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Pictures are certainly worth a certain number of words, but sometimes all you really need is the hook of an idea to really grasp a much larger concept. In this
by jballanc 13y ago
Pictures are certainly worth a certain number of words, but sometimes all you really need is the hook of an idea to really grasp a much larger concept. In this case, I've always been caught by something Jared Diamond wrote in "Germs, Guns, and Steel". (What do you mean you haven't read it? Drop everything and go read it now!)
I'm paraphrasing, but the gist was this: You know that war that the US has been fighting in Iraq? You know all the images of desert warfare from over there?
That's the "Fertile Crescent".
If it doesn't seem so fertile any longer, that's almost entirely due to human activity.
- WalterBright 13y agoFrom what I've read about the ancient history of Egypt, the area has gone through major cycles of fertility and desertification.
- brazzy 13y ago> If it doesn't seem so fertile any longer, that's almost entirely due to human activity. Bullshit. The area was never fertile in the way it's understood by people used to temperate climates. There were never (during the course of human history) lush green forests covering everything. The fertile areas were (and continue to be) only along rivers (Euphrat, Tigris, Jordan, Nile) and greatly extended through irrigation (i.e. human activity).