I suspected this book was a poorly veiled political piece, but I didn't think it was quite this bad:

I suspected this book was a poorly veiled political piece, but I didn't think it was quite this bad:

reddit.com/r/AskAnthropology/comments/1rzm07/what_are_some_of_the_main_anthropological/

Googling produces a ridiculous amount of incredibly detailed criticisms for this book. Are there any other good books that deal with development in Africa over a similar time period, which are actually decent?

Other urls found in this thread:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_evolution
livescience.com/33870-domesticated-animals-criteria.html
twitter.com/NSFWRedditImage

bump

>reddit
Fuck off liberal shill, go jerk off to more jewish books on your shit site nigger

>literally posting reddit
please fuck off and die

did you even read his commen, he is hardly jerking of to ggas, /pol/ plz go

Do you seriously expect a meaningful discussion about that on here?

Look at the buzzword laden replies you've garnered already!

It's a good book. It's also very popular, which results in it being read a lot more and attracting a lot more criticism. I'd personally suggest reading the book then reading the criticisms afterwards to get the full picture.

>"First, Diamond’s account makes all the factors of European domination a product of a distant and accidental history...What Diamond glosses over is that just because you have guns and steel does not mean you should use them for colonial and imperial purposes. Or handing out smallpox-infested blankets from sick wards...Second, Diamond’s account seriously underplays the alliances with native groups that enabled European forces to conquer and rule...The Jared Diamond of Guns, Germs, and Steel has almost no role for human agency–the ability people have to make decisions and influence outcomes. Europeans become inadvertent, accidental conquerors. Natives succumb passively to their fate."
I find this critique a bit strange. If scarcity exists, and some people have the means to take stuff from other peoples, they WILL do that. History has proven this again and again.

domesticatedzebra.jpg

Yes, and the people who's culture encourages them to take stuff diplomaticly will always triumph.

culture is molded by enviroment, not the other way around.
If a group of people have the culture of colonialism, its because the enviromental factors put them into a good position to colonize.

I said it was a good book, not a good paper/report/etc. It's written to be entertaining, hence why it's popular and not rotting in some scholarly archive. If OP wanted straight facts only he should not be reading Jared Diamond, who will sometimes present his ideas as facts.

Probs he means that there are other, more nuanced / interesting ways to explain European domination, that focus on specific groups that were engaged in colonial conquests, their behaviour and philosophies, behaviour of their adversaries and such.

Well, if one group has guns and the another group doesn't, then the first group will dominate the second one.
Sure there might be some nuances, but they don't change the reality that on a fundamental level, might makes it right.

He's a liberal.

No, he just means "I'm butthurt and want to disagree with this book but can't think of anything good so here's some straws I grasped".

There's nothing unnuanced about a telling of facts. Europe, if Diamond's theory is correct, had superior material conditions. Human nature being what it is, those with the leg ahead eventually met and got violent with other groups, but their head start ensured then won more than the lost statistically and domination resulted. It's not complicated. It's just basic logic and common sense.

It doesn't, and then it does, because technology is relatively easy to buy / replicate. Various Asian states fought Europeans and each others with weapons (and even ships) they'd get from the Ottomans and Europeans themselves, some with great success. What is harder to replicate is social structure that enables native states to mobilise resources to fight your enemies (taxation, conscription, nationalism, industrial production). It has been a difficult feat even for very respectable societies like the Chinese, and it's only when non-European states learned this art that colonialism stopped being feasible. The Vietnamese didn't need Vietnamese-made weapons to fight off three of the five most powerful foreign states of their time.

>hurr durr common sense
Why even read books if you already know everything from common sense.

>It has been a difficult feat even for very respectable societies like the Chinese, and it's only when non-European states learned this art that colonialism stopped being feasible.
So we agree that Europeans (or any othe group in such a technological advantage) will keep on colonising as long as it remains feasible, and there is not really decision-making involved, like this quote would imply?

[Citation Needed]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_evolution

Colonialism is a product of European philosophy and ideology.

>because technology is relatively easy to buy / replicate
This isn't remotely true. And it shows an immense bias towards the present that one would think that. Historically there is nothing but the opposite sign. Societies within the upward limit of a lifetime foot traveling distance would have wildly different technology, and major breakthroughs could take centuries to spread out. Look how long it took the printing press to spread.

>States something as fact
>Cites Wikipedia article about a theory

Reddit is cancer.

It's not self-evident. There were frontiers that were static for ages (Europeans couldn't conquer Yucatan until 19th century), and there were frontiers that moved fast as fuck (from Urals to Okhotsk sea in 70 years).

...do you SERIOUSLY believe that? You think complex highly urban civilizations that are non-European have never engaged in expansive war and domination of neighbors? Is your liberal noble "savage" complex that deep?

wrong, colonialism and oppression in general was prevalent all over the world and no one was exceptionally more oppressive

you are confusing cause and effect
european ideology changed to support colonialism, because europeans were in the position to colonise, and not the other way around

well, colonialisation is always an investment. And a society that has better investment opportunities won't colonize that specific area.

Could you say that spread of printing press required some social conditions that weren't present outside of Western Europe for a time?

To enable spread of printing press you need the market for mass-produced printed material, which implies existence of a "middle class" that can afford printed materials, but not hand-copied text, this "middle class" didn't exist in every society, this "middle class" ought to be literate as well. You also need either the government tolerating of people printing stuff (iirc there was no privately operated printing presses in Russia until 19th century) or "safe heavens" where printers can work out of reach of the government (kind of like Switzerland and Austrian Netherlands for French-language printing in 18 century).

These disgusting racist liberal "people" don't think niggers are capable of ordinary human behavior, they hold niggers in such absolute contempt they think they're essentially children in need of a white savior.

Does this book explain why certain European populations have historically dominated others?

>african animals can't be tamed.
Why?
>because they never were tamed
hmm really made me think, thanks uncle Jared!

Yeah seriously, how the fuck can anyone take this book seriously?

What the fuck did he think Europeans did when the domesticated cows and horses etc? Just walked into the wilderness and put a rope around their necks and walked back to their village?

>To enable spread of printing press you need the market for mass-produced printed material, which implies existence of a "middle class"
No, I don't think that follows at all. It's less labor intensive. Printing is literally just more efficient. One printing press will pay for itself many times over a group of scribes a couple of book runs in. There is no reason not to adopt moveable type, it will always be cheaper for everyone. Which is why everyone does it now.

>Could you say that spread of printing press required some social conditions
Sure, initially. Which is why technology doesn't just disseminate at the drop of hat. Moderns really seem to underestimate the difficulty of travel in the past and the on the ground social reality of that. People are set in their ways so a couple wayward merchants aren't necessarily going to shatter the status quo.

The printing press was only one example. Take your pick. Compare Rome to Northern Europe. How long did it take Scandinavians to even learn writing let alone get capable of building a colosseum?

The ancient Greeks calculated a spherical earth in the 3rd century BC. The Chinese didn't catch on to the idea until the 17th century AD due to the introduction of the concept by westerners.

Tamed, never domesticated. Learn the difference.

Then compare incentives for domestication of horse-like creatures between Savannah people and steppe people (the only people that ever actually domesticated horses).

I haven't read the book, but doesn't he imply that they didn't need to domesticate animals?

>The Chinese didn't catch on to the idea until the 17th century AD due to the introduction of the concept by westerners.

When you look back, all the greatest scientists, engineers, mathematicians etc have all been European or Jewish, I've heard people speculate that the white IQ bell curve is much wider than the East Asian one, so you have more genius level intellects, but more idiots. Compared to the East Asians which have a slightly higher (couple of points) average. Maybe this explains why there doesn't seem to be that many incredibly minds from East Asia, but there are a lot of fairly intelligent people there.

Didn't he specifically say the Zebra couldn't be tamed?

Geographic determinism explains it a bit, yes. Access to trading routes (the Mediterrenean Sea) and better climate for agriculture would've given the Meds some bonuses, compared to northern Europe.

Later, (western european) powers with access to the Atlantic Ocean became world leaders while eastern european powers lagged behind.

He said it couldn't be domesticated, which means a whole different thing and only morons confuse taming with domestication.

Cheetahs and elephants are both very easy to tame. Africans have tamed cheetahs, indians have tamed elephants. But neither of these animals can be domesticated and never have been.

It is true that the people that domesticated horses did tottally have to do it. There is scarce food in the steppe, so eurasian steppe people started herding small horses for meat. Horses becoming strong enough to carry people and goods is na accidental byproduct of breeding larger and larger horses for more meat.

>No, I don't think that follows at all. It's less labor intensive. Printing is literally just more efficient. One printing press will pay for itself many times over a group of scribes a couple of book runs in. There is no reason not to adopt moveable type, it will always be cheaper for everyone. Which is why everyone does it now.
I think "middle class" is important because the upper crust of society is a different market altogether, that doesn't care as much about price (and efficiency). They want luxury craftsman goods, not mass-produced stuff.

>Compare Rome to Northern Europe. How long did it take Scandinavians to even learn writing let alone get capable of building a colosseum?
Why would Scandinavians need to build a colosseum? They didn't even have cities that large. Why a bunch of raiders and slash and burn agriculturalist would need writing?

>The ancient Greeks calculated a spherical earth in the 3rd century BC. The Chinese didn't catch on to the idea until the 17th century AD due to the introduction of the concept by westerners.
Ok, I don't know why the Greeks were into abstract ideas so much. But isn't it reasonable to expect that spread of military technology of tangible and immediately obvious benefit should follow a different pattern?

>But isn't it reasonable to expect that spread of military technology of tangible and immediately obvious benefit should follow a different pattern?
"Moreover, as the British proceeded with their campaigns in 1842, they found much evidence of the speed with which the Qing officials were trying to respond to the West's new technology. In Xiamen, for instance, they found a nearly completed replica of a British two-decker man-of-war with thirty guns; it was almost ready to sail, and work on several other similar vessels was well under way. In Wusong, they discovered five new Chinese paddle-wheel boats armed with newly cast brass guns. In Shanghai, they seized sixteen new, beautifully made eighteen-pound ship's guns, perfect in detail down to the sights cast on the barrels and the pierced vents for flintlocks. All were mounted on sturdy wooden trucks with iron axles.14 At least some people in China had clearly found the barbarian challenge to be a stimulus as well as an outrage."

Phonecians and greeks did before whole >europoor pholosophy

>But neither of these animals can be domesticated
sauce

livescience.com/33870-domesticated-animals-criteria.html

Cheetahs need huge running grounds to breed, to they miss criteria 3 by a mile, despite being very friendly and chill if you tame them.

but all this criterias can be changed through domestic breeding

Yeah whatever you picked two retarded examples, i'm not sure they can't be domesticated though.

Russians domesticated foxes in about 50 years which was previously thought impossible.

The fact remains that Africans never domesticated the Zebra or any other animal that would have been greatly beneficial to sub-sahara African society. And it wasn't because its not possible.

Also that article is absolute bullshit
>Fourth, domesticated animals must be docile by nature.
No, that is what selective breeding is for.

You'd need to domesticate them first, which you couldn't do.

They didn't think it was impossible. Silver foxes were chosen because they were similar to wolves, which we already knew could be domesticated. It's a small jump.

Zebras aren't as related to domestic horses as you think they are, and there were fewer incentives to have them domesticated then there were for the steppe people tho have horses domesticated (there is a ton of megafauna in the savannah and Africans could farm which is something the Eurasian steppe wouldn't allow).

There used to be wild horses in North America and Europe. They were hunted, never domesticated. They were driven to extinction. There never was a need to domesticate these because hunting, foraging and, later, farming, could provide all they needed.

Regarding docile behavior, it's the leading theory that modern domestic wolves (dogs) and cats descend from particularly non-agressive specimens - the ones that would be most willing to approach humans for food (scraps) in the first place. The notion that there was a concerted effort to capture, tame and handpick the nicest wolves to breed should be ridicule to most people with both hemispheres.

reddit isn't the anti-/pol/ it's the anti-Veeky Forums. Please go to a history subreddit instead of here.

Do people know wikipedia gives references and citations?

Bantu expansionism was a thousand times more genocidal fruit of Niger-Congo culture

Try domesticating a hippopotamus.

There are no numbers. Seems more likely that non-Bantus were absorbed into Bantu groups. Some enslaved, like pygmies.

If there really were red and yellow africans then, OK, the accusation of genocide seems more reasonable.

>Liberal shill
Fuck of conservacuck. You're actually cancer.

Why Nations Fail had been equally destroyed.

Guess what? So has the Tradgedy of Power Politics, and Huntington's whole body of work.

Political Economy of Grand Strategy has no primary sources, just data crunching!

Big explain em alls always fail. The authors know this. They are still interesting and partly right. A good theory book with novel reasoning >>> another safe paper on just data with no scope.

Holy shit the reddit boogie man meme is to much.

Victor Hanson's "Carnage and Culture" offers a pretty good opposing viewpoint to Jared "agriculture was the biggest mistake in human history" Diamond's work. It posits that western societies were more democratic than their indigenous counterparts, and that this results in better commanders and warriors.