Bullets, disease, and the Portugese, they weren't there anymore

[fellmama]

After the travesty that was Sneeze on Sunday, I cleansed my spirit with The Potter's Field, the seventeenth of Ellis Peters' Brother Cadfael mysteries, and, in my opinion, one of her best. (Although it was perhaps just the lingering bad taste of 1950s trash.) Whenever I return to Peters, I am surprised at how well her novels are written. Not only are they a far cry from the typical mystery pulp, they hold up well against all but the very best modern writers. The only thing that hampered my enjoyment was remembering who did it and how from a previous reading.

Last night, I finished Guns, Germs, and Steel, by Jared Diamond. Generally speaking, it was an excellent book, but it made me nervous. I don't know much (if anything) about most of what he covered, but I was disturbed in the few parts where I did. For example, he discussed Linear B's inefficacy, using it as an example of a non-starter script--the kind that developed but eventually went nowhere. What Diamond did not mention that Linear B was peculiarly inefficient because it was being used to write a language other than that for which it was developed; that is, it was not invented to write Greek (or Mycenaean, if you prefer). This may seem like a quibble--after all, we function perfectly well in English using a modified Latin alphabet--but Linear B is a syllabery. It is ill-suited to adaption, because its symbols stand for syllables that may appear differently or not at all in the adoptive language. This is the primary reason why no literature was developed in Linear B. Even more worrisome, Diamond doesn't note that our only examples of Linear B were preserved by accident (fires baking warehouses where tablets were stored). This writing system was not meant for permanence. One could argue that GGS covers a huge span of history in a relatively brief volume, and that I am simply nitpicking. However, I feel that to do so, Diamond must have chosen his examples very careful. Omissions and oversimplification detract from the work. I also disliked Diamond's laundry list of qualifications. If your work is good, it will speak for itself; drawing attention to your suitability only brings it into question. Otherwise, I enjoyed it. I'd recommend it to those with an interest in anthropology or agriculture.

In other news, it turns out that I may be mildly allergic to the contact lens solution I've been using. No wonder my contacts have been too itchy to wear.

Comments

[rootlesscosmo.livejournal.com]

Isn't that also called "God's Song"? We heard Newman in concert, Berkeley 1972; he froze the audience (except a few deep-dyed cranks) with that one, lines like "I take from you your children and you say, How blessed are we! How we laugh up here in Heaven at the prayers you offer me," etc. Great stuff.

[fellmama.livejournal.com]

I love Randy Newman, even though certain OTHERS don't (I'm looking at you, Stephanie). I think it helps if you're exposed young--I know I understood the satire long before I could be horrified at the surface. And, yes, it is called "God's Song."

[rootlesscosmo.livejournal.com]

"Rednecks" is pretty fine, too--the way he won't let Northern white liberals patronize the outspoken Southern racist types ("If we think we're better than them, we're wrong.")

Also:

"They found out about my sister
and threw me out of the Navy..."

I think he's pretty boring musically (though he uses boringness imaginatively, sort of) but oh, those lyrics.

[fellmama.livejournal.com]

My mother is from South Carolina, and she always quotes that song when she's discussing Jesse Helms: "He may be a fool, but he's our fool."

[lacrossestar05.livejournal.com]

Brother Cadfael... I like those books. I've read 3 or 4 of them... I'm happy you're coming to the non ghetto side of the mountains:-) party on, love your cousin

[colvincd.livejournal.com]

I would argue that GGS goes too far to dismiss individual or group agency as he seems to gloos over historical events that might disprove his theory (for example, China potentially discovering the "Americas"). Either he assumes his reader already knows about the subject or is is trying to cover something up.

[parksdh.livejournal.com]

Diamond dismisses "agency," as you say, because agents have to have material to work with. A great man in a society without agriculture or developed technology will do far less than a mediocre man in a fully developed civilization--hence Pizarro slaughtering the Incas without losing a man. Agency must be enabled. Diamond is more interested in millenial timespans anyway, over which the influence of individuals tends to be mitigated. This makes for a far more interesting, deterministic hypothesis, one in which the success of a culture doesn't depend on the more random arisal of human leadership.

[fellmama.livejournal.com]

Dismissal of agency in the long run is fine, but what about the short run? What I'd like to see is a discussion of clashes between two "enabled" great men--say Napolean versus Wellington. What enabling factors are more important?

[parksdh.livejournal.com]

The short run would be a different book. Diamond is not as interested in clashes of the Napoleon-Wellington type, because they are fundamentally the same culture, as he is in the clashes between totally different peoples (again, Pizarro vs Incas serves a strong example). Diamond does discuss such Napoleon-Wellington clashes when he talks about the geopolitical factors involved in militaristic competition, but his point is that intra-cultural conflict ultimately serves to make the culture more powerful by causing increased focus on military technology and procedure. The contrasting example is China, which had no political fractures for a long period and whose military prowess subsequently declined (of course, China had a whole host of other problems as well, and the political unity argument is typically regarded as fairly weak as far as I know).

Remember, Diamond is interested in why Europe, not North America conquered the world. He is not interested in why it was the Spanish or the Portugese or the French or whoever, because on Diamond's scale of explanation they are mostly indistinguishable.

[fellmama.livejournal.com]

I didn't mean to imply that it should factor in GGS; only that I would find a such a study interesting.

[parksdh.livejournal.com]

I think its probably a harder problem. Its like asking, why are some people geniuses? Who knows where talent comes from. Honestly, I doubt you'd find any kind of satisfactory answer.

[fellmama.livejournal.com]

If there's one thing historians love, it's futile research.

[colvincd.livejournal.com]

But Diamond glosses over the Chinese question which asked why a civilization with the capacity to rule the world decided not to by chalking it up to a cultural eccentricity. Diamond doesn’t explain why such eccentricities exist. And though he does explain rather successfully why Europe took over the world, he seems incapable of explaining why China didn’t, either because 1.He doesn’t know jack about Chinese history of 2. (More likely) it doesn’t work in his theory. So, why DID those eunuchs stop a (I think) profitable enterprise?