroyed their economy, which was almost wholly based upon mercantilism and almost no manufacturing. As a result, they had to import almost all manufactured goods from the rest of Europe, who, not having a near free source of gold, charged them huge sums. The gold eventually ran out- now in the pockets of the Dutch and English and their economy collapsed. when the economy went, the military went. Though they had had major setbacks long before then. Spain eventually became a largely vassal state of first France, then England. Once that happened, it was over with. England's over riding foreign policy was to prevent any other European nation from rising to a level that could threaten her by then total hegemony on the seas.

England's star begin rising with Elizabeth as a world power and it's power was based upon it's navy. That navy was full of British pride and steeped in the history and culture of it's people. When that was lost in the 1950's, England itself became lost. Today, it is but a shell of it's former self. Just as the US is now becoming a shadow of itself as it enters the phase of mercantilist state.

That lesson, the lesson of what happens to nations and empires when they lose their national purpose, is the lesson Gibbon makes in his books.

[Epublius Rex]

Originally posted by GePap


Yet would you claim that European culture prior to the Renaissance was headed towards these new ideas of individualism and naturalism? After all, the supposed link to the Greek ideas had been breachec centuries before, and it was thanks to the saving of such works not by Europe but by the Muslims that eventually the ideas return. At the same time, these ideals did not stop their creators from falling to barbarians, now did they?

They were cultural AND political. The political elite saw the rationale for change, desired the change - but resistance to change was less than in china

By what do you judge that? The fact there was civil warin Japan?

at the same time, BECAUSE Japan had a cultural tradition of borrowing from the outside. Japan having once done it, Taiwan and South Korea could point to Japan as an example of success, and thus lessen resistance that way. In China of course, attempts to modernize/westernize largely failed prior to 1949 (although they left their mark - abolition of footbinding, for ex) The PRC, for its own reasons, abolished the feudal land holding class, and many other institutions. When the PRC's own ideology faded, the ground was cleared.

Japan's imperialism did little to enhance modernzation anywhere else in Asia. Japan was an example for many, like the Young Turks. The question is, what was the lesson to learn?

And to return to the beginning, the difference in geographical situations between ALL the Eurasian civs, and the New Guineans, is FAR greater than that AMONG the eurasian civs. In the one case geography is clearly determinitive - in the other its quite debatable.

The muslims did not preserve that knowledge for the West, it was laying in the vaults of the Vatican the whole of the Middle Ages, it was when there were enough scholarly people outside the church that it began to be redistributed.

Already saying that it had to be a Eurasian civ that would dominate is a huge step, given that it leaves 5 continents out of the running.

And then you have the long span of Eurasian civlization. Whjo was ahead changed-after all, Eurasian history is 5000 years old and only in the last 10% of that could you state a clear European dominance.



The quesqion is whether "culture" can sweep anything. What is the "power" of culture distinct from more basic human desires that are universal, or geographic limitations, that exist beyond the power of man?

You're sort of forgetting the Celts, who introduced the bow, the cart, the tamed horse, the bronze age and advanced weaving to the Chinese.

You are also forgetting Kurgan culture. You are forgetting the Sythians who brought the horse and the chariot to Mesopotamia. You're forgetting the Hittites who brought in the Iron Age. You're forgetting the Greeks and the Romans- your forgetting most of Europe.

History and culture are linear. Knowledge begets knowledge. The history of Europe and it's cultures (which includes language, art and writing) are linear, they are interrelated and they are much older then 5,000 years. It was Europeans who brought about the bronze age, it was Europeans who brought about the Iron Age. It was Europeans who brought about science as we know it- the Greeks when they turned Babylonian "Geometry" into a true math and science. All of those things were a part of their culture and had little to do with geography. There was iron ore in the AMericas, but the Indians never figured out how to smelt it. They knew what it was, they could utilize iron from meteorites, but they never ever even tried to smelt ore. Likewise, there was copper here, but they never did anything with that, or bronze.

There was the making of gun powder, but they never tried to do anything with that- and this whole idea, that the gun made the European conquest of the world possible is bunk- again, it negates the fact that the Romans and the Greeks conquered plenty with nothing more then spears, bows and swords. They were Europeans, you know. Same haplogroups.

Incidentally, Byzantium fell to the Turks because the Crusaders had sacked and ravaged it. Once weakened from within, they were easier prey.

Also, as I'm tired now- I forgot to point out that it was the economically and geographically very poor Rus who defeated the Golden Hoard and drove them out of Europe. They did it by spending nearly 100 years planing and building an army to do so. 100 years of deliberate, documented planning.

[Epublius Rex]

Originally posted by GePap


Sorry, but I never read Kamen, and besdies, I hardly will buy one author's story for it. Spain was following on the steps of Henry the Navigator, and if she conquered the new world it was with habsburg money at first, and her plentiful leftover warriors hungry for glory.



Are you therefore saying a place may have mutiple cultures?

And on the culture front, what cultural traits set Northern Italy apart from Europe so that this movement would begin there?

It's proximity to Rome. Travel was expensive and time consuming in those days, you know. But there is also the vibrancy of the Venetian Merchants and their accumulated wealth. Without the money, there could have been no one to pay for the art, the science, etc. The Vatican did spend money, but only in ways that supported it and it's dogma.

Somehow or another you seem to have gotten it in your head that the whole of Europe had forgotten the Empire- it had not. In fact, the main coin of exchange during the Middle Ages was still Roman money- only now it all came from Byzantium. You did know they were "Romans" there, right?

[Epublius Rex]

Originally posted by Berzerker


The show mentioned the development of farming in SE Asia ~11,500 years ago. But much of what we call civilisation did develop in the fertile crescent first. Egypt and the Indus followed soon after and it isn't unreasonable to see that China followed the Indus.

And I believe there were old world contacts with the new world leading to civilisation there. Pyramid/ziggurat construction is good evidence of diffusion as well as the mythology these structures represent.

Umm, no it didn't. You haven't been paying attention. Who was it that conquered the Dravidians? How long before the pyramids where those people building cities, burial mounds, making carts taming horses? The Sumer are old, the "Kurgans" older and whoever it was in Eastern Europe building those cities 7,000 years ago are even older- 2,000 years older then the Pyramids:

http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article225357.ece

You must stay up on these things.

[Epublius Rex]

Heres a complete free article:

http://www.jcrows.com/europesoldestcivilization.html

[Epublius Rex]

here's another one for you:
"URUMQI, China -- After years of controversy and political intrigue, archaeologists using genetic testing have proved that Caucasians roamed China's Tarim Basin 1,000 years before East Asian people arrived. "

http://www.washtimes.com/world/20050419-101056-2135r.htm

And another:

"The physical characteristics of the bones showed it is a typical European race," said Wang Minghui, an expert with the archeological institute under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences."

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-07/06/content_1576929.htm

All is not what always appears to be and Mr. Diamond is woefully inadequate in his knowledge of history. For all we know, those nasty Europeans once covered all of Asia and the Middle East and were driven out by other people's bugs- but not their guns or steal, because we know who invented those.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Epublius Rex
By the way, you do know that Potemkin was a communist hero, right?

Potemkin, the 18th century Czarist field marshall
Potemkin, the battleship, where the crewmen revolted, thus entering communist lore

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Epublius Rex
but not their guns or steal, because we know who invented those.

Indeed, in the archaic times, the Ottomans hadn't yet invented the military use of guns, and the semitic people of the fertile crescent hadn't yet mastered iron working. I suppose the caucasians were conquered by stone age vs stone age weaponry.

It's really hilarious that you claim that a conqueror culture is "superior" when it fits Europeans, but as soon as you mention the utter defeat of caucasians, you immediately dismiss the "achievement" of the victors

[Ramo]

Why are y'all arguing with this DL?

[Ramo]

WHat economic advantage did the Golden Hoard have over the Byzantine Empire and the Eastern Caliphate?

Also, as I'm tired now- I forgot to point out that it was the economically and geographically very poor Rus who defeated the Golden Hoard and drove them out of Europe.

Golden Horde