Quote Originally Posted by Andronikos View Post
Here was an interesting discussion about American civilisations. I saw a documentary translated as Weapons, microbes, steel. It was about one professor who tried to explain why some cultures developed into higher level than others and discovered that the most advanced cultures have roots in the Middle East and China. There were two important factors:
agriculture - presence of plant rich in proteins, easy to store and easy to sow (wheat, rice and corn)
and presence of large herbivore and not shy (zebra could be good alternative to horse, but it lives in contact with predators and so is afraid of humans - impossible to domesticate) mammals which make the best domesticated animals - sheep, goats, cows, pigs, horses. They provide meat, power (were essential in plough invention) and wool/leather. There are 14 such animals (no horses and elephants, only cattle counted) and 13 of them originate in Asia or north Africa. The last is lamma from South America.
Cultures with such predispositions could overproduce food and some specialists who are not involved in food production like potters, blacksmiths and inventors could rise their level. So the final verdict was that it was only geography which determined the level of cultures which lived there.
Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel probably.

And now something funny. I have one book. It is quite good book about ancient Rome, but was printed in 70s and claims many ridiculous things like roman and greek philosophy was unmatched until marxism-leninism, the reason of fall of Roman empire was in social inequality and was a natural process in developing through feudalism to the best system - (guess what). Everything is said very ideologicaly. (some statements are logical and perhaps wise but the way of saying them totaly kills it)
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."