Re: Guns, Germs and Steel: A Historical Critique | BadEmpanada Archived Message
Posted by Tomski on June 7, 2020, 1:48 pm, in reply to "Guns, Germs and Steel: A Historical Critique | BadEmpanada"
It was a very fast and annoying monotone delivery. Still, I battled through it and got the gist of the argument. At first I thought it may be about the Papua New Guinea saga ... later on about that. So disappointing that Jared has been taken down about his ahistorical ahem, scholarship about Spanish subduing the Aztec Empire and toppling the Inka. I used to swear by him, so to speak. Clearly he has been debunked, and, got the Pulitzer for it. So thanks SB . Some more on the subject: https://www.livinganthropologically.com/archaeology/guns-germs-and-steel-jared-diamond/ Historians, archaeologists and anthropologists are up in arms. An excerpt re New Guinea saga - Jared's specialty: https://louisproyect.org/category/jared-diamond/ The problem with Diamond’s case is that it rests on bogus history. He deploys Daniel Wemp as an expert witness in describing a savage tribal war that went on for years, when in fact the only fighting that took place in recent years was a rather tame affair described by Mako J. Kuwimb, one of Rhonda Shearer’s PNG consultants and a model of restraint in his debunking of Diamond’s version. The “war” in question did not take three years and cost 29 lives, as Diamond asserts. It was instead a fight between two youths over a couple of dollars that went missing during a card game that got out of hand after one had his jaw broken. Fighting lasted for three months and only four men died. Daniel Wemp, who Diamond described as a warlord seeking revenge for his tribe, was not involved in this affair at all. Apparently, Diamond wove together some actual incidents and others that were cooked up, all the while exaggerating the severity of the conflict so as to turn the PNG highlands into something on a par with contemporary Congo. Meanwhile, Daniel Wemp and the other participants are described as having almost as much fun killing each other as if it were a sport.
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