Collapse by jared diamond

Anyone? I thought Jared Diamond was a meme here.

It has a lot of the same problems as Guns, Germs, and Steel in that Diamond leaves out lots of things to make a point, and it's obvious he's writing out of his depth. It pissed off a bunch of anthropologists enough that a bunch of them put together a response book called Questioning Collapse to discuss some of the main things he got wrong. The main focus of the book is correcting some of his factual errors and reframing his scenarios to show that "collapse" isn't really a word that describes most of them.

>>2901902
I haven't read the book. But from what the topic seems to be i recommend "Why nations fail"

I'm interested in the diet of medieval Europeans and this was one of the few sources I found that actually looked at it in depth (at least in the case of Norse settlers in the North Atlantic). Seems their diet was mostly beef and pork with dairy and cereal grains, almost no vegetables. Calls into question a lot of things modern dietitians claim.

>>2903965
Few sources? You haven't fucking looked far if this is the only source you've found.

>>2901902
>/his/choolers
not
>/his/torians

Cmon, OP

>>2905813
/his/torians implies this board is intelligent. /his/choolers better reflects the average age and education of most posters.

>>2905818
y u hurt my feelings dis way?

i'm glad idiots come to this board, at least then they might learn something

but then again I guess you have to find a way to make yourself feel intelligent and superior, and if that's your way, so be it

>>2903955
Interesting title, but is it dogmatic or apologist (politicized)?

>>2901902
>Jared Diamond
you shouldn't read trash anon

The chapter about the Rwandan genocide was very interesting, his thesis presents the ethnic tensions as little more than a flimsy pretense for a landgrab because the region was so overpopulated and suffered from such extensive soil erosion.

One of the things he points to was that the conventional narrative presented it as Hutu majority seeking revenge for the Tutsi minority's oppression when they were in power, similar to the Yugoslav wars or the Iraqi sectarian conflicts. However during the genocide pygmy populations were widely massacred as well despite the fact that they were always the bottom rung of the social ladder. Curious, isn't it?

>>2903955
I read the first three chapters and this books is great.
It goes over tons of issues, most of which stem from poor economic infrastructure and political institutions inherited from colonial mother countries.

>>2903955
Interesting, I'll check it out.
>>2905818
Yeah that's why I did it.

>>2905818
The constant /pol/ invasions make me /his/teric

>>2903955
In the context of development, institutions aren't exactly a meme, but Acemoglu and Robinson's "extractive" vs "inclusive" dichotomy definitely is.

boop

>>2903885
Not the OP, but thanks for this.

>>2903965
Basically, the farther north you went, the more animal products were in your diet. Even within Italy there is (and was) an obvious gradient where the south uses olive oil and the north uses butter, for example.