Just picked up this little number, what should I expect?

>but the general features he mentions are significant.

The general features he describes are also completely unoriginal. Just read Alfred Crosby's "The Columbian Exchange."

Veeky Forums is pretty racist in general. It's not at all far fetched to think that the history board would white wash a few things

>Just picked up this little number, what should I expect?

A very well written, briskly paced and well sourced examination of environmental influences on human society.

This book is somewhat polarizing because it really only got insanely popular after Bill Clinton listed it as one of his favorite books, so inevitably right-wingers are going to disagree with everything in the book, especially because he proves that there was nothing intrinsically superior about western culture and that it's domination of the world in the colonial era had more to do with Europe's material abundance and natural geologically varied (and therefore more defensible) terrain.

Decent read. Makes the error of attributing almost everything to geographic factors. Those cover a lot of aspects of the columbian exchange. People on Veeky Forums(myself included) discredit a lot of it because it tries too hard to make out like nothing special happened in Europe and it was just "geography." Basically a Calvinists wet dream of history. Also, the scale is retardadly huge, and Jared diamond isn't an expect on most of the shit he talks about. I personally preferred "The wealth (and poverty) of nations: why some are so rich and some are so poor" as a survey history for the wests divergence and the waste reconvergence. Author is old school Harvard economist who doesn't fuck around with correctness and just says it like it is. Why the west rules (for now) is also good. I generally don't like survey histories though. Not enough detail and easily hijacked by personal opinions.

>Can someone give me a reputable source that says this book is horseshit?
fuckign read it and find out. the book only makes sense to people who accept everything it says as facts

I have read it. As I said, give me a reputable source that disproves what the book has to say, because I don't particularly give a fuck what you have to say.

Define "special", the cycle of impoverished and disadvantaged yet warlike nations becoming successful and then falling to a new challenger is something that has been repeated throughout history and will continue to be repeated until the end of time. The mistake that Veeky Forums makes it that it falsely assumes that we are now living in the last cycle and western superiority will last for all time

I have some screen-caps, for what its worth.

archive.org/stream/fp_Jared_Diamond-Guns_Germs_and_Steel/Jared_Diamond-Guns_Germs_and_Steel_djvu.txt

>In case this question immediately makes you shudder at the thought that you are about to read a racist treatise, you aren't: as you will see, the answers to the question don't involve human racial differences at all.

>in mental ability New Guineans are probably genetically superior to Westerners

liberals will defend it to the death no matter how glaring the logical fallacies because they think they are sticking it to the racists by doing so, but really it is more of an embarrassment to that cause, at least in the minds of intelligent people

I didn't bother reading your screencap.

If this book is such horseshit, then some of repute would have pointed it out. They haven't, far as I know.

What Veeky Forums says is of extremely little significance.

To be fair, refuting it would be career suicide. Especially since the entire books is one of the cornerstones of the modern church of egalitarianism. (See James Watson)

Well, if it comes down to it, I'll choose to believe Jared Diamond over the people here, if it's all the same to you.

My main issue is Diamonds point of view that is still biased towards the west. His points are valid but he still ignores things such as economic factors and technological advancements, limitations and cultural impetus to improve on the creation of another.

If you want to be willfully ignorant it won't bother a single person.

Because I value the oppinion of someone reputable over the oppinion of a group of neckbeards? Who made you an authority on this subject? Or any subject for that matter? Other than wacking it to chinese cartoons.

He read on stormfront that whites built pyraminds on Atlantis

Source?

Fantastic appeal to authority. I can tell from your unwillingness to even listen to anyone without credentials that you must be college-educated.

He read it in a published and peer reviewed book, therefore it is absolute fact.

blogs.worldwatch.org/nourishingtheplanet/five-indigenous-livestock-breeds-you-have-never-heard-of/
Diamond said cattle breeding and animal domestication failed in Africa, therefore none of these animals exist.

it isn't horseshit, but it's outdated. It's a 1960s book written in the 2000s
Diamond just doesn't understand archaeological theory. If you want a 'scientific' approach to the past read Binford

>I only listen to people whose opinions match my world view even if they have no authority on the subject

>baseless assertion, strawman, and a roundhouse meme photo finisher
What you're saying is that the only acceptable circle-jerks are the ones that you're a part of.

then Diamond is an idiot
cattle were hugely important to numerous African societies, in particular the Bantu

>Diamond said cattle breeding and animal domestication failed in Africa

But cattle were domesticated twice, The middle east and India. I'm pretty sure African breeds would have been domestic cattle from elsewhere crossed with local aurochs.

>Paragraph 5
>Europe is isolated from Central Asia by the Alps
>East Asia, Central Asia, Europe
>No significant cultural exchanges took place between these region until the 15thy century

>Being complete ignorant about geography, about the migrations between Asia to Europe, about, Silk Road
It's actually quite easy to go from central Asia to Central Europe by horse, avoiding the mountains altogether. And the Urals themselves weren't impenetrable.

>Paragraph 6
>European agriculture was overwhelmingly based on wheat
And barley, oat, rye, legumes.

>Paragraph 7
>Attila the Hun, Genghis Han were great conquerors

Yes, so? Their empires didn't last long. A durable empire is based on urban civilization.

He claimed that Europeans had an advantage in that the species distributed across Eurasia were more "domesticable" than their African counterparts. (a few of the animals mentioned were, I believe, auroch vs ankole or horses vs zebra) That would be understandable, but we know that these animals were not originally like that. The arouchs were vicious animals, even the Nazi's hilarious attempts to make "Aryan" cows that resulted in Heck cattle from back-breeding was a failure because how aggressive they were. Additionally, numerous zebras have been tamed over the centuries , it was even a small fad to have them pulling your carriage in Victorian times.

Every animal is domesticable, the experiments with making the Russian Domesticated Red Fox proves that. If a concerted effort had been put forth over several generations, Africa's domestic large mammals would be just as calm as Europe's. Basically, the proto-Europeans, Asians, and Indians endeavored to, and succeeded in, their efforts to breed calmer animals, while the Africans did not. (presumably due to less environmental stresses requiring it.) These animals are what Diamond refers to as the "colonial package" and he asserts that they are what allowed Europeans to inhabit so many different places. Without a "colonial package" in South America or Africa, he argues that the natives of these regions were at enormous disadvantage compared to the "lucky' Europeans.

5
The Silk Road was not people travelling from Asia to Europe in one go, it was a series of circles of trade that spread across the continent. It is of course possible to avoid the mountains, but the excursions and the distances required prohibited most from making the journey. These two factors combined to ensure that the primary items transported along the silk road were small, high-value items such as silk and spices. The Europeans were not getting economic migrant from Pakistan bringing their culture in the form of Islam and doner kebab.

6
Hence the word "overwhelming." The Asians farm water caltrops and eggplants too, but guess where he majority of their energy is derived from?

7
That is irrelevant, Jared's assertion was that urbanization is a prerequisite for effective, large-scale military conquest. No argument was presented on the subject of an empire's durability, only its military competence.

>Sure Silk Road existed but it wasn't significant enough as a "contact"
>moving the goalpost
The point was this contact existed, and was significant.

Also that wasn't the only point. Europe was invaded by people from Asia in the Middle Ages. Not just Huns and Mongols, but also Bulgars, Avars, Pechenegs, Kumans, Khazars.
Europe was never isolated from Asia. Nor were different parts of Asia isolated from each other. Just more difficult to traverse maybe.

Is Diamond actually a racist? He seems to buy into the idea that Africans only ever lived in mud huts very willingly

Make up your minds already. Is it racist or is it AntiWhite Jew Communist SJW?

those aren't really mutually exclusive, there are a lot of "anti-whites" who treat non-whites like they're pets or children that need to be babied

You can be both very easily.

See every white SJW that takes agency away from every non-white by claiming they can't be racist or bigoted.

>Every animal is domesticable, the experiments with making the Russian Domesticated Red Fox proves that

I don't think you know which phyla are called animals, and why would domesticating one more species (after many other have already been domesticated) somehow prove that "every animal is domesticable"?

Have you ever seem someone with an exotic pet like a Serval or Ocelot? It's like owning a domesticated cat except that everything is giant hassle with a creature that is way too cunning for its own good and will scratch the fuck out of you. And get used to the smell of cat urine all over your living space.

Just because it's possible doesn't mean that it's practical or reliable. The reason "tame" Zebras never caught on is because of how insanely aggressive they are, with a kick capable of bashing a lion's skull in and a bite easily capable of ripping flesh. They have strict social hierarchies and dominate zebras had a tendency of killing other captive zebras held in close proximity. Training them is a gigantic pain in the ass and universally considered cruel and inhumane because you have to break them far more severely than you have to break a horse. Not to mention that Zebras do not have strong backs the way horses were bred to have, so its intensely dis-comfortable for a zebra to carry a rider.

Sorry I had a typo in my original post cause on mobile. "Wastes reconvergence" should be easts reconvergence. It was special in that European technology and curiosity of the world surpassed anything that had come before. Other states may have warred and fallen in the past, but there are none in history that ascended so relatively high above their peers or enjoyed power projection than western powers in the modern era. I don't think it's fair to attribute that all to geography. It certainly helped Britain being isolated on an island, but there are other factors, mainly societal that diamond ignores. I think the great man theory of history is stupid, but I also thing it's stupid to write off people's initiative and intelligence as well as societal structures driven by different cultures.

Why the fuck would you ask Veeky Forums what it thinks if you don't care what it thinks? Jesus

Poor excuses rather than proper explanations

what should I expect, pic related?

Two authors worked on this book, Mr State-the-obvious and Mr Hindsight

>what should I expect?

Diamond:
>well, here's my conclusion, now let me just cherry pick thinks that support it and ignore things that don't

Can you explain why the rivers are highlighted? I haven't read Diamond but I remember I read some other author a few years ago that one of the reasons Africa is underdeveloped is the lack of unnavigable rivers.

*navigable

Sometimes anons have links to respectable studies instead of just pulling shit out of their ass.

Veeky Forums isn't one person and shouldn't be used as a source, but you seem to forget that it's full of people
go somewhere else if you don't like different points of view and desire a narrowed perspective on things instead

I don't blame him for not reading all that horseshit. There's not a single fucking citation in that entire screencap.

As far as history and the like is concerned, I'm not about to take your shit at face value. It is reasonable for me to demand that you supply me with proof of your claims.

I didn't make the thread. I saw someone spew shit out of their ass, and I challenged them to justify it.

Basically, most arguments on here are "diamond was a retard, and I know better". It's literally your word against his.

You'll notice that most knee-jerk reactions to Jared Diamond align neatly with political orientation.

I'm not into politics, but the idea of judging someone based on whether they hae melanin in their body is "offensive" to me, and I do admit that it rubs me the wrong way right off the bat.

But still, if someone gave me evidence that blacks are somehow inherently less intelligent, I would have no choice but to accept it.

And before you ask, I'm white.

How is that not the same exact thing?

But like you said above: we have to consider what the consensus of professionals are telling us. We have to consider that racial supremacist theories are dismissed as pseudo-science by the consensus of professionals in their fields, so you're absolutely right in that the burden of proof lies in the people pushing these fringe theories, and extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence beyond 'muh conspiracy'. Current research appears to confirm that humans are unusually close genetically as a species (to the point where some scientists theorize a genetic bottleneck sometime in the distant past) and that the difference between all the 'races' are cosmetic and the result of sexual selection overtaking natural selection as the primary driver of human evolution.
telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1416706/DNA-survey-finds-all-humans-are-99.9pc-the-same.html

Jared Diamond's point is also accepted by a large number of professionals: that environmental factors have played a far larger role in shaping human affairs than we normally would care to admit. It's a little troubling for some to admit because it ultimately puts limits on the sort of control that humans have in shaping their own societies, when what the land and climate around them have been proven to play a far larger role than previously assumed.

As you said, if anyone has an idea outside of the bell-curve and wants to challenge this, the burden of proof is on them.

It's informative but make sure you don't let it influence your view of history too much. I think it raises some solid points for what it argues. I can see them being accurate to a certain degree yet I've also heard a lot of good arguments to the contrary.

>Jared Diamond's point is also accepted by a large number of professionals: that environmental factors have played a far larger role in shaping human affairs than we normally would care to admit. It's a little troubling for some to admit because it ultimately puts limits on the sort of control that humans have in shaping their own societies, when what the land and climate around them have been proven to play a far larger role than previously assumed.
Not really. Most Historians I know complain that most of what Diamond wrote that's actually good was already well know and generally accepted (the rest of Diamond's work gets pretty shredded.). Historical Materialsm has been academic standard for about a century now, so there's no problem there.

That's the thing most pathetic about /pol/'s fixation on 'rebutting' him. It's like watching fundamentalist try to argue with Bill Nye, except imagine if they thought Bill Nye came up with the theory of evolution, and if they can prove him wrong, anyone would care.

It's easy to be both.

>White people are evil because they're so superior that they keep shitting on the lesser races and keeping them down rather than using their strength and compassion to lift them up! White people are responsible for everything bad in the world because they're so superior and powerful, they must be stopped so that the lesser brown folk can flourish

Stuff like that.

Some user several days ago was trying to argue that Africa had no easy way to get around ala water ways, that map came out to explain why that was wrong.

The highlighted rivers are just the major, major rivers.

I'm not so sure about that. The post-modern left clearly hates him, but so do avid racists and nationalist who think he wasn't chauvinist enough. The bitchy culturists that get triggered by a scientific approach to history don't evenly fit into any one political group imo.

>Not really. Most Historians I know complain that most of what Diamond wrote that's actually good was already well know and generally accepted
Well, there's a difference between coming up with new ideas, and communicating already existing ideas in an effective fashion to the humans around you. They're two different skillsets, and they're both necessary in their own regard.

>Historical Materialsm has been academic standard for about a century now, so there's no problem there.
Which oddly enough seems to be the cut off point where an idea has matured enough in academia for it to begin distribution to the masses.
>That's the thing most pathetic about /pol/'s fixation on 'rebutting' him. It's like watching fundamentalist try to argue with Bill Nye, except imagine if they thought Bill Nye came up with the theory of evolution, and if they can prove him wrong, anyone would care.
Its hilarious because it's true.

/thread

correct me if I'm wrong, but the economy and culture of basic civilizations is pretty much dependent on the geography of the area.

>. The post-modern left clearly hates him
I'm not so sure that I'm familiar with the "post-modern left" but your garden variety liberal thinks Jared Diamond is great, and its a false equivalence to suggest that the number of left-wingers who hate him is proportionate to the number of Right-wingers who hate him. Close your eyes for a moment and think about how many tree-huggers and environmental nuts are out there who believe in the "noble savage" and all that bullcrap who ate up Diamond and catapulted him to the New York Times bestsellers list. It certainly wasn't being bought by people who want to ascribe morality as the chief mover of human society, such as evangelical Christians, who are invariably right-wing to some extent.

>Close your eyes for a moment and think about how many tree-huggers and environmental nuts are out there who believe in the "noble savage" and all that bullcrap who ate up Diamond and catapulted him to the New York Times bestsellers list.
Which is funny, because one of my biggest problem with Diamond is, when you get down to it, he thinks the only respectable measurement of a society is how much waste they produce.

Pretty much. I mean, do people not realize that steppeniggers are steppeniggers because of the steppe?

Actual historians and academics are universal in calling this horseshit. It's an outdated premise written by someone who isn't a historian and who manages, in his quest to refute eurocentrism, ends up making something that's incredibly eurocentric.

Could you point these academics out to me?

Not a reputable source, you nigger

Veeky Forums is not a reputable source.

>6.) European technological superiority by the colonial era
Completely wrong, it wasn't until the Industrial revolution this truly happened.
There was a damn good reason that Europeans never truly conquered Africa until the 19th century and that's because supplying armies large enough to pacify African tribes who had the same cottage industry the Europeans did, simply less of it, in the field was simply not possible.

Furthermore technology was largely irrelevant in the British conquest of India where horrible generalship, bad training, and antiquated tactics completely screwed the Indians.

Historical determinism and Black Legend

*geographical determinism

>that fucking pic

Mexico confirmed best sudaca.

M8 what you're asking for is spoonfeeding, the criticisms of this book by actual historians (not people on Veeky Forums) are widespread and pretty easy to find if you're actually interested in looking. Don't just fling shit because other people can't be bothered to have this argument for the ten millionth time.

Hope you like New Guinea.

You have managed to completely ignore literally every point made. Those "exotic" pets can be DOMESTICATED, not simply tamed, with enough time. The Russians taming of foxes was done SPECIFICALLY to prove that point.

All of the "advantageous" adaptations modern cows and horses have were not there originally. The calmness to be ridden or the strength necessary to be put in a harness and pull a plow was selected for over thousands of years, it was not a trait originally present. The reason zebras and African animals do not have the "ability" to be tamed is because no effort was ever put forth to do it. The few examples of pet zebras and other native livestock show that YES it can in fact be done, just that it never was.

Except it wasn't significant. A significant contact would be Islam entering Europe, or Buddhism making the same sort of headway that it had in china. Not of this happened because the only things that made it from one end of the silk road to the other were things of high value. This excludes another peoples' culture, as it was not fetishized in the pre-modern period like it is today.

That is the most limpdicked argument that can be made.

>b-buh-buh-but it's out there!

Admit that you're way more interested in being right in a public space.

(((Diamond)))

You know where it's going.

>Named Jared Diamond
Fifty dollars say this is a nigger disguised as a white man.

Not him but
Fuck off retard. I mean seriously, ask ANY historian in public about Diamond's book and you'll find out that GGS isn't, to say the least, very well regarded.
Source:
>My life
And now you can keep meme arrowing about muh anecdotes

You are simply describing the cycle of a civilization that has happened for thousands of years. If anything we are seeing an end to the "western" (which what you really mean as white) prominence in the world just as history has seen the rise and fall of various Persian empires, multiple Chinese dynasties, the fall of west and east rome, Islamic caliphates and the Ottoman empire. You are just biased as you belong to the group currently on top of its cycle but in the grand scheme of things it means nothing

>counter-factual history
>absolute falsehoods
>wrapped in a pretty bow of conjecture leaving you wondering how the author came to his conclusion

Read literally any academic book review of GGS on Jstor or any other journal database. 99% of them ream Diamond's asshole.

The user was clearly talking about direct military technology, not technolgoy that would aid in logistics. I.E weapons, armor, firearms etc.

>Completely wrong

Not at all. Metallurgy, cavalry, firearms, cannons etc were all things which the Europeans used to their advantage when subjugating the Americas. They were (military) technologically superior to the Actezs and Incas, who in the other hand had good civil technology.

>There was a damn good reason that Europeans never truly conquered Africa until the 19th century and that's because supplying armies large enough to pacify African tribes who had the same cottage industry the Europeans did, simply less of it, in the field was simply not possible.

The fact that Europeans did not posses the technology to conquer Africa does not meant that they were not technologically superior. Logistical issues were the main reason why Africa wasn't taken, not sub par military technology. As you yourself said "because supplying armies large enough".

European militaries were only slightly superior (technologically) to Asian ones during the age of colonialism, but the advantage (which was small) wasn't enough to outweigh the Asian home turf advantage (manpower etc) so Europeans were stuck with small trading cities and islands.

T. Diamond

I'm glad materialist factors trump all others to the point that a slight difference in muskets can outweigh a 2:1 numerical advantage.

It needs to be pointed out that Jared Diamond doesn't even attempt to disprove the concept of genetic differences, he literally dismisses it as wrong and racist without any argument. On top of that he then goes on to claim that he thinks PNGs are intellectually superior to the white man. Putting aside his obvious bias we can say that because he doesn't actually attempt to disprove these differences then this book can't dismiss the possibility. At best it provides a hypothesis (not a scientific explanation, there's no use of the scientific method here) for additional causes of European supremacy. Environmental factors and genetic differences are not mutually exclusive though, and the existence of one can't disprove the other. The ideas are really interesting and probably have value but the author is heavily biased and his book doesn't actually achieve its goal.

>he literally dismisses it as wrong and racist without any argument
No, he says that since some tribal hunters can remember things about all the plants and animals they need to know about they're just as smart if not smarter than he is.

You assume I am white and think that is why I think the wests emergence during the early modern period can be attributed to societal and individual factors as well as the reasons diamond says? Nice ad hominem. Yes civilization is cyclical but you have tk acknowledge the leaps and bounds the west made From 1500-1950 relative to the rest of the world. Economic output and population sky rocketed due to western scientific advances and social systems. its not debatable that the way we live was fundamentally changed on a scale never before seen in history by the west. That doesn't mean the west will always be on top or no one else could have done it. The fact is Europe did it first. I noted in my original post that I liked Why the west rules for now because it explores the wests emergence and how Asia is currently catching up. Just because non western countries are catching up doesn't mean we shouldn't care about how Europe got on top and changed the way we live. thats the point of history. Everyone acknowledges there were times non-western empires were greater than western powers. Very few people, even outside of the west would contest that the west developed a technological advantage and scale of power projection that had never been seen before in history. All those empires you named have something in common, they never built global empires. If you actually think the industrial revolution, globalization, and all of the societal changes the west made 'mean nothing' youre really saying history means nothing and there's no point for you to be making such a shitty post.

>A significant contact would be Islam entering Europe
>None of this happened in the Middle Ages

Are you American by any chance?

Hillariously, whitewashing the slave trade.

But Europe didn't do it first, every past great civilization all said the EXACT same shit about them being the greatest of all time that you are saying about 'western" civilizations now. The fact that you refer to "the west" shows your bias as you are trying to highlight the west by its successful states while ignoring the ones in decline or those that have fallen altogether

But they're not navigable. You can't just take a fucking boat from Lake Victoria to the Med.

For fucks sake, Europeans had steam ships cruising on the Nile for 20 fucking years before they discover Lake Victoria.

Completely ignoring environemental factors is stupid too. Just because historians can't accept that not everything done by humans is following the will of humanity. History is done by humanity, not geographical determinism. But humans are shaped by their surroundings

12 pages dedicated to the holocaust no doubt

Why ask us then?