this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2025
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Tapping a copy of "Guns, Germs, and Steel" on my knee, thoughtfully.
Notable how the industrial revolution spreading to the rest of the world has really leveled the playing field over the last century.
deterministic theorizing without peer reviewed does not a proof make.
I loved GGS, but only as good storytelling. Poor support for many main points, but it is a good template showing you don’t have to resort to racist tropes to explain the world. It may be shoddy scholarship, but I was raised Mormon and it runs circles around the books by Cleon Skousen they tried to get me to believe.
I think something that GGS offers is the concept of a "theory of world" that frankly, it's surprising that no one has attempted before. For those who haven't read it, it's an attempt to offer an explanation for "why are things how they are, rather than how they are not" that is grounded in geology, geography, ecology and environment, rather than the almost exclusively either racist or religious explanations which had come before.
The actual argument falls flat and is fairly easily contradicted, but the principal behind it, that you can explain, at least in part, why the world is the way it is by a function of ecology and geography, I think is compelling.
Ignoring that trash book.
One thing I read is that a major factor that drove western Europeans to be so dominant worldwide is that their North Atlantic ocean fishing vessel tradition resulted in them being faster and more capable than most other vessels in the world, initially proving superior to the typically Roman-esque rowing-focused designs of the Mediterranean.
And this doesn't apply to polynesia because...?
I cannot claim to know the actual answer here, but I can definitely see some possible ones. For a start the Pacific Islands just have nowhere near as much productive land as Europe, so it's going to be alot easier for Europeans to gather resources and build relatively large and unified societies that can cooperate on things. They're also much more isolated from other large population groups, being scattered across the world's biggest ocean, unlike Europe which can easily have contact with the rest of Europe, with the Middle East, and with North Africa. As such Europe has far more opportunities for ideas to spread and also a far greater need to compete against its neighbours
The maritime skills of Pacific Islanders were absolutely phenomenal, they were just working with a much tougher situation than Europe if the goal is to build a large industrial society. Europe's own maritime cultures distinguished it from its rivals like the Ottomans, who had a capable navy but nothing like the ability that some European nations at the time had to venture far from shore
It does. Just generally unfamiliar with their history outside of them having an open ocean sailing tradition that completely dominates all others.
It was the exploitation of peoples that took them as only visitors, not conquerers at they thought of themselves. As hispaniola shown us and other places too. Might makes the right was justified for them, but not for the exploited.
Edit: whenever people thought of exploiting others and enslaving them, there only comes one time to do so, when overpowering and turmoil take over, as seen in america (the continent), india, africa, etc.
It is incorrect and presumptive to label all European exploration as exploitation.
E.G. during the 7 years war, the various tribes of the Ohio river valley almost had a treaty with Philidelphia and the English crown, but were cockblocked by the Iroquois, who wanted to be the exclusive native power brokers with the European powers.
Or, still sticking to that era, that one of the Intolerable Acts from the english crown to the rich colonists was that the existing native land was to not be infringed upon.
Or famously, that Captain Vancouver was very considerate, to the point that Hawaii voluntarily surrendered its soverignty because of him.
Then you have things like the Cherokee war, the founding of Illonois and the Hudson's Bay Company(in general) that are great examples of european exploitation.
I didn't label european exploration as exploitation, polinesians did it too, like to colombia in the 13th century probably. I have said america to mean the continent, this includes south and central america, as in latin america "america" means the whole stretching land, not north america as people in the US and Canada think. They exploited and stole from us, they exploited us for too long.
Edit: I'm talking about the colonization, exploitation, slavery (taking people from this land and from africa to work on plantations, factories, etc), land stealing, etc, that only comes from literally war. This happened from the Indian continent, to Africa, to here (in Suriname, Guiana, Africa, etc, there is a lot of people from the Indian subcontinent, because they were brought as slaves from the Indian subcontinent).
To be fair to Europe, the Romans and Ottomans did it to Europe.
But yeah, ita a culture of violence all the way down.
GGS is pop-sci. The author had a conclusion and worked backwards to justify it. It's not academically respected in the slightest.