Talk:Guns, Germs, and Steel

RfC On DeLong Blogpost

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Should economic historian Brad DeLong's blogpost complimenting Guns, Germs, and Steel be mentioned? RfC relisted by Cunard (talk) at 01:46, 11 March 2019 (UTC). TAlphaM (talk) 18:15, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

The diff in question is (I think) this. Icewhiz (talk) 17:14, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

Comments

• Oppose You can see rest of my arguments above, but the TL;DR is that I don't think a blogpost is a good source, and I don't think DeLong's credentials are good enough in the relevant fields to warrant him being included, as evidenced by his published works and the content of the review itself. And even if they were, I still think including a blogpost as of the same credibility as peer-reviewed academic journals and peer-reviewed academic books is misleading. TAlphaM (talk) 18:27, 23 January 2019 (UTC)
• Leaning Exclude. It would need significant third party mentions to rate anything and I’m just not seeing that in a quick google. Seems just some casual bashing of critics, of no particular significance or note, and just not important to the article topic. CheersMarkbassett (talk) 03:52, 24 January 2019 (UTC)
• It's no worse than most of the rest of the sources. Only a few of them are journal articles. There may be too much Brad DeLong in this article, but honestly, the acclaim/criticism sections are just a lot of cherry-picked stuff. We're at the stage where there are secondary sources that describe the reception to the book. We need to use the best available sources, not fight over which of the crappy sources currently in the article we should add or remove. For starters, get rid of the dueling sections and write a proper "reception" section. Guettarda (talk) 06:24, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

I don't know if I'm supposed to respond to these, but you're absolutely right, I'm not happy with most of the sources or the section in general. The problem is that there aren't many academic sources I can find that do a thorough critique of the whole book or the historical community's reaction to it. There are books that indirectly respond to Diamond's work, like books that refute the "virgin soil" hypothesis or criticize environmental determinism. Would it be okay to use those as sources for the reception section? TAlphaM (talk) 20:21, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

• Keep. Brad DeLong is a recognized expert on subjects related to the book. He's an economic historian at UC Berkeley and has published on the subject of European city growth 1000-1800[1], as well as numerous publications on economic growth more broadly. He's furthermore a public intellectual. One sentence noting that he's praised the book is perfectly fine. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 22:42, 24 January 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose. This is in my mind WP:UNDUE as Guns, Germs, and Steel has been discussed numerous times in a published academic setting (as well as published non-academic settings of some note). There's little need to use a self-published opinion here from an economic historian. My opinion would've been different for a book with lesser published attention (in which I case I might've leaned towards inclusion) - but given the amount of good hits discussing Guns, Germs, and Steel in a simple google scholar search - I don't see why a self-published sourced is needed here.Icewhiz (talk) 17:18, 27 January 2019 (UTC)
• Keep. The WP:UNDUE argument is compelling in the abstract, but (simply) removing a sentence on DeLong can't be the top priority in a section that gives John Brätland ten clauses (recency isn't the right criterion for trimming). The proper way to tame this (overlong) section is to prioritize sources, and for that, we must consider expertise/recognition & representativeness (as well as publication method). In writing this, I'm probably just echoing TAlphaM's point, but I want to add this as a way to look at WP:UNDUE--It's the whole damn section that's excessively long (in relation to its value-add for the article). --Wragge (talk) 18:06, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

  @Wragge: - what you are basically saying is that since there is other crud in this over-long section - we should leave this piece of crud in. I would argue the obverse - we should remove this bit of crud (following consensus at the RfC) - and then follow up (per the implied consensus at the RfC) - and remove all similar crud in the section and trim it down (and if someone were so inclined - add better published review, commentary, and analysis). Icewhiz (talk) 08:23, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

  @Icewhiz: I agree that this is exactly the reasoning for the narrow "Keep" conclusion I've come to. This is despite WP:OTHERTHINGSEXIST. Contrasting with other things is inherently necessary if WP:UNDUE is the claim (since UNDUE is a relative weighting argument). And we must be careful with WP:OTHERTHINGSEXIST, which is not policy (but is an essay that begins with the caveat: "simply referring them to this essay by name, and nothing else, is not encouraged")..... But I disagree with Icewhiz on the correct approach. In fact, I propose the opposite plan: we should remove in order of crud-iness. The paragraph given to Brätland is directly relevant to inclusion of the DeLong sentence for three reasons: (a) These text blocks appear in the same section of the same article; (b) Icewhiz's UNDUE argument of the 27th accepts that there's nothing wrong with the DeLong sentence in isolation--it would be acceptable in another article; (c) Removing DeLong's opinion but keeping Brätland's probably raises the mean crud-iness of the section; the "other stuff exists" counterargument might be based on the assumption that the Brätland paragraph can't be relevant because we'll ultimately and independently remove it too. The editorship of Wikipedia being what it is, there's a high variability in the persistence of undue opinions. --Wragge (talk) 22:00, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

  @Wragge: Would you be okay with getting rid of every citation that's not a peer-reviewed journal article or a book published by a scholarly publisher? Because that's what I want to do eventually, I'm not a fan of the Bratland article or the two Foreign Policy articles either (the Bratland article is technically in a peer-reviewed journal, but Austrian economics is not exactly mainstream economics, and also an economist's opinion shouldn't be given that much weight on a history/anthropology book). Given the amount of attention this book has gotten, I'd like to hold it to the same standard that academic works are held to. A blogpost or New York Times article has no place on a page about plate tectonics, and I don't think it should be different for this book. TAlphaM (talk) 17:18, 3 February 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose. Given the abundance of sources on the topic including a blog post is unnecessary - and to counter an argument above, WP:OTHERTHINGSEXIST is not an argument for the inclusion of this segment, though it could be an argument for the exclusion of that one. -- NoCOBOL (talk) 13:53, 29 January 2019 (UTC)
• Remove DeLong's blog. As noted above the problem isn't with DeLong himself, despite the contention of the proposer he is absolutely an expert on this topic, but that we should not be relying on SELFPUB for this topic. There is no reason to be including anything in reception that isn't either the highest quality RS secondary source or a RS which summarizes the reception to the book itself. If DeLong had written that for the Washington Post as he did with thsi review this would be a very different thing. But he didn't. The solution according to policy really should be to cleanup this section in general not get bogged down about this one expert's blog. Best wishes, Barkeep49 (talk) 22:51, 23 February 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose/remove/no it should not be mentioned (to answer the question asked) simply because there are better sources available for the same content/point, per above. We don't need to attribute to a single self-pub source for praise, it puts too much emphasis on that one source. Leviv ich 04:42, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
• Remove DeLong (no relation to me, as far as I know) is a noted economist, but none of the three comments which are quoted in the original diff have anything to do with economics. DeLong is not an expert on genius, on comparative intelligence, or on diplomatic language. The section is too long already; information about the book itself should predominate. Add to that the fact that this reference is to a posting on a personal blog, and not to one of DeLong's hundreds of published documents, and I think the article is better without it.—Anne Delong (talk) 03:53, 22 March 2019 (UTC)
• Weak Keep I agree with Wragge that the DeLong reference is probably better than average for this section, and the section as it stands is better than it would be if the only change were to drop the DeLong mention. I'd leave it in pending a full redo of the Reception section along the lines that TAlphaM proposes.--BubbaJoe123456 (talk) 14:09, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Redundant synopsis

The synopsis portion of this article has a lot of redundancies between the "outline of their" section and the sections that follow. If someone wants to try to eliminate some of those, I think it'd improve the page. Sdkb (talk) 04:39, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

See Also section is a mess

I'm becoming more and more of the opinion that See Also sections should be a section of least and last resort. The section in this article is a clear example of an arbitrary assemblage of links that only tenuously relate to the article topic. I would boldly remove it, but I instead come here to gather consensus. 71.9.31.123 (talk) 15:04, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

I’m interested in hearing some specific information. Which links do you consider irrelevant? Are any of them relevant to you? (Not saying I disagree, just curious to hear more details. I agree it’s pretty damn long). Euor (talk) 15:17, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

If I may stick my nose in here, I'd like to say, first, I agree that the section is a mess, and includes a lot of not paricularly relevant links. For me, personally, GG&S started me on a path of reading many of the most highly regarded books on "deep history", including Yuval Harari and The Dawn of Everything, so I definitely think they should be kept in the section. There may be other entries that should be kept for the same reason. Paulmlieberman (talk) 19:58, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

My own contribution is the "Sword, Plough and Book" one, which was mentioned in the Norwegian edition of Guns, Germs and Steel's foreword by anthropologist Thomas Hylland Eriksen. He among other things noted the parallels between the book titles. However, that book doesn't have its own wiki page, nor even really much mention on the author's wiki page, so I don't know if its worth keeping or not (on one hand its highlighted as related to Guns Germs and Steel in a publication, on the other hand it doesn't have much presence on Wiki yet).--Euor (talk) 23:36, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

Speaking generally, every link in the See Also would be embedded within the article itself, if it were actually relevant to the article. Otherwise, adding the relevant category to the article might provide the appropriate level of interlinking. If more organized relationships need to be codified and defined, then a template at the bottom or the right side of the article might be appropriate. While I find all three (See Also, Categories, and Templates) to be dancing on the head of the OR pin, the later two are at least more organized and structured. 99.152.115.208 (talk) 05:20, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

• I think you can just go ahead and trim it if you want. There's no need for prior consensus. – Joe (talk) 09:31, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

Reception

Does anybody else think the positive to negative reception ratio seems very biased? I'm fairly certain it was more negatively received than this (among Diamond's other works). Talking to all the anthropology professors I know, the consensus seems to overwhelmingly be that Diamond is a kook. Thornfield Hall (talk) 06:22, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

Kathleen Lowrey

One editor removed the Kathleen Lowrey quote (edit summary: Removed a brief section of factually erroneous and unserious criticism which does not address the actual content of the book.). Another editor restored the content.

I don't necessarily agree with the remover's edit summary, but I do question the relevance of that quote to the article because the cited source says Lowrey, an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Alberta, offended many readers by saying that she hadn't bothered to finish Guns, Germs, and Steel Schazjmd (talk) 22:39, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

@SpaceExplorer12 and Tyrone Jahir:, please discuss the section in dispute here rather than continuing to revert each other. Schazjmd (talk) 15:19, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

Its quite simple, not a word of @Tyrone Jahirs edit summary make sense or is correct whatsoever. @Schazjmd SpaceExplorer12 (talk) 15:53, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

Ignore the edit summary. Can you address why you believe the comment of someone who didn't "bother" to even finish the book is relevant to the article? Schazjmd (talk) 15:57, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

It is relevant as it is many concern and disagreement with the book. Wikipedi ais neutral and should have things expressing support and dissent for the book. This is a useful piece of dissent and is important to understanding all sides of the arguement here @Schazjmd SpaceExplorer12 (talk) 15:59, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

There is extensive criticism of the book in the article. Why is the quote from someone who didn't read it of value? Schazjmd (talk) 16:04, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

Where do you see that they didnt read it? @Schazjmd SpaceExplorer12 (talk) 16:08, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

It's in the source. I quoted it in my first comment to this thread. Schazjmd (talk) 16:11, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

They read some of it and didnt like it (and therefore stopped), stating good critism of the book. Is that not worthwhile to include? @Schazjmd SpaceExplorer12 (talk) 16:14, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

I don't think someone who didn't even finish the book is giving a solid, thoughtful review worth quoting in the article about the book. (Also, I'm watching this page, please don't ping me on every comment, thanks.) Schazjmd (talk) 16:18, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

I think that is a reasonable opinion that deserves to be in the article SpaceExplorer12 (talk) 16:19, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

I disagree. If you read the source, Friedman's and Burke's criticisms of the book are given more weight and are based more in academic critique than Lowrey's. Cherry-picking from the source the one quote that seems more incendiary than reasoned does a disservice to this article. I'd suggest replacing Lowrey's quote with content about what Friedman and Burke had to say. Schazjmd (talk) 16:35, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

If you wish SpaceExplorer12 (talk) 16:36, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

Done. Schazjmd (talk) 16:43, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

I saw that Lowrey's criticism was removed, which is good, but I will still put my talk reply to SpaceExplorer12 here because he is wrong, and my summary of Lowrey's criticism is accurate.

The criticism in question comes from anthropologist Kathleen Lowrey, who says that Guns, Germs, and Steel "lets the West off the hook" and "poisonously whispers: mope about colonialism, slavery, capitalism, racism, and predatory neo-imperialism all you want, but these were/are nobody's fault. This is a wicked cop-out. [...] It basically says [non-Western cultures/societies] are sorta pathetic, but that bless their hearts, they couldn't/can't help it."

Here, Lowrey is accusing Diamond of using his conclusions about the power of the environment in shaping civilizational development to absolve the European powers of culpability for their colonial atrocities. This is factually erroneous. In Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond consistently acknolwedges the profound injustices and suffering caused by European colonialism. He emphasizes that the conquests, violence, and destruction of indigenous cultures were unjustifiable outcomes of historical interactions. Diamond explicitly denounces the kind of thinking Lowrey accuses him of:

1. "If we succeed in explaining how some people came to dominate other people, may this not seem to justify the domination? Doesn't it seem to say that the outcome was inevitable, and that it would therefore be futile to try to change the outcome today? This objection rests on a common tendency to confuse an explanation of causes with a justification or acceptance of results. What use one makes of a historical explanation is a question separate from the explanation itself."

2. "Understanding is more often used to try to alter an outcome than to repeat or perpetuate it. That's why psychologists try to understand the minds of murderers and rapists, why social historians try to understand genocide, and why physicians try to understand the causes of human disease. Those investigators do not seek to justify murder, rape, genocide, and illness. instead, they seek to use their understanding of a chain of causes to interrupt the chain."

Lowrey's critisim is unserious exactly because it does not address the content/substance of Diamond's book. The arguments put forward in Guns, Germs, and Steel are not an absoluton of Europeans for their colonialism, they are an explanation of how the European powers were able to colonize indigenous peoples in other lands, instead of indigenous peoples in other lands colonizing them.

1. "Thus, we can finally rephrase the question about the modern world's inequalities as follows: why did human development proceed at such different rates on different continents? Those disparate rates constitute history's broadest pattern and my book's subject."

At no point in the book does Diamond claim anything like "European colonization was inevitable" or that "European powers aren't ultimately responsible for the atrocities they committed." In fact, he refutes this kind of thinking in the prologue, chapters 3 and 11. Tyrone Jahir (talk) 11:55, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

Critical response

Hello. In its current state, the article does not mention the critical response from academia enough. Guns, Germs and Steel is very eurocentric, and the racism it combats is archaic at best. The book is generally seen as pop history, and overly simplistic. Its a work of vulgarisation with a wonderful style. It is essentially the eurocentric counterpart to 1491: New revelations about the Americas before Columbus, somewhat more reliable, but also considered pop science. In general Guns, Germs and steal 'discovered' nothing, thats just not how it works. Encyclopédisme (talk) 17:08, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Hello. If anything, the "criticsm" section is biased against Diamond, and was vulgarly so until not too long ago. Before I successfully argued for its removal, the section included criticism from Kathleen Lowry, an academic who admitted to not even finishing the book, and made claims about Diamond's views that are contradicted within its opening pages. Thankfully, it was replaced with examples of serious criticisms, but honestly, the first paragraph of the section as it exists should definitely be removed as well.

While any kind of controversial academic work will be subject to widespread criticism (and rightfully so), the specific veins of criticism you refer to (book is eurocentric, book is racist, etc.) are transparently politically motivated. They're not serious criticisms and never have been.

If you want to add more criticism, by all means do so, but we should hold the article to a high standard by including as much criticism like the bottom four paragraphs as possible, and as little criticism like the top two paragraphs (and the Lowry paragraph) as possible. Tyrone Jahir (talk) 12:22, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

'Politically motivated'.. listen I principally edit about the inca and I can tell you that the idea of this book doing anything more than getting out some popular misconceptions and getting some, some, new ideas in, is not supported by most academics specialized in Andean America and Mesoamerica. And even tho I don't know much about it, I bet most scholars of north american native history think the same. And yes, I do plan to add some criticism. If a book is seen critically by so many academics, then thats enough reasons to have a long criticism section. Imagine if we applied the logic you proposed to psychoanalysis. I am not saying we should break neutrality, but that this article needs a longer criticism section, since this book was not reviewed positively by many academics working in the field. Encyclopédisme (talk) 12:45, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

Politically motivated indeed. Criticisms need to engage with the content they're attempting to criticize if they're to be serious/worth including. What exactly is flawed with that logic? The book was reviewed positively by many academics working in the field. By your logic, this alone warrants extending the praise section too.

If we're being serious, the book was positively reviewed, and also not positively reviewed. Such is the nature of a controversial book. We could find just as many negative reviews to match positive ones and vice versa, so what's the solution? We should ensure that both the praise and criticism is as high quality and serious (actually addresses the content of the work) as it can be.

As I said, I welcome extending the criticism page, but it should be with serious criticisms and not unserious ones. Tyrone Jahir (talk) 13:33, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

The problem is this book has received a lot of criticism from the academic community. Period. Reliable sources, not 'serious' criticism, are critical of the work. In other words we need to put a little more emphasis on the fact this book is extremely controversial, the main accusation being over-simplification, among many, many others. We need to do this to ensure the articles neutrality in fact. I don't engage myself with this subject often, tho i've read the book, in fact I actually edit more about pre-columbian cultures than about this. Heck, before this account I edited under ip for a couple of years, and never on this. On the other hand, while it would be nice to assume good faith, I could accuse you of being taken in by the authors thesis, and of pov-pushing. I don't want to have a heated discussion here either, I took this to the talk page to see if there are any objections, and there seems to be none, aside from you. But you don't have a problem with me adding some new criticism, so I guess we agree on that. Cheers. Encyclopédisme (talk) 13:44, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

The book has received a lot of praise from the academic community. Period. Reliable sources are commending of the work... Do you see the problem with this kind of reasoning? The statement you made and the statement I made are both true. We need a better way to establish what's worth including.

Let me be plain: Emphasizing that the book was controversial is reasonable, adding serious and relevant criticism is reasonable. Adding criticism for the sake of adding criticism is low quality editing.

"While it would be nice to assume good faith, I could accuse you of being taken in by the authors thesis, and of pov-pushing."

Resorting to this kind of tactic doesn't reflect well on your intentions here. I've accused you of nothing like this. I assume good faith. I've been polite. As for objections, you posted your proposition just two days ago. The fact that anyone has responded on a page this obscure is an anomaly.

If you want to bring more attention to the book's controversy, that's something that can be stated rather than implied through adding criticisms for the sake of doing so. If you're going to add criticims, I urge you to make sure they are serious. That's all. Tyrone Jahir (talk) 14:12, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

Your clearly pov-pushing. I am professionally engaged with the Inca civilization, for exemple, and I don't like it. Seriously. I admit my first comment was a bit hard, but can we not accuse each other of these types of things.

The problem is, again, it is very controversial. I don't think your very familiar with Wp guidelines. What matters isn't your logic. Psychoanalysis, again isn't shown as a pseudoscience, despite the reasoning of many new editors on the talk page. It is criticized. Period. It would be a lack of neutrality to ignore the backlash to an academic work by many of the academic community. The book has received praise obviously, otherwise we wouldn't be here. Less obviously, it has received immense criticism, and for good reason. Many of its postulats don't correspond with those given by the consensus of academic works on the Aztecs or Inca peoples for exemple. That is an issue, you know. The basic idea of contact between old world civilizations being bigger than contact between new world civilizations was already seen as fact, and is used to explain culturally isolated systems of sociopolitical organisation like that of the Andes. But technology being the reason for expansion is an image starting to fade away. The lede paragraphe of this article suggests that it was mainstream academic practice to claim European genetic superiority. Peace? Encyclopédisme (talk) 14:23, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

There must be some kind of language barrier here, because a lot of what you're saying isn't a very coherent response to what I'm saying.

In what way am I POV-pushing? What "logic" am I using that is flawed? When did I say the book did not receive criticism for good reasons? When did I say you couldn't criticize GGS or add criticisms to the page?

"Many of its postulats don't correspond with those given by the consensus of academic works on the Aztecs or Inca peoples for exemple."

That is the exactly the kind of criticism I think should be added if you can get a reliable source for it, but that's different from what you said in your first comment. Eurocentrism, for example, is an unserious criticism. My main point was only that we should strive to ensure the content of the section is serious/high-quality. Tyrone Jahir (talk) 14:49, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

Good, then were in total agreement. By logic, I meant expressing opinions (which I also did, tho) to justify that or this edit, instead of following guideline. In this case weight needs to be respected, criticism is huge. You seem to edit a lot in favor of the authors thesis is what I meant to say about the pov-pushing. Cheers, and happy editing. Encyclopédisme (talk) 14:53, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

Sure, but I'm not trying to edit in favor of Diamond's thesis, I am trying to make sure included criticisms are actually criticisms of Diamond's thesis/work and not something else the work doesn't say. Good luck with your editing. Tyrone Jahir (talk) 15:34, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

Oswald Spengler

Oswald Spengler offers another possible explanation [which may or may not be correct] as to why advanced civilisations arose only in specific places on our planet (but did not do so in New Guinea or precolonial Australia, which Jared D cites for comparison). Spengler's thesis regards a High Culture as a living organic unit in its own right.

Spengler maintains that the "seed" of a High Culture (as a new organic, spiritual entity) appeared in western Europe round about 500 AD. About 400 years later it started to "blossom", and proceeded to influence and stimulate the leading minds in that area.

Earlier on, similar "higher organisms" appeared and flourished in China, in India, in and around Greece, in Persia/Arabia, in Mexico/Guatemala, and elsewhere.

Spengler is of course adopting a metaphysical approach to the question. We do not know why those phenomena "took root" just at those times and in those particular locations. Obviously, they could not function unless they had human material available (which could be regarded as forming the "cells" in its body). Thus, the Nile, the Tigris/Euphrates and the Indus river system were eminently suitable for the first three manifestations. --DLMcN (talk) 21:03, 16 March 2024 (UTC)