A science of human history should be welcomed - let us usher in bio-geography,
Traditionally there are the causal motors of traditional history – politics, culture, economics,
However the arugment goes that these are best left to explain the residuum of events not explained by bio-geography.
Indeed could all events be explained by geography?
For instance, in the early 15th century, China mounted a series of long-range trading voyages under the command of the daring eunuch, Admiral Zheng He. It was an enterprise that dwarfed the later European voyages of exploration. The Chinese fleet got as far as Malindi in East Africa, possibly even further; and the halting of these voyages after 1433 was, it is often said, one of the great contingencies of history: had neo-Confucian anti-commercialism and xenophobia not prevailed at the Ming court, or the Imperial exchequer not run dry, global history would have been quite other than it was.
So the Sinologists say, at least.
However the bio-geographers just sees coastlines.
The coast of China has few bays, islands and peninsulas: had it been as bumpy as Europe’s, China would have been a host of states rather than a unified empire; the eunuch admiral could have shopped about for another princely patron (rather as Columbus did) instead of languishing on the beach; and Europe might well have been a Chinese colony.
There are criticism of the bio-geographical approach, the causal fragility of the arugment, it is irredeemably flawed It relies too much on blunt assertion and telling anecdote rather than statistics,
Its thesis depends on a quantitative argument,
None the less as Armand Marie Leroi argues, new science of history deserves nurturing rather than stifling, and Guns, Germs and Steel deserves to be read for the audacity of purpose and clarity of thought its author brings to the cause of historical explanation.
Source:
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v19/n17/armand-marie-leroi/why-rhino-mounted-bantu-never-sacked-rome
Traditionally there are the causal motors of traditional history – politics, culture, economics,
However the arugment goes that these are best left to explain the residuum of events not explained by bio-geography.
Indeed could all events be explained by geography?
For instance, in the early 15th century, China mounted a series of long-range trading voyages under the command of the daring eunuch, Admiral Zheng He. It was an enterprise that dwarfed the later European voyages of exploration. The Chinese fleet got as far as Malindi in East Africa, possibly even further; and the halting of these voyages after 1433 was, it is often said, one of the great contingencies of history: had neo-Confucian anti-commercialism and xenophobia not prevailed at the Ming court, or the Imperial exchequer not run dry, global history would have been quite other than it was.
So the Sinologists say, at least.
However the bio-geographers just sees coastlines.
The coast of China has few bays, islands and peninsulas: had it been as bumpy as Europe’s, China would have been a host of states rather than a unified empire; the eunuch admiral could have shopped about for another princely patron (rather as Columbus did) instead of languishing on the beach; and Europe might well have been a Chinese colony.
There are criticism of the bio-geographical approach, the causal fragility of the arugment, it is irredeemably flawed It relies too much on blunt assertion and telling anecdote rather than statistics,
Its thesis depends on a quantitative argument,
None the less as Armand Marie Leroi argues, new science of history deserves nurturing rather than stifling, and Guns, Germs and Steel deserves to be read for the audacity of purpose and clarity of thought its author brings to the cause of historical explanation.
Source:
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v19/n17/armand-marie-leroi/why-rhino-mounted-bantu-never-sacked-rome
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