Not so much knowledge in history

[Cbvani]

Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel probably.
I've got this Finnish ethnographic overview of Finno-Ugrian peoples that was published in 1941, just after the Winter War against the USSR. It's full these funny little statements like: "(The Hanti) were an honest people close to nature until the Slavic encroachment. So detrimental has the contact with our easterly neighbour been that these children of nature have become lazy, ill-tempered and prone to alchoholism."

As my friend would put it, that's good old fashioned folksy hatred right there (we say this in the ironic sense, of course).

Also, seconded on the Guns, Germs, and Steel probability. I would have brought it up earlier but I only really needed to talk about germs.