andie nachgeborenen wrote:
I never understood your enthusiasm for that book. Blaut seems to say (1) these authors don't recognize that capitalism is utterly evil and without redeeming value, and (b) they are racists because they don't recognoze that other cultures that are not European invented capitalism independently of the Europeans. If (1) is true, why is (2) supposed to be to the credit of the nonEuropeans?
There's also the weird "prevailing westerlies" theory of the rise of European imperialism. The European domination of the planet can be explained entirely by the fact that wind patterns made it easier for the white folks to sail their colonizing ships towards foreign climes. I never understood how they got home if that were the case. It also implies, like your query about (2), that had non-Europeans had the same windy luck, they'd have done the same to the rest of the world.
Blaut also claimed that there was no boom in East Asia.
Doug
