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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   3465 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 29, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

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Not-so-small scale question but this is probably the only place I can get an informed answer on this not constrained by political correctness: what’s your overarching theory of why Western Europe and its descendants are the world’s most influential civilization of the past few centuries?

In history most academics still see be defining work on this as Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel.

Isn't "Guns, Germs and Steel" actually incredibly controversial?

I've never quite agreed with the critiques, and I believe Jared Diamond's book is broadly plausible, but I recall a number of anthropologists and historians criticizing it for going beyond what it could responsibly claim.

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