I've possibly made this statement before either here or elsewhere.. doesn't matter.
Jared Diamond's book Guns Germs and Steel seems to attract a little bit of hate from some podcasters and the like, particularly historians. There's much to criticize in the book but I find it to be annoying how much they seem to miss that is "useful".
Primarily in that it explains what is obvious: The domination of European Empires in the last 200-500 years, without resorting to Skull-Caliper Race-Science nonsense; idiotic arguments from Culture, or weepy moralism about how bad colonists/settlers/etc. 'noble-savage-esque' (by our modern moral standards, and the standards at the time, the colonization of the western hemisphere was a horrific series of genocidal crimes... but jesus christ at least admit that the Aztecs were also fucked up... humans are just fucked up in general )
Rather than all of that Diamond says a lot of it comes down to geography, while some can simplify this to be "up-down v. side-side"-simplification of his idea that the shape and orientation of the continents played a role, I think it at least attempts to find an answer to "why didn't the Mayans or Aztecs use Llamas?... surely if you sheared the llamas you might be able to cross panama with them in Winter?" -that isn't something completely racist or a non-answer.
My point is basically that there's something to be said for how this is at the very least a useful starting point for constructing a ""big picture"".
though perhaps I'm just experiencing too much twitter discourse.
Apologies in advance if this is stupid.
The issue with the bits of that book that aren't baseless conjecture or downright false, is that they are surrounded by this other garbage.
It's not worth sorting the good from the bad because the author has discredited himself every step along the way.
Whether you're looking at the book through a historiographical, or a Marxist lens, it's terrible for making the very few meritous points it does. Through either of these lenses we want to look at a series of events as complicated and intricate as this by examining material conditions. And as others have pointed out already, Diamond removed human agency (including material incentive) from his equation altogether.
I also feel the need to say that I find your attitude towards "weepy moralism about how bad colonists/settlers/etc." shockingly ignorant and dismissive of the ongoing systemic genocide being conducted against your fellow comrades as we speak. I don't want to grill you too hard, but that's an awfully dismissive thing to say about people opposing the suffering that people are still experiencing today.
these are all good points. though didn't he cite Material interests as a contributing factor to the shuttering/scrapping of the treasure fleet? That the Chinese being a significant land power considered it wiser to invest inwards rather than potentially stretch itself too thin? (I mean they were regularly invaded/bothered by Steppe Peoples for the first part of the 2nd millennium CE). There were material interests at play in the advancement of European colonies in that they didn't want to trade with the ottomans who had a bottleneck as far as trade with the other side of the continent was concerned (geography) so they funded an expedition to find a way around that and landed on the shores of hispanola.
Perhaps it's a leap in logic to assume this, thank you though, I kind of need a correction.
perhaps I should edit the "weepy" bit; it's difficult to explain.. basically I think:
-->Colonialism/Imperialism/Slavery/etc. are Bad, unjustifiable, and have left deep historical/emotional/psychological/cultural/etc. scars.
-->Europeans, and ""white"" (whatever that means, it's definition varies) are not alone in these practices, nor immune to being victimized by them.. Human history is a bloody mess...
-->this does not mean that historical injustices are not worth attempting to provide reparations for; particularly those that are well documented, and egregious.
-->this does mean that we shouldn't assume that, at least in the case of North America, that anything close to a "noble savage" existed..
-->to re-iterate this does not justify at all the flagrant disregard for and horrifyingly callous treatment of indigenous peoples;
quite often I see people push something that too often reeks of that noble savage vibe, and it starts making me think "okay wait a minute here... how deep are they thinking about this?"