Guns, Germs, and Steel PBS miniseries discussion thread.

[Drake Tungsten]

maybe the issue is the number of rivers and mountain passes in China.

No, the issue is whether China is "relatively flat" or not. GePap wants to change the issue because he's wrong, but I don't really care to...

[GePap]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten

maybe the issue is the number of rivers and mountain passes in China.

No, the issue is whether China is "relatively flat" or not. GePap wants to change the issue because he's wrong, but I don't really care to...

So in short, you want to debate the micro-issues and ignore the macro-issues, because that is how you function, a lap dog biting at the ankles because you are incapable of trulyl getting involved.

The issue is how geography impedes the creation of a singular political entity. My claim is that geography in China is more conducive to a single political union than that of Europe.

Like a drew on one of those maps, the mountains in southern China are dotted with passes, so they are not nearly as significant a barrier as say the Alps, or the Pyranees. I don;t know how much of an obstacle the Carpathians and the ranges of the Balkans are.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by GePap


:Like a drew on one of those maps, the mountains in southern China are dotted with passes, so they are not nearly as significant a barrier as say the Alps, or the Pyranees. I don;t know how much of an obstacle the Carpathians and the ranges of the Balkans are.

Oddly, though, the Romans seemed to have managed to work around both the alps and pyrenees, and their is more cultural continuity between Catalonia, Provence, and Nothwest Italy, then there is say, between northern France and Germany. Again, I suspect the importance of the sea connections via the Med is neglected.

[Drake Tungsten]

So in short, you want to debate the micro-issues and ignore the macro-issues

I only wanted to correct a glaring falsehood on your part. This whole discussion would've been over a long time ago if you were capable of admitting you are wrong...

[JohnT]

Drake, you lapdog! Are you a running lackey tool of Capitalist Oppression as well?

[Drake Tungsten]

Oddly, though, the Romans seemed to have managed to work around both the alps and pyrenees

There's an abundance of low passes in the Alps and the Pyrenees are less formidable in the west than they are in the east. They're the best Europe has to offer in terms of mountainous barriers, but it's debatable how big a hindrance they actually were.

[Drake Tungsten]

Originally posted by JohnT
Drake, you lapdog! Are you a running lackey tool of Capitalist Oppression as well?

OMFG! Am I?!

[Kuciwalker]

Beautiful, Drake.

[GePap]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


Oddly, though, the Romans seemed to have managed to work around both the alps and pyrenees, and their is more cultural continuity between Catalonia, Provence, and Nothwest Italy, then there is say, between northern France and Germany. Again, I suspect the importance of the sea connections via the Med is neglected.

Mountains are not impassable, but they do make for worthwhile barriers-why borders, specially why borders tend to follow them for so long.

Yes, the Romans crossed both of those, and Alexander crossed the Zagros mountains, and the Mongols had a huge land empire. That these things happen does not invalidate any notion that geography can be a strong barrier.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten

So in short, you want to debate the micro-issues and ignore the macro-issues

I only wanted to correct a glaring falsehood on your part. This whole discussion would've been over a long time ago if you were capable of admitting you are wrong...

The issue is political unity and how geography takes a role. The maps you showed from wikipedia show that China;s culture begins in the flat north, unifies, then spreads eastward and southward, southward first long the many river valleys though the mountains.

As for your assertion that China is somehow more topographically diverse than Europe, this is false, and why is aid relatively. For example, this is Spain:



NOte how most of the country is over 1000 meters in height, making it as mountanous as Southern China.

her is greece:



Here in the Northern Balkans, parts of Italy, and the Alps"



So the south of Europe is very rugged, and the northern flat plain is then cut by large rivers like the Rhine, then the Elbe further, then the Oder, so forth.

So, one, the historical China is not more mountanous that Europe as you claim. And the issue remains how the geography of Europe makes it harder to unify the place.

[Drake Tungsten]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


Beautiful, Drake.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by GePap


Europe did not "want" to colonize anything. Where the hell do you get that notion?

Well, at times European states or peoples were willing to 'colonize' various non-European territories- even those seen now as marginal- and in the face of determined opposition from native inhabitants- the Normans established kingdoms in England, northern France, Sicily and attempted to seize parts of North Africa, the Middle East and southern Italy and Greece.

Their predecessors, the Vikings, were willing to colonize the Faeroes, Iceland, Greenland and even to have a stab at Newfoundland, as well as creating the Danelaw in eastern England, and kingdoms based on Jorvik and Dublin and the Isle of Man.

The Teutonic Knights were willing to 'colonize' areas of northern Europe- despite fierce opposition from Prussians, Poles, Lithuanians and Russians.

"Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga," a travelling exhibition produced by the National Museum of Natural History, is about an extraordinary people who set out from their European homelands for unknown places beyond the horizon, including North America, 1000 years ago. This remarkable territorial expansion has recently become far better understood from historical, archaeological and environmental research. Presented through a spectacular array of artifacts and archaeological finds, the exhibit explores a previously unknown chapter in the history of North America.

http://www.mnh.si.edu/vikings/start.html

[JohnT]

I stopped arguing with GePap about this because he was exhibiting True Believer syndrome. But thanks, Molly!

I could've discussed the example of the America's, the division of Africa, Australia, British presence in India, etc, but thought that the examples were so self-evident that it was rather embarrassing on my part to have to bring them up.

[Mr. Harley]

I first wanted to bring up the aspect that all mountain barriers are not equal impediments. I have a paticular loathing for so-called colonists, the last true human colonists on any scale were the people who crossd over the Siberian land bridge into North America at the end of the last Ice Age (and there may have been small struggling human communities in NA before them). Everything else has been conquest at best, while ethnic cleansing and genocide have hardly been rare. Colonists my a**.

[Adam Smith]

The Mountains Are High and the Emperor is Far Away

I wonder if the argument about centralization has things backwards. China might have been easier to conquer but it was much more difficult to govern. The basic argument in this thread seems to be that centralized government meant that the Chinese were condemned to live with bad governmental decisions. But that only applies if the governmentfs decisions could be made to stick. One link off the Wikipedia article Gepap posted contains the following:

The Hai jin (ŠC‹Ö) was a ban on maritime activities during the mid-Ming Dynasty of China. Indeed to curb piracy, the ban was ineffective and posed huge hardships on communities of the coast. After extreme pressure from the bureaucracy, the ban was lifted by 1550.
Some have argued that the Hai jin marked a retreat from maritime activities such as the voyages of Zheng He and was a symptom of a period of technological decline and stagnation which culminated in humiliation against Europe in the 19th century. This view was popularized in the Chinese film River Elegy.
Most current historians of China take issue with this view, and point out that the Hai jin was lifted in the mid-Ming and that China was very active in maritime commerce and the global economy after that.
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hai_jin"

This would seem to indicate that, centralization or not, the Emperorfs ban was rescinded after pressure from another part of the government, and did not have a huge effect.

An alternative hypothesis is that China was too large to be effectively governable given the transportation and communication technologies of whatever the time. As the saying goes, gThe mountains are high and the Emperor is far away.h The fact that most new dynasties began by trying to improve the transportation and communications infrastructure would suggest that at least the initial rulers understood the nature of the problem. But with transportation and communication difficult, the initial reforms of each dynasty were gradually eroded by corruption, resulting in a cycle of higher taxes, tax evasion, and eventual fiscal collapse (often abetted by flood, drought, or threat of invasion). (In Europe was the HRE / Hapsburgs too large to be effectively governable?)

It might be argued that Chinese centralization limited risk taking and the development of ideas. A Chinese Columbus, once refused, would have had nowhere else to seek a patron. Confucius wanderings during the Warring States period would also seem to support this argument. But I donft think this argument holds up. Even during periods of centralized Chinese rule, there were other alternatives within China, due in part to the difficulty of governing effectively. Reformers such as Li Yuan (founder of the Tang dynasty) and generals such as An Lushan (rebelled against Tang Dynasty) built up power bases in remote provinces. Powerful regional families affected imperial politics innumerable times. A Chinese Da Vinci, refused by the Emperor, could easily have received patronage from one of these families.