It’s mostly the authors reaction to western colonialism on western historical records.
Especially the... odd ending of the article which seemed to have forgotten what the article was supposed to be about. Or maybe the headline was just deceiving.
It seems suspicious to me that the Europeans had a whole host of diseases that could wipe out a civilisation but the Americans had nothing comparable to affect Europeans. By symmetry, I expect there was some other force at work. Slavery/forced labour/wars and large-scale resettlements does sound plausible.
Slavery and forced labour was common in Africa, yet it was known as "white man's grave", not "black man's grave", precisely because the local diseases killed the white masters and soldiers much more than black slaves.
The main cause of disease asymmetry between the Old World and the New World was domestic livestock. Many of the Old World diseases are zoonosis = acquired from animals, especially the domestic ones that shared the living space of the premodern farmers. Sheep, cattle, horses...
In America, there were few species suitable for domestication, especially after the first settlement wave of hunters exterminated most of the megafauna.
The theory I've heard is that to breed a deadly plague, you need to live in close contact with animals. A well-adapted virus won't usually kill its host, so most deadly viruses jump over from the animal hosts they adapted to. Europe has lots of animals that can be domesticated (Chickens, dogs, cats, pigs, cows, etc) while the animals in Africa and the Americas mostly were the kind you can't domesticate. (Apart from Llamas.)
That's why most deadly plagues came from Europe back then, and now tend to come from places where people still live in very close contact with their lifestock or with wild animals.
Most deadly plagues then as now came from the east which had both the human density and practices of domesticated animals while also eating a huge variety of animals that was natural reservoirs of pathogens. Pretty much every plague with the exception of 1918 flu can trace it roots eastwards.
If you ignore contemporary prejudices and think of Europe as "New World" back in early middle ages you notice that comparable large human migrations/trade between eurasia has inflicted equivalent toll on Europe's population of that time
What point of the book related to spread of disease do you have a problem with specifically? Every prominent book has critics, especially in non-hard sciences, that doesn't mean the book is wrong generally. As a general probabilistic diffusion framework, it makes total sense to me.
It's the other points being made, one could get the idea that germs made Europeans stronger, but on the other hand, less germs could give a civilization a developmental edge. Europe lost probably hundreds of years of progress to the Black Death.
> less germs could give a civilization a developmental edge.
Interesting idea, but the way I see it, disease is a cost of civilization in a way. The reasons that there was more disease in Eurasia are also the reasons that caused civilization to progress faster there to begin with. I'm not sure you could have your cake and eat it too.
> Europe lost probably hundreds of years of progress to the Black Death.
Based on what I've read about the Black Death, I don't think that's the case. Unlike the fall of the Roman empire, there wasn't a collapse of civilization despite the devastation caused by it: technological and engineering knowledge was not lost in the process. Some argue that the Black Death was actually benefitial in some ways. There was a big population boom leading up to it, but afterwards the survivors had a better economic situation, and more leverage against nobles resulting in the power shifting more towards farmers and other workers.
Not an expert, but I'm not sure that's so. Europe had been trading bugs with Asia, the Middle East and north Africa continuously for thousands of years, while the Americas had been largely isolated.
You started a flamewar and then fed it. That's not cool. HN is for curious conversation, not ideological battle certainly not genocidal flamewar. Please don't do this again.
This is actually an article recounting a few primary sources on the ground at the time of contact, and almost immediately mentions the Aztecs’ enemies in Tlaxcala and Chacla along with a cemetery study of the Mixtec—who suffered some of the worst of Aztec dominion—to describe the interplay between the effects of colonial policies and the “virgin soil” of the new world’s immune systems, which, naturally, weren’t limited to the “third reich” state in control at the time of contact.
A side note: when the Russian Empire expanded east that population movement also brought epidemics that decimated some populations that were not immune to them.
This whole need to create a narrative about all western history evil and then just ignoring history as a whole and that humans and human empires behave exactly the same no matter origin or creed is dishonest at best and malicious at worst.
I agree, it's a bit strange to pretend only colonial europeans were cruel. To the extent that cruelty is pointed out in order to make things better going forward, I'm all for that.
But basically like you said, every empire throughout history was built on ruthlesness and cruelty, else it would not be an empire but a village.
Our technology and knowledge today allows for better empires though, so we should demand better behaviour today.
In an ideal world we would have not empires but it’s not realistic due to human nature. Right now I would say there are two main empires. US and China and a set of second rate powers like the EU, India and Japan.
The idea that any of us who are a product of this era of empire and its transparently hollow assumptions have a clue about “human nature” seems laughable
I think the need arises because it's often glossed over in public education--more of a corrective reaction.
Western history, especially the US in US public education, often glosses over past atrocities committed. Maybe western civilizations aren't inherently more evil than others in some cases, but we also aren't inherently much less evil or were driven under some pure altruism as some may think.
We are also not born with original sin and should not feel guilt for the historic actions of empire and kingdoms where the population had no democratic mandate. History is history good and bad. The obsession about framing history as some sort of unpaid debt towards people dead long ago is ridiculous. If you want to go down that route I expect the Arabs to line up and apologize for the extinguishing the multicultural societies in the Middle East and North Africa, or the mongols for the perpetuated mass murder of Asians, Russians and Europeans .
Ok people did bad things 400 years ago. So what? Don’t repeat history that’s is the only long term lesson to be learned.
But most education systems everywhere gloss over these kinds of things. Japan is a well known example, but do think Turkey indulges on the atrocities of the Ottoman Empire? Or the Chinese and their “internal” expansionism —now to be fair to the Chinese they often glorify things like the warring period and such, but it’s dressed differently.
I believe everyone should have similar education systems. The more we understand about others, our own history, and ourselves, the better we can make reasonable decisions in the future.
If another country chooses to paint western civilization or the US negatively while ignoring their own baggage, then that’s their own ignorance. The same can be said about our civilizations painting others negatively awhile igoring our own past and engaging in hypocrisy.
I believe education is the best path to progress forward and peaceful diplomacy, for everyone. Angry populations fed lies, foaming at the mouth for blood just doesn't seem like a good path forward and never has been.
What is the point of this whataboutism? Do you think that the revisionist policies of other countries somehow justify any ignorance on the part of people in the West with regard to their own history?
There is no justification to the idea that a critical look at Western history is itself a criticism of Western countries as opposed to all others. The nations of the world are not all engaged in some zero-sum game of historical respect.
Point-scoring, however, has a real and detrimental impact on discussions of history. It should only be used by people who hope to shut down any analysis of the realities of the past: and if you want to do that here, you should go elsewhere.
> This whole need to create a narrative about all western history evil
You are building a strawman here. Nobody is saying all western history is bad ( as if there is such a thing really - there isn't ), but the west has been the source of most evil in the past few hundred years.
> human empires behave exactly the same no matter origin or creed is dishonest at best and malicious at worst.
No they have not. The greeks, japanese, romans, mongols, etc never had racial extermination campaigns like the british empire, the us empire, nazi germany, etc. That is a fairly new and uniquely western "ideal". That entire races had to be exterminated because they were native, aborigine, jewish, etc is something new.
Sure cities were destroyed, people were persecuted, enslaved, etc in the past but you won't find many empires in the past that committed the atrocities that britain, nazis and we have. And the most evil singular acts in human history is easily hiroshima and nagasaki. And who committed those evil acts?
You can argue that others would have been just as evil as the west if they had the power and I'd probably agree with that. But that isn't history, it's conjecture. And even if it was true, then it just shows we are no better than everyone else. Which runs counter to the dominant narrative that the west is "all good, perfect, civilized, etc".
The narrative that the west is evil is needed because it's fundamentally true and we need to counter the dominant false narrative that the west is all good. How many millions have we butchered in iraq, vietnam, syria, central/south america, africa, etc all in the name of "western good"?
Your sentiments are correct but you are misguided in your anger. You shouldn't be mad at the "west is evil" narrative. You should really be angry at the dominant "west is good" narrative.
They were rather brutal warlike lot but to compare them to the third reich needs justifying - can you say why?. Also saying they got what they deserved is to condone genocide, and also to ignore what the conquistadors inflicted on them. Conquistadors were appalling people.
The conquistadors were opportunistic adventures who by luck happened into the most hated civilization in Mexico and was smart enough to leverage that hate to overthrow that empire. Epidemics are not genocide by any measure of definition. Empires then do what empires do which is to extract value out of their new holdings. Just like the Aztecs did before them.
You give the conquistadors too much of a pass, and you don't say why the aztecs were "most hated civilization in Mexico".
> Epidemics are not genocide by any measure of definition
I suppose, but conquistadors liked their slaves, they used torture freely on anyone they felt like, they compared tenochtitlan to venice IIRC - and then set about destroying it. The native mexicans were subhumans to them (because they weren't christians I think was the main reason) and they treated them with incredible brutality. You whitewash the conquistadors by calling them "opportunistic adventure[r]s".
Conquistadors do not need any whitewashing. Contemporary European warfare was very brutal. In my corner of Europe, the Catholic-Protestant wars eliminated something between a third and a half of the population, depending on how many armies plundered the particular region.
You are applying you modern bias to history. Whitewashing is religious term and shows a clear unwillingness to accept any narrative that does not fit a narrow domestic view of reality.
