Guns, Germs, and Steel PBS miniseries discussion thread.

[Berzerker]

The arms race didn't begin in 700 AD, it began in 3,000 BC.

Who said it began in 700 ad?

[Kuciwalker]

I thought the arms race took off in the 50's

[Immortal Wombat]

The arms race began several billion years ago when a new type of bacteria discovered predation.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Berzerker


The guy was stupid, that and only that explains how he lost...well...lost so fast. The tide against the new world was unstoppable, but the Inca were nicely positioned to fend off the Spanish for decades or even centuries had they wiped out the Spanish force.

After Atahualpa died and the Spanish had also killed Huascar (whom was a captive of Atahualpa when the Spanish took over) various Imperial generals did battle against the Spanish. The last Inca resistance in the Andes did not end until at least the 1570's. So it took about 40 years for the Spanish to actually pacify the Inca. Tupac Amaru (namesake of the other Tupac) was the last Inca who battled the Spanish.

Pizzaro had very little help from Incan enemies, they rode into town and the dumb mayor handed them the keys to the kingdom.

Pizzaro needed support from local indians to fight the long fight to pacify the country, specially once fighting broke out amongst his own men.

[Ted Striker]

Huh, so know I know where "Tupac" came from.

[Ecthy]

Anyone remembers that song "Pizarro at Cuzco" from Colonization?

*whistles*

[Bosh]

And stop this absurd nonsense about the Arabs preserving European heritage, The Arabs are the ones who burned the library at Alexandria- because they thought it was all heresy.

You are surprisingly ignorant. It was destroyed by Christians during a particularly nasty outbreak of anti-Arian riots. And the Arabs did a whole lot to preserve Classical learning, many of the classic texts we possess today are only available through Arabic translations and the extent to which Neo-Platonism penetrated Arab philosophy is quite amazing.

[lord of the mark]

nm

[Epublius Rex]

Originally posted by Bosh

You are surprisingly ignorant. It was destroyed by Christians during a particularly nasty outbreak of anti-Arian riots. And the Arabs did a whole lot to preserve Classical learning, many of the classic texts we possess today are only available through Arabic translations and the extent to which Neo-Platonism penetrated Arab philosophy is quite amazing.

Prove your assertions- I have the text books here on my shelfs backing me up.


I guess, as usual, you know little about the Western philosophers of the Middle Ages:

http://www.nd.edu/Departments/Maritain/etext/stthomas.htm

[Epublius Rex]

Originally posted by Berzerker


Who said it began in 700 ad?

You:

quote:
Originally posted by Berzerker

Diamond mentioned the arms race in Europe/Spain leading to the guns and steel used to conquer the new world. When two of the main factors relate to arms, I dont know how you can say he "negated" it...

[Epublius Rex]

Originally posted by GePap


After Atahualpa died and the Spanish had also killed Huascar (whom was a captive of Atahualpa when the Spanish took over) various Imperial generals did battle against the Spanish. The last Inca resistance in the Andes did not end until at least the 1570's. So it took about 40 years for the Spanish to actually pacify the Inca. Tupac Amaru (namesake of the other Tupac) was the last Inca who battled the Spanish.

Pizzaro had very little help from Incan enemies, they rode into town and the dumb mayor handed them the keys to the kingdom.

Pizzaro needed support from local indians to fight the long fight to pacify the country, specially once fighting broke out amongst his own men.

It would seem that PBS itself disagrees with you on who killed Huascar:

http://www.pbs.org/conquistadors/pizarro/pizarro_i00.html

As well as others:

http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/H/Huascar.asp

[Epublius Rex]

Originally posted by Bosh

You are surprisingly ignorant. It was destroyed by Christians during a particularly nasty outbreak of anti-Arian riots. And the Arabs did a whole lot to preserve Classical learning, many of the classic texts we possess today are only available through Arabic translations and the extent to which Neo-Platonism penetrated Arab philosophy is quite amazing.

Well, you are simply wrong with the Arabic translations. Your version presumes and pretends there was no knowledge of the Greeks in antiquity during the middle Ages- completely forgetting the existence of the Roman Church before the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Augustine was writing in Africa before the advent of Islam.

As for the debate on who burned the Library, it appears we are both wrong:

http://www.bede.org.uk/library.htm

"The story that Theophilus destroyed a library is clearly a fiction that we can very precisely lay at the door of Edward Gibbon. It is in his monumental Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire that we first find the allegation made. Gibbon seems mainly concerned to clear the Arabs of the responsibility of destroying the library and allows his marked anti-Christian prejudice to cloud his better judgement. His excellent footnotes show he had exactly the same sources as we do but drew the wrong conclusions. The story has recently been popularised by Carl Sagan who includes it in Cosmos. He spices the story up with a role for the murdered philosopher Hypatia, even though there is no evidence connecting her to the library at all."

As well as:

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01303a.htm

"After Aristarchos the importance of the library began to wane. In 47 B.C. Caesar was compelled to set fire to his fleet to prevent its falling into the hands of the Egyptians. The fire spread to the docks and the naval arsenal, and destroyed 400,000 rolls. It is most probable from the statement of Orosius that these were not in the library itself, but had been removed from it preparatory for shipment to Rome, a view confirmed by the statement of the author of the "Bellum Alexandrinum " that Alexandria was built in such a way as to be safe from a great conflagration. Seneca and Gellius also speak only of the burning of manuscripts, though the latter represents the destruction as complete. Less carefully, Plutarch and Dio Cassius speak of the burning of the library, but had this been the case we should find mention of it in Cicero and Strabo."

Above also confirmed in the first link.

[Bosh]

Prove your assertions- I have the text books here on my shelfs backing me up.

Only very old textbooks or very badly-researched ones would repeat the thorougly-discredited story that the Muslims burned the library. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia:

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01303a.htm

Up to the time of Gibbon, the generally accepted version of the destruction of the library was that, on the capture of the city by the Mahommedans in A.D. 642, John Philoponos, having formed a friendship with their general Amrou, asked for the gift of the library. Amrou referred the matter to the Caliph Omar and received the answer:

If these writings of the Greeks agree with the book of God, they are useless, and need not be preserved; if they disagree, they are pernicious, and ought to be destroyed.
Accordingly, they were employed in the baths as fuel, and lasted six months. This story is now generally discredited, chiefly because it rests only on the authority of Abulpharagius, a writer six centuries later, while earlier writers, especially Eutychius and Elmacin, make no mention of it. Besides, the act is contrary to Mohammedan custom; John Philoponos lived about a century before the capture of the city, and the statement of the time the rolls lasted as fuel is preposterous. Finally, there is the evidence given above for the earlier destruction of the library.

I guess, as usual, you know little about the Western philosophers of the Middle Ages:

I know who Aquinas is Do you know who Ibn Arabi was? Very impressive Neoplatonism, although just a touch abstruse...

[Epublius Rex]

Originally posted by Immortal Wombat
The arms race began several billion years ago when a new type of bacteria discovered predation.

How trite.

Lets just say that humans stole the world from the cockroaches and should give it back. After all, we got lucky when some fish managed to walk up right out of the ocean. If it hadn't walked out of the ocean at that precise geographical location, it would have fallen down, been washed back into the sea by the next wave and gone back to swimming for good.

See, it was all geography all along. Not to mention the bacteria that happened when "lightening struck water in the primordial ooz".

[Bosh]

Well the library question is a bit complex since there was a series of destruction events since the thing was big and spread out, but there's no real evidence that the Muslims had anything to do with it. It was definately around after Ceasar though (follow my link).

As for Arabic translations, you're resorting to strawmen. I never said that the classical tradition died out completely in Christian Europe, just that it was stronger in the Mid-East (at least for a while). THat's why when Scholasticism got rolling many Christian scholars had to travel to Muslim Spain to increase the number of classical text that they had access to.