In “A Brief History of the Human Race” (2003) Princeton professor Michael Cook covers the last 10,000 years in 384 pages. He gives Australia, Africa, India and China whole chapters of their own. He even places Egypt in Africa.
Cook:
I am not writing history to make anybody feel good, nor am I writing it to make anybody feel bad. But it’s true that I did enjoy cutting Western Europe down to size until the point at which it does get important. It’s really quite late in world history maybe even the 15th century when Western Europe starts to match up to the rest of the world.
Sounds promising.
Let’s look at the table of contents to see what we can find out.
The chapters and their page lengths:
- 16 The Palaeolitic Background
- 19 The Neolithic Revolution
- 17 The Emergence of Civilization
- 20 Australia
- 24 The Americas
- 26 Africa
- 22 The Ancient Near East
- 28 India
- 30 China
- 29 The Ancient Mediterranean World
- 33 Western Europe
- 28 Islamic Civilization
- 30 The European Expansion
- 29 The Modern World
- 6 Conclusion
I will assume the first three chapters and last two apply to the world in general. That is not quite true – “The Modern World” seems to be mainly about the West, for example – but at this stage I just want a quick idea of what is going on without going through the chapters themselves.
So how balanced are the regional chapters?
Pages per billion people (2011):
- 884.2 Australia
- 25.7 The Americas
- 25.4 Africa
- 94.8 The Ancient Near East
- 22.6 India
- 22.3 China
- 43.1 The Ancient Mediterranean World
- 79.8 Western Europe
- 17.3 Islamic Civilization
- 17.9 The European Expansion
Generally balanced except for Australia, which is off the chart, and the history of Western civilization, which gets two to four times more pages than it should based on its present size.
The West, the Muslim World, India and China each have about 1.5 billion people, give or take 300 million.
Some regions are arguably more important in history than you would suspect from their present size. We can get a rough idea of that by looking at how many years a given region had the largest city in the world.
Pages per century with the largest city in the world:
- 3.7 Africa
- 2.0 The Ancient Near East
- 2.7 China
- 2.9 The Ancient Mediterranean World
- 7.0 Islamic Civilization
- 30.0 The European Expansion
Here Cook seems to favour not so much Western history as history closer to his own time.
But there are regions he covers even during times when they did not have the largest city:
- Australia
- The Americas
- India
- Western Europe
The first three are necessary if Cook wants to cover the whole world to some degree. But not the fourth.
The chapter on Western Europe is overkill when the European Expansion already gets 30 pages. For comparison, according to the index, the Austronesian Expansion gets three pages, the Bantu Expansion gets none.
Preliminary suggestions for the second edition:
- Make “Western Europe” and “The European Expansion” into one chapter.
- Add a chapter on the Austronesian Expansion, which would help to cover regions Cook seems to give little attention: South East Asia and Polynesia.
- Cover the Bantu Expansion.
See also:
Abagond 
There is one obvious reason for this imbalance in the telling of the history of mankind……and that is because it was written by whites.
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It’s funny how whites also equate “progresses of mankind” with only their own people. We’ve got a long way to go in regards to solving this race problem…
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@Ms.J and Dave Enamu. I agree.
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@ Bulanik
I have not read the book yet either but from what I can tell he is a geographical and technological determinist, much like Jared Diamond. A warmed-over colonialist, inotherwords. I feel a post coming on!
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@ Bulanik
As for Australia, I think Cook wanted his history seem regionally complete and when you look at a map Australia is pretty big looking – even though not many people have lived there ever. He is not Australian or something. He is British.
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Bulanik:
Oh goodness.
On the one hand, I’m glad to hear openness and skepticism about this narrative. On the other hand, you’re treading on intellectually dangerous ground since the entire structure of politically correct thought is precisely based upon history being “inevitably so”.
Otherwise persons and groups may have to bear some responsibility for their current state. So by challenging the deterministic nature of history, even at the macro level, you’re really opening up a can of worms.
Bulanik:
I think that viewpoint is quite conscious and deliberate. Any other explanation risks suggesting that the success of European cultures in modern times was due in some way to a positive inherent property of these cultures / peoples, a concept quite anathema to modern PC beliefs.
Personally, I think the issue of determinism vs. agency is a great debate to have, but you might get kicked out of the club for not wholeheartedly embracing the accepted dogma.
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@ Randy
Michael Cook and Jared Diamond are like most white people: they want to BE racist without SEEMING racist. They avoid racist explanations while at the same time trying to make a white supremacist world order seem like the unavoidable, natural outcome of history. It is the Curse of Ham in drag. By blaming geography and technology for the state of the world they avoid pinning any moral blame or responsibility on whites. How nice.
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Abagond:
I was under the impression that Jared Diamond was attempting to offer a fully anti-racist narrative, that his message was “Europeans, neither your race nor your culture made you successful, rather it was a complete accident of geography / climatology”.
The downside to this approach is that in order to be consistent, you have to also disclaim anything bad. If your argument is that people can’t take any credit, then you can’t assign them any blame either.
If you think that white people (or anyone else for that matter) should accept blame or responsibility for their negative actions, then you have to be open to allowing arguments of genetic and/or cultural advantages which enabled their successes.
From my observations, this is untenable in the current PC climate. Continuing the thought, you also have to assign some accountability to peoples and cultures who are currently not as successful.
In the American bipolar racial context, that might read as: if white people can be blamed for their faults, then black people can be blamed for their faults too.That idea is even more unacceptable in the PC world.
For all its faults, Diamond’s “deterministic” narrative is at least wholly consistent.
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@ Randy
In the so-called current PC climate blacks are blamed and faulted all the damn time. It is whites who have this surreal, delusional, overblown belief in their own goodness and gosh-darn wonderfulness.
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@ Aba
I left you a message on open thread.
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@bulanik:
Wars and the way of war has been tremendously important factor in history. We tend to lessen its meaning today because we feel we must distance ourselves from the old history of heroworshipping. Instead I think we should accept military history as a means to investigate the cultures and their formation.
You mentioned greco-persian wars. There are some very natural causes why persians lost even though their armies were much larger. Two very important reasons: persian army was multiracial and multicultural where as greeks were, despite them being from various city states, all from the same cultural backround with similar military thinking. Other greeks understud even the spartans. So there was the question of cohesion which is important aspect of any army, particularry when things get tuff.
Another very important aspect of all warfare all trough the history is forced military service vs voluntary. Persian armies were drafted or forced. Greeks were fighting willingly. In all history the volunteer armies have eventually beaten the forced ones. This includes the Vietnam War were the american superiority was not enough to defeat the vietnamese despite the total destruction of many combat units and personel.
As for the european warfare compared others from 1400’s on wards, the europeans had been fighting wars almost continuously ever since romans began their conquests. They had not stopped after the hunnic invasions, actually the goths and others formed very large part of the hunnic armies, and they went on fighting all trough the medieval times. This fighting was done in accordance that the warring parties could announce when it was “gloves off”, that is when the objective was total destruction of the opponents. This happened for example in Crecy 1346 where the french king announced that there will be no prisoners or mercy and unfurled the Oriflamme, sacred war flag. Unfortunately for him, english did not show any mercy and wiped his army.
But it became given that in war anything goes UNLESS otherwise agreed. The scotts fought kind of guerilla war with the english for few centuries. The vikings did this. The finns did the same all the way up to WW2. The english used terror as a means of war, as did the romans, the franks, germans, russians etc. Vlad Tepez, the original Dracula, was master at it.
So when facing more coreographed or “performed” ways of warfare of other cultures, the europeans did what they always had done: anything to win. Weather in the streets of Cuzco or Tenochtitlan, or fields of Omdurman or Patay, the europeans killed as many opponents in the shortest possible time and followed it with the destruction of the opponents ability to wage war against them, that is their villages, economies and preferably, their religions too.
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So, has anybody actually read the book? I fail to see the point in discussing a book that has not been read. An analysis of how long chapters are and such as a basis? Really? What kind of discussion can you expect out of that? Isn’t that just “Judging a book by its cover”???
I thought this was supposed to be a fact discussion forum to try and understand each other, good and bad. Doing something like this helps nothing and no-one.
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@ Rob Warner #3
Read the title of the post. That is what the post is about. I try to title my posts accurately. I do not expect everyone to be interested in all my posts. They would almost have to be me for that to be true. Nor is it required that each of my posts causes world peace. In fact, most of them do not.
In terms of trying to understand one another, maybe you could read this post and understand how whitetastic most world histories are and what that means in terms of – trying to understand one another.
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@bulanik:
What I think we tend forget is this: europea armies from very early on were mercenary armies, that is the core of military was volunteer men for whom warfare was a business. Also, when comparing to the cultures they met, many of the armies which did the conquests from 1500 onwards were almost every case mercearies and even mercenaries of private companies. I guess we would call this today Outsourcing the warfare by the rules of that day.
This of course lead to the innovations in warfare and fighting, from armaments to actual tactics and strategies. In 1600’s there was a wide spread idea that war should support itself, and, as a result of this thinking, 30 years war destroyed large parts of Germany so troughly that their nature and landscapes changed and became to look like we know them today. Case in point is northern Germany, were almost all the forests and natural pastures were completely wiped out by the massive armies foraging everything for their needs and transformed those parts into semideserts were, according to the eye witnesses of that time, only living things were flys.
Western armies did not have many inventions per sé, BUT what separated them from many was their ability to adapt old ideas and transform them into effective tools of warfare, Gunpowder is a classic example. It had been know in China god knows how long, it had been used in warfare in China for a long time, BUT the europeans developed it into a truly destructive weapon system.
We know that the turks had almost superb cannons in 1500 century BUT the europeans developed a whole range of guns for various uses and by the 17th century turkish artillery was no longer a dominant force what it had been since the conquest of Constantinopol. I think this ability to adapt different inventions was a truly important part of the success of the west. In Omdurman the more numerous mahdi-army had muskets when the brittish already had machine guns, with which they inflicted, quoting mr Churchill, “magnificent slaughter of the natives”.
Very important factor was also the way to see warfare. In many cultures it was ritualistic in its frame work. Even the most cruel aspects of war were seen as part of some cultural context or in some cultural frame work. In the west, none of that mattered. Warfare was part and parcel of commerce, it was a business, and later became part of industrial way of life, as seen in WW1.
Nazi Germany had the best trained force in 1939 but only short 6 years later, it was defeated. Soviet Union collapsed. Sparta eventually lost and became second class state, untill it was almost practically forgotten. In short term those systems are successful but in the long term No. I have no idea why. Perhaps terror does not work unless it can be sustained continously, like the romans did. But even they eventually collapsed.
Yes, it is very interesting to think about the Why. In the north societies were smaller, units were smaller, the terrain did not favor large units nor made it easy for any ruler to actually rule the countries. There was the lack of inniative, north was relatively poor, and very few people (although more than usually thoughed) lived in these parts, so even when different rules claimed their rule over vast areas, in reality they did not. It was only during 1400’s that russian or swedish rulers began actually have more than nominal say in most of the areas they had been claiming for couple centuries as their own. In Demark, because of the proximity with Germany, this development began earlier.
And in these areas the local councils had been in existense for centuries before any one claimed to be a sole ruler. Also, rulers were traditionally chosen, it became hereditary only later with christianity. There had been a tradition of independent farmers and landholders for centuries before the feodalism was introduced, again, with the church. Unlike in south were feodalism was continum of the roman system.
This same idea of a class of wealthy and not so wealthy freemen was also present in Brittish isles and even the anglo saxon immigrants had it. It was only trough harsh warfare that any man could claim any suverenity over the population and then only with the support of the church. And even then so called kings had to be able to win their challengers at war almost all trough the medieval times, up to the end of 1600’s.
In the eastern and cross oceanic cultures there was usually one ruler who dominated over a vast number of subjects. In many cases this was tied into the local religious system. In Europe even the highest religious authority, the pope, had to be able to fight wars if he wanted to be recognised in any way. Fredrik the Great, Stupor Mundi, laughed off the excommunication pf the pope in 1240’s and a bit later Philip, the king of France, made his own pope when the previous one was not in his liking. In 1500’s german emperors and other invaded Italy and fought on the walls of Vatican against the pope. This did not happen nor was so “natural” in other cultures. In Europe it was practically common.
Thinking of it now, it seems that the so called triumph of the west was because few factors: total lack of religious respect (this despite of the inquisition etc.), total lack of ritualistic warfare, economic motivations in warfare, plurality of ideologies and ideas, warfare of everyone against everyone at any given time at any given place.
All this being said, we must remember that we can not see how long this is succesfull. The west has “ruled” the world only for some 300 years in reality. It might be that we are already seeing the end of this era, or the the beginning of the end of this era.
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Bro there is only one human race, and many peoples, who shares the DNA of the oldest person ever found in this world. AFRICAN EVE, Europeans what a fine miss you have made on mother earth with your unrelenting phIlosophies of oppression and exploitation of people who look like you, your once friends and allies, your once communities, and espevially people who have a superiority of technogy and are HUEman and HUEpeople. You are a very damaged people and just like me and my ancestors were damaged by the maafa the aeurope spirit is a very torched soul damaged by their own actions. May Jah continue loving you as a group of people on mother earth, and may your existence on this planet be long because you have annilated many of the Creators people. Cook and his rhetoric will not help the healing of the European mind especially when the European mind is consistently tormented by their own zest for oppression and exploitation. Telling lies, dressing up exploitation and oppression as theory, in which you always win does not help the healing of the injured european mind, because you don’t always win. Take my case during our maafa we Africans like me were not supposed to be alive today. Here in the Caribbean by any means necessary you slaughtered us but we are still here, not as many peoples as we were but as Africans. Try as you might you cannot exterminate all the peoples, recognise your European spirit for what it is and try to heal by stop telling lies. Soon and very soon if you are not careful and responsible another community of people will interfere with you. Peace and love
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@bulanik:
Well, I think one of the most important factors was the church which not only provided the litterati in the beginning, lingua franca and other intertwining factors BUT also provided the cause for the conquests for some european nations.
The non christian people of Europe were targets of conquest from very early on, actually the first targets, and the behavior of the conquerers was actually pretty much the same as in over seas colonies. The swedes conquered better part of Finland in medieval times and treated the land and its people as subjects for colonial rule. This was blessed by the church and actually called a crusade. Charlemagnes conquest of east slavs and heathen germans the same and I guess the english conquest of Ireland was pretty much the same, partly because the church of Ireland was too independent minded for Rome. Same happened with Scotland. On east the germans destroyed whole nations of Prussia ja Samogitia during the two centuries of warfare and conquest. Lithuanians were too numerous and strong to be wiped out in the name of the Christ. THe russians did the same even futher east when they conquered Siberia and the vast inner continent, subjacating fenno-ugric people etc.
One exception were the so called viking raids. Vikings were heathens BUT only in few exceptions their raids were private enterprises and not aimed at conquests and posession of lands. Only in very few places actual kings were involved in actual conquest attempts. Normandy and England are two examples of these. Also, once the north became christian, these raids ceased in the christian west, but went on in the east as crusades (in Baltic lands and Finland etc.).
When we think of the european nations who became colonial superpowers, Spain, Portugal, England, Holland, France, we should be able to find some common thing in them. Italy had been maritime superpower in earlier medieval times as long as their galleons could control the most important trade routes in Mediterrannean, but once the southern routes and possibilities diminished (some say because the turkish, which I find a bit simplistic view, after all, there had been trade going on with arabs despite the crusades etc.) they began to lose out.
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@bulanik:
“Vikings were heathens BUT only in few exceptions their raids were private enterprises and not aimed at conquests and posession of lands.”
should read: Vikings were heathens BUT OTHER THAN ONLY FEW EXCEPTIONS…
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So Jared Diamond – the guy who gives zero credit to DNA and all to geography, is a racist. Got it. Jared Diamond and now this Cook are anti-white historians. jeez
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brahms,
Jared Diamond goes to great pains to provide a narrative which avoids giving white people any credit, a strategy which Abagond criticizes as a way to allow white people to avoid any blame.
Perhaps this is the enduring curse of the progressive. One’s intent, regardless of how noble, will always be deemed offensive by some set of parties. It’s rather a shame that social “sciences” don’t appear to operate more from a base of intent-less inquiry which would avoid such perils altogether.
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@ Bulanik
More of Randy’s doublespeak, if you ask me.
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Bulanik:
“Intent” is probably an ambiguous choice of words. Better would be “non-dogmatic”. What I am describing is an ideal wherein the best models are the most truthful and accurate ones. Less successful models are discarded as a matter of process. Knowledge advances.
Where politics interferes with science, we have research attempting to prove points which satisfy a political rather than a scientific agenda.If you’re not willing to discard your most beloved beliefs in the face of sufficient contradictory evidence, then you’re in the domain of philosophy or religion, not science.
Diamond clearly has a socio-political bias which he then attempts to backfill with “science”. Amusingly, he’s still called a racist for his all troubles.
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I actually agree with this. White bigots should not be trying to force their delusional notion of White supremacy into the scientific field.
I’m glad we agree on something, Randy.
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Bulanik:
Unfortunately you seem to have completely missed the point. My comment to Abagond has nothing to do with the amount of credit that white people (or anyone else) is receiving, rather that if one believes history to be deterministic as Jared Diamond does, i.e. the inevitable consequence of circumstances, then people aren’t eligible for either blame or praise.
Bulanik:
Dogma is generally defined as a set of beliefs or opinions accepted as authoritative without requiring the burden of evidence. “Non-dogmatic” correlates to a scientific viewpoint.
The terms“truthful” & “accurate” refer to the process of investigating and adopting increasingly representative models of reality.
“Noble” is my opinion of the process of such investigation. Better to live with uncomfortable truths than pretty deceptions.
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@Abagond:
I am aware that history is being written in favor of one color or another and I hate it no matter where it comes from. I truly believe history should be about the facts only, and let the chips fall where they may.
I also have a deep seated hatred for book banning in a shape or form, just as much as I do for censorship. Which is a part of how history gets re-written, due to the educational control it gives the people in power.
In the end… I still do not see the point of discussing just the table of contents from a book, it can only lead to stereotypical thoughts and a discussion that doesn’t go anywhere. And yes, I have read the posts and the article you wrote about it. I still see it this way, so we will just have to disagree on this, especially considering your reply to me.
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*in any shape or form* Sorry about the typo
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LOL!!!
It wouldn’t be so funny if I didn’t think it was actually true. Randy REALLY does believe this nonsense he wrote…lol!
Only delusional, brainwashed, Euro-centric and fully Westernized minds would believe that Western modern day science correlates to a non-dogmatic universalized view point.
Only a less than informed philosophically challenged fool would believe that a noble process of “truthful” and “accurate” investigation leads to some increasingly attainable absolute model of reality.
I beg to differ Randy!
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