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Originally posted by GePap
No, I have not read the book.
And from what I have read in other accounts, I would certainly agree with Mann about the early guns the Europeans had.
The Spaniards did not beat the Inca or the Aztecs thanks to their guns. They won because of a fractured political situation in both areas, the impact of disease, and daring willingness to take advantage of these situations.
There was a recent show about archeological discoveries from the Inca siege of Cuzco, including the first archeological evidence of a gun fatality in the new world - and what the archeologist found when examining the bodies is that most had been killed by Inca weapons, meaning that most of that fighting was done by inca vs. inca. Just as in Mesomaerica, most of the fighting was done by Aztecs vs. their rival city states that had allied with Cortes against the Aztec.
No matter how fanciful the stories are, a few hundred men with some horses, primative guns, and steel do not conquer vast empires by themselves. They needed to exploit divisions in the systems they attack, which they did, AND a lucky break on top, which they had thnaks to the fact that disease was causing widespread collapse of thse societies.
And also, one simply can;t compare the Spanish situation to the English situation later. Englsih colonist faced far smaller Ameridian communities that were less advanced than those the Spanish faced, communities already feeling the effects of the new diseases, and they themselves had guns a century ahead of what Cortes or Pizzaro had.
No, I have not read the book.
And from what I have read in other accounts, I would certainly agree with Mann about the early guns the Europeans had.
The Spaniards did not beat the Inca or the Aztecs thanks to their guns. They won because of a fractured political situation in both areas, the impact of disease, and daring willingness to take advantage of these situations.
There was a recent show about archeological discoveries from the Inca siege of Cuzco, including the first archeological evidence of a gun fatality in the new world - and what the archeologist found when examining the bodies is that most had been killed by Inca weapons, meaning that most of that fighting was done by inca vs. inca. Just as in Mesomaerica, most of the fighting was done by Aztecs vs. their rival city states that had allied with Cortes against the Aztec.
No matter how fanciful the stories are, a few hundred men with some horses, primative guns, and steel do not conquer vast empires by themselves. They needed to exploit divisions in the systems they attack, which they did, AND a lucky break on top, which they had thnaks to the fact that disease was causing widespread collapse of thse societies.
And also, one simply can;t compare the Spanish situation to the English situation later. Englsih colonist faced far smaller Ameridian communities that were less advanced than those the Spanish faced, communities already feeling the effects of the new diseases, and they themselves had guns a century ahead of what Cortes or Pizzaro had.
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