Comment by AtlasBarfed | Hacker News Reader

Comment by AtlasBarfed | Hacker News Reader

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Yeah. The Mongols were on a summer vacation, the Persian Empire wasn't invading ancient Greece, they were just sightseeing, the Vikings (Scandinavian not central european IMO) were just doing some exuberant boating, the Hans just wanted to sojourn in the Jungles of Vietnam, the Ottomans were just misguided proseletyzers, the Rus were just bored from Winter, etc. The Japanese in WWII were just looking for some iron and oil.

If you have a large empire, chances are there was large scale conquest involved. Likely all "civilizations" involved small scale conquest of tribes.

So the academics are all in arms about Diamond writing a pretty engaging nonfiction book that accessibly integrated a half-dozen historical / political theories into an interesting integrated theory. Was it perfect? Hell no, no way it was. Is there roots of truth in it? There has to be. More than anything, reading the book was thought provoking, because all history taught in schools is basically a bunch of personalities/leaders and battles, and almost no investigation of other factors outside of the human events.

What's also bizarre is reading various modern historical analyses of the Mongol invasions as "eh, they weren't that bad". Like... what?

I'm fully willing to admit European empire building was flagrantly unacceptable from the lens of the modern conception of universal human rights. But that Euros were some especially brutal oppressors/conquerors compared to the whole of human history? Come on. I mean... the Mongols. AND they almost conquered Europe.

For anyone interested, I highly recommend George Carlin (not the comedian)'s podcast series (4 episodes iirc) about the Mongolian conquests. Really interesting.

Also, on the "almost conquered Europe", I always find it quite mindblowing that they almost conquered Europe - with their light reconnaissance force. The main army was waiting while the lighter 10k horse force did some recon. While doing their recon they wiped out the Georgian army which had been preparing for war for years and so was probably the best prepared army in Europe at the time. The rest of Europe was totally unprepared even for that small 10k force.

Luckily for us, soon after, Genghis Khan died and the entire army turned back. Otherwise Europe would for sure have been conquered with no challenge. Luck of the dice.

Yes. Luck. There are a few other posters in this thread that objected to Diamond because he seemed too Euro Centric apologist, the argument being "well why didn't the East win". But sometimes it does turn on a flip of a coin. The Mongols (eastern power) could have won, and dominated, and colonized the world. And we would all be studying how horrible Mongol Colonialism was. Sometimes history does swing on singular events.

>And we would all be studying how horrible Mongol Colonialism was.

that presumes that human culture would have developed the ideas regarding colonialism which we have and which after all are a late developed critique that would probably not have been possible without the ideas of humanism and similar intellectual branches, and the exposure of those ideas to people who were being oppressed by forces that claimed to espouse the same.

You mean Dan Carlin, and his Hardcore History podcast.

Oh yes, sorry, thank you, good correction!

I recommend the Fall of Civilizations Podcast, to pile on with more podcasts.

Their episodes on Aztec and Inca civilizations, that were brought down to large extent by the spanish, they make you notice that what Aztecs and Inca had in common was that they were the regional powers. The podcast mentions the active local conflicts going on while this went down. They were dominating their neighbors, warrning and at this particular time they were the leading powers in their regions.

>But that Euros were some especially brutal oppressors/conquerors compared to the whole of human history?

Kind of. It's like when historians delineate historic genocides with Nazi genocides. Or slavery vs chattel slavery. Functionally they're mostly the same, but the latter was also something new, and possibly worse. Historically, non-european expansionism/colonialism due to large power asymmetries were regional neighbourhood affairs that ended in mass assimilation within a few generations. European, post age-of-sail conquest/oppression was uniquely brutal in suppressing/eliminating indigenous peoples globally, for hundreds of years without any real effort at integration. Generally Mongols worked with traditional administration systems of territories they conquered, if only because it's easier for nomadic culture to embrace settled people's cultures. Post Mongol conquest, Chinese, Central Asian or Persian empires were basically the same "empires" but administered by Mongol Dynasties - they typically levied tax and drafted troops but didn't intervene much in domestic affairs or customs. European colonies expansion was built on proselytize/imposing continental culture, and deliberately avoided integration in their colonies, stretching out a few decades of bloodshed into a few centuries. IMO that makes Euros "especially brutal oppressors/conquerors", not because Euros are inherently more savage but the logic of certain forms of conquest (made possible by confluence of factors) is sometimes bloodier than others.

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