Re: guns, germs, steel

["Charles Brown" <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>>> Jim Devine <jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> 04/09/00 04:46PM >>>
(book review)

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CB: Thanks for this book review, Jim.

I was a little unclear. At first it seemed you were saying that the author was explaining the conquests of the last 500 years. Then there seems to be discussion going back to the origin of agriculture , which is 7,000 years ago or so.  Anyway, this list had a very rich debate on the cause of European conquest over the last 500 years, as you know. It would be hard to explain it as geographical. But I may not have understood the author's argument in the book.

Geographical determinism is a bit tricky.  It gets tricky to  make a causal link between geography and a "conquering" mentality or cultural value. You probably know that there have been ecological schools in anthropology and archeology for a long time ( You mention Childe and Carneiro ;See the reader _Prehistoric Agriculture_ edited by Stuart Struever, or Ecological Anthropology edited by Yehudi Cohen). Anthropologists/Archeologists might be defending their turf , as you mention, but on the other hand , as you say, the topic you summarize is not at all a new subject for anthro/archeo.

There is a logical link between agriculture and exploiting classes, because agriculture produces surpluses and non-productive classes are based on surpluses.

Why does he say "Eurasians" and not "Europeans" conquered the Western Hemisphere ? The fact that the Europeans conquered Africa and Asia ( which had had agriculture and the diseases you mention), as well as America ( the Central Americans and Peruvian/Colombian etc. Indians had agriculture too) seems to imply that there was something beyond agriculture and diseases that differentiated the Europeans from all the rest in the last 500 years. And before the last 500 years the Europeans were not dominant.

Anyway, thanks for sharing your reading.

CB