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That’s an odd criticism for “Guns, Germs, and Steel”—the major thesis might be able to be summarized in a short passage, but the book is long because it conside
by mcphage 3y ago
That’s an odd criticism for “Guns, Germs, and Steel”—the major thesis might be able to be summarized in a short passage, but the book is long because it considers that thesis from a bunch of different directions, building up an argument from a pile of distinct evidence. The point of the book isn’t to just state something, but to show why it is true.
It would be like complaining about how long a math proof is, when the theorem being proven itself is only a line or two.
- yogurtboy 3y agoThis put into words why I didn't agree with the linked post. I agree with a couple of assertions of the author (such as, utilize and adapt to the internet, cause we're never getting rid of it), but they don't do anything to acknowledge that there is value in the process.
- jauntywundrkind 3y agoYeah. I need to reread it but Miguel De Landa's A 1000 Years of Non-linear History gave me a lot of framing & ideation, around the same time as GG&S, that imo served me well. And it did so by elaborating through examples &showing patterns & building the metaphor up. Yes it reduces down to some core ideas. But the wandering around, across how widely those core ideas (some lovely artistic references to geomorphology, in A1kYoNH's case) applied again and again, was what build the 'bumper sticker' idea into a pattern I could see & discern. Neither would have been a formative experience without.