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\>Did you really cite don quixote as a reason to why Spain should be recognized in my eyes as an important nation

Yes, I did. It's an important work of literature. How am I wrong? It's like saying "DUDE DID YOU REALLY JUST CITE DANTE AS A REASON WHY ITALY SHOULD BE RECOGNIZED AS AN IMPORTANT NATION"

\>The Spanish Inquisition is a largely mythologized event and isn’t any different to many other institutions within Europe that also targeted heretical groups

Well at least you know that they were nowhere near as eeeevil as most historically illiterate normies make them out to be.

\>Humboldt is German, not Spanish

True, but it was thanks to Spain that he could make those studies that he did.

\>Life is a dream also isn’t very special

Wrong.

>The play has been described as "the supreme example of Spanish Golden Age drama".[3]

\>considering that the Islamic caliphates’ freedom of expression and religion had been resulting in plays such as this for a long time as well

wrong again, read the Myth of the Andalusian Paradise

\>and I’m not even taking into account that the average human being wouldn’t care for or even know what life is a dream or what don quixote is.

Then what's the point of giving any work of literature any merit if your logic is "hurr durr most people back then were illiterate" or that they "didn't care about it"? What's even your basis for that anyway? That most people didn't care for those works of fiction? You do realize that high schools and colleges in Spanish-speaking countries highly value Don Quixote for a reason, right? You do realize that it's basically Spanish Shakespeare, right?

\>every society has its geniuses meaning that it’s really speculative when it comes down to it

Highly debateable. I doubt Subsaharan Africa or pre-Colonial Americas had any intellectuals, at least the significant kind. There's also the issue of just how important said intellectual really is. For instance, Arab intellectuals from the so-called Islamic Golden Age were really just copying the Greeks and taking concepts from other civilizations they conquered like the Persians, Indian, or Europeans, so we can scratch most of those out.

Bonus:

>Catholic Spain was the most powerful European nation by the 16th century

Any nation considered "the most powerful" within its cultural and geographic region is bound to be kind of a big deal

*Sees recommendation of Guns, Germs and Steel as a credible source in a history-centric conversation*

3312! We've got a 3312! This is not a drill! I repeat, this is not a drill!

Edit: Was just informed you english-speaking weirdos know it as 2319. I apologise for the international incident.

I'm sorry, and absolutely nothing personal. The book is a great introduction to aspects of anthropology and history not often talked about. Not all of his points are bad (some quite good, actually), and many historians and anthropologists will cite Diamond's book as the inspiration that brought them to their fields; but I think it's quite telling many of those same historians and anthropologists often retell it like that silly stuff they did as teenagers.

From r/history AutoModerator (yes, they need an automoderator for this thing):

Hi!

It looks like you are talking about the book Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond.

The book over the past years has become rather popular, which is hardly surprising since it is a good and entertaining read. It has reached the point that for some people it has sort of reached the status of gospel. On /r/history we noticed a trend where every time a question was asked that has even the slightest relation to the book a dozen or so people would jump in and recommending the book. Which in the context of history is a bit problematic and the reason this reply has been written.

Why it is problematic can be broken down into two reasons:

1. In academic history there isn't such thing as one definitive authority or work on things, there are often others who research the same subjects and people that dive into work of others to build on it or to see if it indeed holds up. This being critical of your sources and not relying on one source is actually a very important history skill often lacking when dozens of people just spam the same work over and over again as a definite guide and answer to "everything".
   
2. There are a good amount modern historians and anthropologists that are quite critical of Guns, Germs, and Steel and there are some very real issues with Diamond's work. These issues are often overlooked or not noticed by the people reading his book. Which is understandable given the fact that for many it will be their first exposure to the subject. Considering the popularity of the book it is also the reason that we felt it was needed to create this response.
   
   In an ideal world, every time the book was posted in /r/history, it would be accompanied by critical notes and other works covering the same subject. Lacking that a dozen other people would quickly respond and do the same. But simply put, that isn't always going to happen and as a result, we have created this response so people can be made aware of these things. Does this mean that the /r/history mods hate the book or Diamond himself? No, if that was the case we would simply instruct the bot to remove every mention of it, this is just an attempt to bring some balance to a conversation that in popular history had become a bit unbalanced.
   It should also be noted that being critical of someone's work isn't that same as outright dismissing it. Historians are always critical of any work they examine, that is part of they core skill set and key in doing good research.
   
   Below you'll find a list of other works covering much of the same subject, further below you'll find an explanation of why many historians and anthropologists are critical of Diamonds work.
   
   

   Other works covering the same and similar subjects.
   

   
   

• Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest
  
  
• 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus
  
  
• Last Days of the Inca
  
  
• Epidemics and Enslavement: Biological Catastrophe in the Native Southeast, 1492-1715
  
  
• The Great Divergence
  
  
• Why the West Rules for Now
  
  
• Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900
  
  
  

  Criticism on Guns, Germs, and Steel
  

  
  Many historians and anthropologists believe Diamond plays fast and loose with history by generalizing highly complex topics to provide an ecological/geographical determinist view of human history. There is a reason historians avoid grand theories of human history: those "just so stories" don't adequately explain human history. It's true however that it is an entertaining introductory text that forces people to look at world history from a different vantage point. That being said, Diamond writes a rather oversimplified narrative that seemingly ignores the human element of history.
  
  
  Cherry-picked data while ignoring the complexity of issues
  
  In his chapter "Lethal Gift of Livestock" on the origin of human crowd infections he picks 5 pathogens that best support his idea of domestic origins. However, when diving into the genetic and historic data, only two pathogens (maybe influenza and most likely measles) could possibly have jumped to humans through domestication. The majority were already a part of the human disease load before the origin of agriculture, domestication, and sedentary population centers.
  This is an example of Diamond ignoring the evidence that didn't support his theory to explain conquest via disease spread to immunologically naive Native Americas.
  
  A similar case of cherry-picking history is seen when discussing the conquest of the Inca.
  
  > Pizarro's military advantages lay in the Spaniards' steel swords and other weapons, steel armor, guns, and horses... Such imbalances of equipment were decisive in innumerable other confrontations of Europeans with Native Americans and other peoples. The sole Native Americans able to resist European conquest for many centuries were those tribes that reduced the military disparity by acquiring and mastering both guns and horses.
  
  This is a very broad generalization that effectively makes it false. Conquest was not a simple matter of conquering a people, raising a Spanish flag, and calling "game over." Conquest was a constant process of negotiation, accommodation, and rebellion played out through the ebbs and flows of power over the course of centuries. Some Yucatan Maya city-states maintained independence for two hundred years after contact, were "conquered", and then immediately rebelled again.
  The Pueblos along the Rio Grande revolted in 1680, dislodged the Spanish for a decade, and instigated unrest that threatened the survival of the entire northern edge of the empire for decades to come.
  Technological "advantage", in this case guns and steel, did not automatically equate to battlefield success in the face of resistance, rough terrain and vastly superior numbers. The story was far more nuanced, and conquest was never a cut and dry issue, which in the book is not really touched upon. In the book it seems to be case of the Inka being conquered when Pizarro says they were conquered.
  
  Uncritical examining of the historical record surrounding conquest
  
  Being critical of the sources you come across and being aware of their context, biases and agendas is a core skill of any historian.
  
  Pizarro, Cortez and other conquistadores were biased authors who wrote for the sole purpose of supporting/justifying their claim on the territory, riches and peoples they subdued. To do so they elaborated their own sufferings, bravery, and outstanding deeds, while minimizing the work of native allies, pure dumb luck, and good timing. If you only read their accounts you walk away thinking a handful of adventurers conquered an empire thanks to guns and steel and a smattering of germs. No historian in the last half century would be so naive to argue this generalized view of conquest, but European technological supremacy is one keystone to Diamond's thesis so he presents conquest at the hands of a handful of adventurers.
  
  The construction of the arguments for GG&S paints Native Americans specifically, and the colonized world in general, as categorically inferior.
  
  To believe the narrative you need to view Native Americans as fundamentally naive, unable to understand Spanish motivations and desires, unable react to new weapons/military tactics, unwilling to accommodate to a changing political landscape, incapable of mounting resistance once conquered, too stupid to invent the key technological advances used against them, and doomed to die because they failed to build cities, domesticate animals and thereby acquire infectious organisms. When viewed through this lens, we hope you can see why so many historians and anthropologists are livid that a popular writer is perpetuating a false interpretation of history while minimizing the agency of entire continents full of people.
  
  
  

  Further reading.
  

  
  If you are interested in reading more about what others think of Diamon's book you can give these resources a go:
  
  

• /r/askHistorians section in their FAQ about GG&S
  
• Jim Blaut on Jared Diamond
  
  I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

That was the first serious history book I loved. The rise in particular is amazing as a primary source, as Shirer was a journalist in Austria before and after the Anschluss. Just don’t put too much stock in what he has to say about teutons.

Also, my French exchange student just about had a conniption when he saw the swastika on the spine on my bookshelf.

Edit: while I’m here I’m going to recommend my current favorite history of WWII, The Wages of Destruction by Adam Tooze. I’ve never found economics so fascinating, or been more thoroughly convinced that Speer should’ve hanged.

> Besides, Christians in those places were actually pretty well tolerated by muslims, save for a religious tax on them.

This is not corroborated by primary sources.

Read Nataniel’s Nutmeg if you want to learn about the spice trade during the colonial era.

Highly recommend

Nathaniel's Nutmeg: Or the True and Incredible Adventures of the Spice Trader Who Changed the Course of History https://www.amazon.com/dp/0140292608/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_8ctnDbFFAZQWR

Hey there! Or I should say Γειά Σου!

I'm a history major in the American College of Greece so we did a lot of Modern Hellenic History (besides our school education, which was based on orthodox [=national] history), and it helped a lot of the Greek-American students get in touch with events.

I'd recommend some books:

https://www.amazon.com/Modern-Greece-War-Independence-Present/dp/1472567560

https://www.amazon.com/Greece-Modern-John-S-Koliopoulos/dp/1850654638

https://www.amazon.com/Concise-History-Greece-Cambridge-Histories/dp/1107612039/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=clogg&qid=1574711432&s=books&sr=1-1

https://www.amazon.com/Modern-Greece-Everyone-Needs-Know%C2%AE/dp/0199948798

You can find more by doing a search on LibGen or visit a library.

If you ever choose to move to Greece again, there're a lot of intensive Greek-language classes for people like yourself. Do not hesitate to ask for more info!

Hi!

It looks like you are talking about the book Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond.

The book over the past years has become rather popular, which is hardly surprising since it is a good and entertaining read. It has reached the point that for some people it has sort of reached the status of gospel. On /r/history we noticed a trend where every time a question was asked that has even the slightest relation to the book a dozen or so people would jump in and recommend the book. Which in the context of history is a bit problematic and the reason this reply was written.

Why it is problematic can be broken down into two reasons:

1. In academic history there isn't such thing as one definitive authority or work on things. There are often others who research the same subjects and people that dive into work of others to build on it or to see if it indeed holds up. This being critical of your sources and not relying on one source is actually a very important skill in studying history often lacking when dozens of people just spam the same work over and over again as a definite guide and answer to "everything".
   
2. There are a good amount of modern historians and anthropologists who are quite critical of Guns, Germs, and Steel and there are some very real issues with Diamond's work. These issues are often overlooked or not noticed by the people reading his book. Which is understandable, given the fact that for many it will be their first exposure to the subject. Considering the popularity of the book it is also the reason that we felt it was needed to create this response.
   
   In an ideal world, every time the book was posted in /r/history, it would be accompanied by critical notes and other works covering the same subject. Lacking that a dozen other people would quickly respond and do the same. But simply put, that isn't always going to happen and as a result, we have created this response so people can be made aware of these things. Does this mean that the /r/history mods hate the book or Diamond himself? No, if that was the case, we would simply instruct the bot to remove every mention of it. This is just an attempt to bring some balance to a conversation that in popular history had become a bit unbalanced. It should also be noted that being critical of someone's work isn't the same as outright dismissing it. Historians are always critical of any work they examine, that is part of their core skill set and key in doing good research.
   
   Below you'll find a list of other works covering much of the same subject. Further below you'll find an explanation of why many historians and anthropologists are critical of Diamonds work.
   
   

   Other works covering the same and similar subjects.
   

   
   

• Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest
  
  
• 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus
  
  
• Last Days of the Inca
  
  
• Epidemics and Enslavement: Biological Catastrophe in the Native Southeast, 1492-1715
  
  
• The Great Divergence
  
  
• Why the West Rules for Now
  
  
• Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900
  
  
  

  Criticism of Guns, Germs, and Steel
  

  
  Many historians and anthropologists believe Diamond plays fast and loose with history by generalizing highly complex topics to provide an ecological/geographical determinist view of human history. There is a reason historians avoid grand theories of human history: those "just so stories" don't adequately explain human history. It's true however that it is an entertaining introductory text that forces people to look at world history from a different vantage point. That being said, Diamond writes a rather oversimplified narrative that seemingly ignores the human element of history.
  
  
  Cherry-picked data while ignoring the complexity of issues
  
  In his chapter "Lethal Gift of Livestock" on the origin of human crowd infections he picks 5 pathogens that best support his idea of domestic origins. However, when diving into the genetic and historic data, only two pathogens (maybe influenza and most likely measles) could possibly have jumped to humans through domestication. The majority were already a part of the human disease load before the origin of agriculture, domestication, and sedentary population centers. This is an example of Diamond ignoring the evidence that didn't support his theory to explain conquest via disease spread to immunologically naive Native Americas.
  
  A similar case of cherry-picking history is seen when discussing the conquest of the Inca.
  
  > Pizarro's military advantages lay in the Spaniards' steel swords and other weapons, steel armor, guns, and horses... Such imbalances of equipment were decisive in innumerable other confrontations of Europeans with Native Americans and other peoples. The sole Native Americans able to resist European conquest for many centuries were those tribes that reduced the military disparity by acquiring and mastering both guns and horses.
  
  This is a very broad generalization that effectively makes it false. Conquest was not a simple matter of conquering a people, raising a Spanish flag, and calling "game over." Conquest was a constant process of negotiation, accommodation, and rebellion played out through the ebbs and flows of power over the course of centuries. Some Yucatan Maya city-states maintained independence for two hundred years after contact, were "conquered", and then immediately rebelled again. The Pueblos along the Rio Grande revolted in 1680, dislodged the Spanish for a decade, and instigated unrest that threatened the survival of the entire northern edge of the empire for decades to come. Technological "advantage", in this case guns and steel, did not automatically equate to battlefield success in the face of resistance, rough terrain and vastly superior numbers. The story was far more nuanced, and conquest was never a cut and dry issue, which in the book is not really touched upon. In the book it seems to be case of the Inka being conquered when Pizarro says they were conquered.
  
  Uncritical examining of the historical record surrounding conquest
  
  Being critical of the sources you come across and being aware of their context, biases and agendas is a core skill of any historian.
  
  Pizarro, Cortez and other conquistadores were biased authors who wrote for the sole purpose of supporting/justifying their claim on the territory, riches and peoples they subdued. To do so they elaborated their own sufferings, bravery, and outstanding deeds, while minimizing the work of native allies, pure dumb luck, and good timing. If you only read their accounts you walk away thinking a handful of adventurers conquered an empire thanks to guns and steel and a smattering of germs. No historian in the last half century would be so naive to argue this generalized view of conquest, but European technological supremacy is one keystone to Diamond's thesis so he presents conquest at the hands of a handful of adventurers.
  
  The construction of the arguments for GG&S paints Native Americans specifically, and the colonized world in general, as categorically one step behind.
  
  To believe the narrative you need to view Native Americans as somehow naive, unable to understand Spanish motivations and desires, unable react to new weapons/military tactics, unwilling to accommodate to a changing political landscape, incapable of mounting resistance once conquered, too stupid to invent the key technological advances used against them, and doomed to die because they failed to build cities, domesticate animals and thereby acquire infectious organisms. This while they did often did fare much better than the book (and the sources it tends to cite) suggest, they often did mount successful resistance, were quick to adapt to new military technologies, build sprawling citiest and much more. When viewed through this lens, we hope you can see why so many historians and anthropologists are livid that a popular writer is perpetuating a false interpretation of history while minimizing the agency of entire continents full of people.
  
  

  Further reading
  

  
  If you are interested in reading more about what others think of Diamon's book you can give these resources a go:
  
  

• /r/askHistorians section in their FAQ about GG&S
  
• Jim Blaut on Jared Diamond
  
  
  I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

You may be interested in the book, How to Invent Everything: A How to guide for a Stranded Time Traveler

Sorry, we live in a capitalist society. You have to pay for knowledge. Here's an Amazon link, pleb: https://www.amazon.com/Economic-History-USSR-1917-1991-Economics/dp/0140157743

If you make minimum wage then the purchase and shipping of this book will only cost you roughly three hours of your labour!

https://www.amazon.com/What-Earth-March-Pencil-Holder/dp/B07T6XQYXL

https://www.amazon.com/Ivans-War-Life-Death-1939-1945/dp/0312426526

https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/document/cia-rdp81b00401r000600120003-3

https://sofrep.com/news/russias-ever-elusive-warm-water-quest/

Here's a book you can read, I dont know if it has pictures:
https://www.amazon.com/Afgantsy-Russians-Afghanistan-Rodric-Braithwaite/dp/019983265X

They financed the in a big way Nazis, but obviously not all of their operation:

https://www.amazon.com/Swiss-Gold-Dead-Bankers-Finance/dp/0151003343

Wikipedia Article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_Damascus_Titan_missile_explosion

Alternatively, a book: https://www.amazon.com/Command-Control-Damascus-Accident-Illusion/dp/0143125788

Here you go

I'd suggest reading this book.

https://www.amazon.com/Ordinary-Men-Reserve-Battalion-Solution/dp/0060995068

Your pop understanding of the Holocaust lacks nuance. Soldiers who refused to participate in war crimes were hardly 'Gestapo'd'. They were allowed to stay in the barracks - though they'd usually 'come around' due to peer pressure. People who criticized the Nazis were quietly deplatformed, but only radicals like antifascists and communists were black-bagged. Ghettos and cattle car shipments were public. Slave camps in Germany were adjacent to civilian centers to facilitate transportation.

The extinction of the untermensch was a popular directive in Germany. People knew and believed and acquiesced not under the jackboot'd pressure of tyranny but out of the logical conclusion of fascism.

Here is probably the most biased source I could think of regarding the Trail of Tears. Not even they themselves consider it to be part of a genocide, but they do recognize the high death count.

Here is information on boarding schools which were pretty much cultural genocide centers (killing cultures, not people).

A book I have on the subject is called North American Indians, A Very Short Introduction . It covers from the discovery of the Americas to the 20th century struggles of the Indians to receive greater autonomy in the government. It also highlights how the Indians who didn't die from disease were dealt with by various European and eventually American powers.

I apologize for not having more text or internet sources to provide. Most of my books on the subject cover pre-columbian and early contact. Also, I live in Georgia so most of my online sources come from Galileo which would not be available to you if you live anywhere other than Georgia.

When i learned about the War of the Insane, i spent some time googling for more info and i found this book, Dreams of the Hmong Kingdom: The Quest for Legitimation in French Indochina, 1850–1960.
I haven't read it yet, but it has an entire chapter dedicated to the War of the Insane and helps the reader understand it within the wider context of Hmong history.

All of it, hence the line:

Frantically starts flipping through pages, "oh oh. oh no. no no no. oh oh."

But if you really want to know specifics: https://www.amazon.com/Peoples-History-United-States/dp/0062397346

I actually don't know. It was in a book about Cleopatra, actually.

https://www.amazon.com/Cleopatra-Life-Stacy-Schiff/dp/0316001945

I also could be mis-remembering the exact details, but the general plot was the triumvirate had a bit of a swap meet, and decided who would live and who would die.

They still regularly committed reprisals against civilians, and, on the Eastern Front at least, provided logistical support for theEinsatzgruppen.

The SS murdered 1.5 million Jews in Eastern Europe in the early stages of the Holocaust in situ, before the logistics of the cattle cars and gas chambers had been entirely worked out. While the Einsatzgruppen (the term roughly translates as “task force”) provided strategic direction and specialist expertise, they utilized local paramilitary auxiliaries as well as the Wehrmacht for equipment, manpower, and logistics.

The Holocaust could not have been carried out without the assistance of the Wehrmacht. The SS simply never had the ability to carry out an operation of that magnitude themselves, let alone all the other acts of insanity they were tasked with. The Wehrmacht were instrumental in helping the German State carry out atrocities against civilians, actions which had absolutely no military value or utility.

The “clean Wehrmacht” myth was spread by Germans seeking to distance themselves from the actions of the Nazis after they had lost the war, and should be recognized today for what it is: self-serving, ahistorical, easily disproven propaganda.

Its arguable that war is an integral part of civilization, violence as you will. Le Blanc wrote a great book called constant battles,

https://www.amazon.com/Constant-Battles-Why-We-Fight/dp/0312310900

Looking at the firs tools used for cultivation ties in to protecting said resources from outside groups. So economics and war are co dependent. A better example of that is of the Roman use of war of fill its coffers. Its prime method of garnering funds was via war until it grew to large and the spoils of war did not match what the treasury needed. The Fed is a result of World War 1, the GI Bill introduced returning soldiers for better education. Conflict is reflecting the boiling point of those issues