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.

    • jabrd [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      The imperial subjects of the Aztecs were actually totally cool getting their hearts ripped out because their conquerors weren’t European.

      You can’t compare them to the contemporary European empires that ended up colonizing the Americas, but you can compare them directly to other agricultural empires like the Romans. An empire is an empire and by nature requires the subjugation of someone

      • myopic [none/use name]
        ·
        3 years ago

        the aztecs were horrific but a slight difference dwells on the fact that they didnt fucking wipe out 90% of the continent

          • CptKrkIsClmbngThMntn [any]
            ·
            3 years ago

            Idk, for me in general historical comparisons of that kind are limited in use. At every step we should ask ourselves what we're trying to prove here - in the context of this discussion we're veering very close to "who are the bad guys" which is a complete waste of time IMO.

            It's also important to remember how young the Aztec empire was at the time of first contact.

    • Tabbot [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      they aren't just as bad, they're human. Its not a justification, just cynicism.

        • Tabbot [he/him]
          ·
          3 years ago

          So is it good or bad when the Aztecs pissed off their neighbors to such an extent that significant numbers of them backed Cortez's otherwise ill-equipped and undermanned expedition?

          • MathVelazquez [he/him]
            ·
            3 years ago

            European exploitation was significantly worse that Aztec exploitation of other indigenous. Aztec policy was mostly to let their dependencies govern themselves if they paid tribute to Tenochitlan.

            You should stop thinking of societies as "good or bad." That's colonizer logic that ends up getting used to justify "taming the savages." Colonizer logic is brain poison that we all have to work to expunge.

            • ABigguhPizzahPieh [none/use name,any]
              ·
              3 years ago

              You completely missed OPs point. No one is justifying what happened with colonization or that European domination of the Americas was better or nicer or kinder than the empires the euros found in the Americas. OP is trying to understand why and how it happened. His point about significant numbers of Aztec subjects backing Cortez is important because we see this shit all the time in the history of empire. Would the US have been able to fuck with Chile or Brazil or Argentina or Afghanistan (80s) without the approval and help of large numbers of local elites who supported them?

        • myopic [none/use name]
          ·
          3 years ago

          the majority of people in mesoamerica were not “aztecs” or “the aztec empire”, which again, yes it was horrific, and that drove huge native armies to fight the war against them, but it’s also true that they didn’t wipe out most of the population like the spanish did

        • Tabbot [he/him]
          ·
          3 years ago

          not saying that, frankly Israel has no right to really complain about Palestinian insurgency tactics as they simultaneously lionize groups like Irgun.