My history teacher says “geography is destiny” and made us watch guns germs and steel. I think bad empanada said this narrative promotes a lack of remorse for colonization because it’s characterized as inevitable. He didn’t explain why it was wrong though iirc. My teacher (who likes orwell) says it’s just material conditions. It could be argued that geography is created the original conditions that led to class society before class forced largely took over, though this could be taken to the extent of class being secondary. Anyone know about this?
Regarding “Guns Germs and Steel” specifically, that book (and its supporters) are so hated among historians that it’s on multiple FAQs on reddit’s r/askhistorians. Here’s what I think is the best comment on that. This one is also very complete.
Basically the entire thesis of the book hinges on a revisionist and white pop history version of colonialism, in which Europeans landed and left some disease, then later came back and won decisive military victories against the now scattered and weak indigenous peoples, who could barely fight back. In fact the “death by disease” largely happened after forced resettlements, slavery and concentration camps, and the genocides throughout both north and south America were not quick affairs, but were concerted efforts up to at least the mid-19th century, if not today.
This is a common theme with vulgar materialists, once they’ve decided on what factors will have inevitably generated the results that happened, all nuance of the facts is thrown out of the window if it disagrees with their historical formulae. They have to disregard all technological and cultural advancements of the people who lost, as well as their adaptability to new circumstances or the near-losses of the victors in order to portray history as inevitable.
This article is also a pretty good introduction to that whole history in the USA.