Marxism plus chaos plus complexity

[Simon]

Oreos are cool

[Online-University]

This is a book well worth reading, revealing that while certain working hypotheses about human society are useful, be prepared to get outside the box now and then. Things always aren't what they seem

[Sam]

ruffles are better

[Robert]

My problem with Diamond's hypothesis is that he overlooks the idea that what happened was a small but technologically advanced force with strategy overcame a larger force with seemingly no command and control or tactics. To me the strategy is key. How would things have been if there had been some daring leaders with tactics among the Indian nobility? One wonders what the native soldiers thought men on horseback were but horses were vulnerable to spears.
I'm not fond of calling one camel Bactrian(sp?) and another Arabian. How about Bactrian/Dromedary or Asian/Arabian? I'm just not sold on the book.

[Daniel]

"Marxism plus chaos plus complexity"? What are you talking about?

None of the 3 were themes in this book. Guns, Germs, and Steel brilliantly re-framed the discussion of social and economic development. I am less persuaded by his book book, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. But to this non-expert, Guns,Germs and Steel was eye opening.

[Ian]

I can't remember if it is mentioned in the books, but the Aztecs did actually have a crack at spearing the Spanish horses. Their problem was that they did not really have anything to spear them with, as they lacked steel. I gather they improvised weapons made from captured swords tied to poles. But they still lost, partly because they did not have enough metal weapons and no armour, partly because the Spanish were so outside their normal frame of reference that they could not adapt to them quickly enough.

[Ian]

The mention of Marxism in the thread title is interesting. The book struck me as having some parallels with Marxism, notably a materialist interpretation of history. But he does not really say anything about class struggle as a driver of human development.

In fact, where GGS is weakest is maybe when it does start talking about how different human societies are organised, as the analysis there seems to me to be a bit over-schematic. I suppose if you see everything as deriving from material factors then cultural differences seem like so much irrelevant flim-flam. But it is still an amazing book.

[Артём]

Cultural differences aren't irrelevant, but secondary. According to the argument, because some societies, due to environmental factors, could produce more food they had more spare time to do culture. But once they had more culture they could produce even more food and it's all downhill from there.