[quote]Varqanir wrote:
…
Patriots’ Day.
How will you celebrate it?
[/quote]
Blow up a federal building?
Now I know why you have General Sherman for your avatar! 
That was an excellent read. Not being an historian makes me fairly easy to fool. The Walter Williams endorsement helped sell me the book, actually.
I also am guilty of zealotry as in your follow-up paragraph. One of my many faults…But I’ll be the first to admit it!
Good post!
Irish,
It is also interesting that the looney-liberarians often get misty-eyed about the laissez-faire late 1800s as the pinnacle of the nation’s liberty, before the statists came in and locked them all in chains.
And yet. The rest of the time they claim Lincoln exploded the government into nothing short of an irreversible socialist-fascist state because he was a tyrant hell-bent on creating the superstate.
So, the looney-libertarian’s laissez-faire Shangri-La comes directly after Lincoln’s birthing a centralized superstate (the point of no return!). The two arguments negate one another.
Can you figure it out? Me neither.
Thunder, did you just call me a loony librarian?
And hey…just because I like the Marx brothers doesn’t mean I’m mindless, buddy. Groucho is a genius.
Actually, I’m more of an unabashed anarchist… 
And it’s the late 1600s and 1700s that I get misty-eyed for.
[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
Varqanir wrote:
…
Patriots’ Day.
How will you celebrate it?
Blow up a federal building?[/quote]
Or credit card company buildings, even.
Oh…I guess that’s not as funny now that I don’t have my Tyler Durden avatar anymore. ;p
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
I did not realize that you were an American living in Japan. I publicly apologize for any insult.[/quote]
Accepted. Now apologize to Sabrina, and we’re good to go. [quote]
Since I am a science/math teacher, my knowledge of history is not as extensive as yours. Would you care to share some of the names of books you’ve read in this regard? This is not some kind of trick – during the summer is when I catch up on my reading.
HH[/quote]
One of the best history books I have ever read, and one which as a science teacher you will probably enjoy, was written by a biologist named Paul Colinvaux. It’s called The Fates of Nations, a Biological Theory of History, and uses the principles of ecology (the science, not the hippie nonsense) to develop a unified theory of why nations expand, colonize, wage war, build empires, and ultimately fade away. Writing in 1980, he predicted that the US and USSR would join forces to fight for oil, and that by the mid 21st century the (then) Soviet Union would be more free than the United States, because they still had a relatively low population and plenty of “elbow room”.
Another two similar and better-known titles are Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond, and The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor by David S. Landes. Diamond expands on the ideas put forth by Colinvaux, arguing that the present “hegemony” of the west was built upon a foundation of happenstances stretching back to the Neolithic era. Landes expands upon the ideas of Adam Smith, as you might have guessed from the title, while adding in a good dose of the same “geography is destiny” found in Colinvaux’s and Diamond’s books. Highly recommended.
Another good history book is What If?: The World’s Foremost Military Historians Imagine What Might Have Been by Robert Cowley et al. This book examines how history might have been drastically different had, say, Alexander got his head split at Arbela when he fell off his horse (he was saved at the last minute by one of his lieutenants, a man he later executed), or if Hitler had crushed the British Army at Dunkirk, if the Japanese had won Midway, or (more pertinent to our discussion) if General McClellan hadn’t intercepted Lee’s orders for Sharpsburg, and the Confederate Army had won that battle. Great stuff.
I’ve paged through Civil War apologia with big Rebel flags on the cover, books like The South Was Right! and Was Jefferson Davis Right?, and even Myths of American Slavery by Walter and James Kennedy. Okay if your mind is already made up, but always helpful to remember that these two good ol’ boys have a big ol’ axe to grind.
Thomas Dilorenzo’s books are a step up, but only a small one. Ditto for War for What by Francis Springer. A bit sketchy in places, and again, you get the old “oh, but slavery wasn’t that bad” bullshit.
Try finding a book called When in the Course of Human Events: Arguing the Case for Southern Secession, by Charles Adams. Much more persuasive, and far less sensationalist.
Cheers.
V
Looks like a great list! One of the benefits of teaching is the two MONTHS in summer when I can recover from teaching reluctant teens about structured proofs and the like.
Thanks, V!
And in honor of all the work V put into typing this extensive list – “Sabrina, I’m an idiot. Peace!” Now, just never ask me to apologize to Prof X, Vroom, or Harris…just, NO.
HH
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
Irish,
It is also interesting that the looney-liberarians often get misty-eyed about the laissez-faire late 1800s as the pinnacle of the nation’s liberty, before the statists came in and locked them all in chains.
And yet. The rest of the time they claim Lincoln exploded the government into nothing short of an irreversible socialist-fascist state because he was a tyrant hell-bent on creating the superstate.
So, the looney-libertarian’s laissez-faire Shangri-La comes directly after Lincoln’s birthing a centralized superstate (the point of no return!). The two arguments negate one another.
Can you figure it out? Me neither.[/quote]
Maybe this will help…TIME. Nothing happens overnight. Mid to late 19th century Americans would have been appalled at an immediate introduction of a large, overbearing government. The idea of same has to be slowly introduced. Successive generations eventually began to think of government as a nanny. Of course, give a bureaucrat nanny-powers over you and eventually…well, you know what comes next.
Think in terms of abstract concepts, not percepts. You’ll then get it. (And please don’t do a Vroom on me and pick out this last paragraph while ignoring the rest. Hey, a new term – being Vroomed.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
Think in terms of abstract concepts, not percepts. You’ll then get it. (And please don’t do a Vroom on me and pick out this last paragraph while ignoring the rest. Hey, a new term – being Vroomed.
[/quote]
You are such a trolling asshole…
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
Another two similar and better-known titles are Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond, and The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor by David S. Landes. Diamond expands on the ideas put forth by Colinvaux, arguing that the present “hegemony” of the west was built upon a foundation of happenstances stretching back to the Neolithic era. Landes expands upon the ideas of Adam Smith, as you might have guessed from the title, while adding in a good dose of the same “geography is destiny” found in Colinvaux’s and Diamond’s books. Highly recommended.[/quote]
To go completely digression on you, I’ve always found I agree with these statements regarding Diamond’s book:
From Victor Davis Hanson:
[i]Jared Diamond?s bestselling Guns, Germs, and Steel argued that geography trumped culture, and that the current privileged position of the West was therefore mostly attributable to the advantageous resources in, and location of, Western countries, rather than to Europe?s singular values. Despite the allure of such a politically correct exegesis ? President Clinton endorsed the book wholeheartedly ? there were numerous criticisms of this determinist idea of natural accidents resulting in the present-day dominance of the West. At some point a Cleisthenes, Plato, Augustine, Magna Carta, Sistine Chapel, Thomas Edison, or Albert Einstein ? and the thinking and substructure that produced them ? is worth more than long, indented coastlines and concentrations of iron ore. Diamond seemed to be terribly confused about the course of 2,500 years of Western history: Environment, far from being a precondition for Western success, was often almost irrelevant to it.
For example, how did the Ptolemies create an even more dynamic civilization than that of the earlier dynastic pharaohs, when they inherited from them a supposedly exhausted and increasingly salinized landscape? Or why did the palatial culture of Mycenae prove to be a dead-end society, and yet the radically different Greek city-state centuries later blossomed in the exact same environment? More immediately, are we to suppose that there are underappreciated micro-climates that separate Tijuana from San Diego, strangely different soils on the two immediate sides of the Korean DMZ, and something about those ever-changing lagoons of Venice that made it irrelevant in late Roman times, a world power in 1500, and once again a backwater by 1850? Did the environment of Britain improve from A.D. 400 to 1700 while Rome?s declined, thus explaining why the former outpost of the Western world became its new center and vice versa?
Never mind that these bothersome historical details point to a particularly innovative ? and ever evolving ? social, economic, and political Western paradigm that can not only destroy, but repair, and, yes, often improve on nature in a way not quite possible in other cultures. The hillside slums of Mexico City, Sao Paulo, or Calcutta may support Diamond?s gloomy assessments of what population density and environmental ignorance have wrought, but why does such a theory break down when we look at civilized and relatively affluent life in similarly congested Tokyo and London? Instead of the hard work of sorting out the subtleties of how sophisticated Westernized cultures both succeed and fail in inhospitable landscapes, the morality tale of Guns, Germs, and Steel was soothing salve to the increasingly berated Westerner, who apparently was amused by the idea that he had not stolen, but bumbled onto, his embarrassing bounty. And so the book, presented in a chatty and often witty style, went on to sell a million copies. [/i]
and these by Steve Sailer:
[i] But, are indigenous peoples merely not inferior? In truth, on their own turf many ethnic groups appear to be somewhat genetically superior to outsiders. Diamond makes environmental differences seem so compelling that it’s hard to believe that humans would not become somewhat adapted to their homelands through natural selection. And in fact, Diamond himself briefly cites several examples of genetic differences impacting history. Despite military superiority, Europeans repeatedly failed to settle equatorial West Africa, in part because they lacked the malaria resistance conferred on many natives by the sickle cell gene. Similarly, biological disadvantages stopped whites from overrunning the Andes. Does this make Diamond a loathsome racist? No, but it does imply that a scientific-minded observer like Diamond should not dogmatically denounce genetic explanations, since he is liable to get tarred with his own brush.
The undeniability of human biodiversity does not prove that we also differ somewhat mentally, but it’s hard to imagine why the brain would differ radically from the rest of the body. Consider the fable of the grasshopper and the ant. The ant’s personality traits – foresight and caution – fitted him to survive his region’s predictably harsh winters. Yet, the grasshopper’s strengths – improvisation and spontaneity – might furnish Darwinian superiority in a tropical land where the dangers are unpredictable.
Like many, Diamond appears to confuse the concepts of genetic superiorities (plural) and genetic supremacy (singular). The former are circumstance-specific. For example, a slim, heat-shedding Somalian-style body is inferior to a typically stocky, heat-conserving Eskimo physique in Nome, but it’s superior in Mogadishu (and in Manhattan, too, if, you want to become a fashion model and marry David Bowie, like Somalian supermodel Iman). In contrast, genetic supremacy is the dangerous fantasy that one group is best at everything. Before the European explosion began in the 15th Century, it seemed apparent that no race could be supreme. Even the arrogant Chinese were periodically overrun by less-cultured barbarians. The recent European supremacy in both the arts of war and of peace was partly an optical illusion masking the usual tradeoffs in talents within Europe (e.g., Italian admirals were as inept as English cooks). Still, the rise and reign of Europe remains the biggest event in world history. Yet, the era when Europeans could plausibly claim supremacy over all other races has been dead for at least the 60 years since Hitler, of all people, allied with Japan.
The historian who trumpets the political relevance of his work must consider both the past and the future, which Diamond fails to do. Surprisingly, ethnic biodiversity is becoming more important in numerous ways. Until recently, one’s location and social position at birth closely constrained one’s fate. But, as equality of opportunity grows, the globalized marketplace increasingly exploits all advantages in talent, including those with genetic roots. Pro sports offer a foretaste of the future: many are resegregating themselves as ethnic groups increasingly specialize in those games they’re naturally best at. In summary, Diamond may prove a better guide to the last 13,000 years than the to next 13. [/i]
I recommend this book by Geoffrey Blainey for a nice overview of world history – it obviously gives short shrift to some big topics, but what does one expect from a world history of a few hundred pages:
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
A typically BBishly long post.[/quote]
Victor David Hanson is one of my favorite historians. I have most of his books on Hoplite warfare and Greek agrarian society, and indeed he is one of the major contributors to the What If book I mentioned. He’s also from my hometown.
I agree with his (and your) assessment of Diamond’s book, and yeah, I admit I did sort of gloss over the more annoyingly PC aspects of it. He provides a good overview of the conditions involved in the evolution of societies and civilizations, and you are certainly welcome to reject many of the political conclusions he comes to, as I do.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
Looks like a great list! One of the benefits of teaching is the two MONTHS in summer when I can recover from teaching reluctant teens about structured proofs and the like.[/quote]
Reluctant? How could any teenager be reluctant to learn things like “the negation of the implication is logically equivalent to the intersection of the negation of the antecedent with the consequent.”?
-(P ? Q) :? (-P ? Q)
…right? It’s been a while.
Sabrina tossed back her magnificent raven-haired head and laughed heartily at this, which means, I think, that she accepts your apology.
Cheers.
V
[quote]vroom wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
Think in terms of abstract concepts, not percepts. You’ll then get it. (And please don’t do a Vroom on me and pick out this last paragraph while ignoring the rest. Hey, a new term – being Vroomed.
You are such a trolling asshole…[/quote]
See, he just did it! Vroom, you are so easy! Okay, I’m going to stop now…I really will…
LMAO!!
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
BostonBarrister wrote:
A typically BBishly long post.
Victor David Hanson is one of my favorite historians. I have most of his books on Hoplite warfare and Greek agrarian society, and indeed he is one of the major contributors to the What If book I mentioned. He’s also from my hometown.
I agree with his (and your) assessment of Diamond’s book, and yeah, I admit I did sort of gloss over the more annoyingly PC aspects of it. He provides a good overview of the conditions involved in the evolution of societies and civilizations, and you are certainly welcome to reject many of the political conclusions he comes to, as I do.[/quote]
I greatly enjoyed Diamond’s book but he clearly did not take culture into account at all.
You have to take a good portion of what he says with a grain of salt because he clearly is trying to prove something and he won’t let a little thing like facts get in the way.
That being said I think he offers some great insight in a number of areas that make perfect sense.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
LMAO!!
[/quote]
Holy crap! Is that a sense of humor?
[quote]vroom wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
LMAO!!
Holy crap! Is that a sense of humor?[/quote]
As my hero Hank Hill would say, “Yup!”.
Have a nice day, Rusty!
A modern liberal believes:
It is not your money.
It is not your time.
You can not be trusted to take care of yourself.
Fidelity, temperence, honesty, honor and righteousness do not exist but are myths.
It is impossible for a person to practice self control.
“The state shall not establish a religion” should be interpreted to mean there shall be no religion.
If it is inconvenient for you to have a baby the state should pay for you to kill it.
Americans are the most reprehensible humans on the planet earth.
Terrorists understandeably attack the U.S. because of our repressive self serving interests.
We can appease those who hate us by apologizing and giving them your money.
Pornography does not exist.
Marriage is an outdated concept created to repress.
The world needs no more children.
There shall be no limits on a persons right to sue.
The government should care for your every need.
[quote]ghengis wrote:
A modern liberal believes: (list)
[/quote]
That’s quite an entrance ghengis. Good luck defending that list.
You’re going to need it.
I agree modern liberal’s views suck.
Never been to Ms. Coulter’s website.