{"id":251,"date":"2007-11-26T14:57:10","date_gmt":"2007-11-26T18:57:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hawkdog.net\/wordpress\/?p=251"},"modified":"2007-11-26T14:57:10","modified_gmt":"2007-11-26T18:57:10","slug":"germs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/hawkdog.net\/wordpress\/archives\/251","title":{"rendered":"Germs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Some semi-random thoughts\/impressions after finishing <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&#038;location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2F1491-Revelations-Americas-Before-Columbus%2Fdp%2F1400032059%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbooks%26qid%3D1194782433%26sr%3D8-1&#038;tag=hawkdog-20&#038;linkCode=ur2\">1491<\/a>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Jared Diamond&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&#038;location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FGuns-Germs-Steel-Fates-Societies%2Fdp%2F0393061310%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbooks%26qid%3D1196088536%26sr%3D8-1&#038;tag=hawkdog-20&#038;linkCode=ur2&#038;camp=1789&#038;creative=9325\">Guns, Germs and Steel<\/a><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" style=\"border: medium none  ! important; margin: 0px ! important\" src=\"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=hawkdog-20&#038;l=ur2&#038;o=1\" \/> might be better titled Germs, Germs, Germs and Some Other Ancillary Stuff &#8211; at least as far as the New World is concerned. If 1491 is accurate in it&#8217;s depiction of the depopulation of the Americas as a result of smallpox and friends, the technological advantage enjoyed by Europeans is almost beside the point. One also wonders how a full-strength local population would have held up against a tiny force (the conquistadors) with superior firepower, but incredibly long and tenuous supply lines. Logistics, logistics, logistics.<\/li>\n<li>Still with the Diamond comparo &#8211; 1491 gives a much different impression when it comes to food crops. If grains are the only thing compared, then the Old World wins big time &#8211; wheat, barley, rice, oats, rye vs. corn (maize) and quinoa. It would be interesting (I&#8217;m sure someone has already done it) to compare the caloric and protein output of <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Milpa\">milpas<\/a>, medieval  European farms, Andean potato plots, etc. and see if Diamond&#8217;s suggested European advantage exists.<\/li>\n<li>Passenger pigeons. I&#8217;m leaving this as a teaser &#8211; fascinating&#8230; (Or you can click <a href=\"http:\/\/stephenbodio.blogspot.com\/2005\/08\/prehistoric-passenger-pigeons-mystery.html\">here<\/a> &#8211; a post from before a personal 1492: my discovery of Querencia. In fact, <a href=\"http:\/\/stephenbodio.blogspot.com\/search?q=1491\">searching Q for &#8216;1491&#8217;<\/a> &#8211; not a bad idea.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>My two biggest takeaways from the book are, first, how deeply rooted and deeply wrong the popular image of the Indian &#8211; and pre-Columbian America &#8211; is and, second, how much permaculture went on in the Americas, especially in the Amazon basin. If you haven&#8217;t read it &#8211; highly recommended.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Some semi-random thoughts\/impressions after finishing 1491: Jared Diamond&#8217;s Guns, Germs and Steel might be better titled Germs, Germs, Germs and Some Other Ancillary Stuff &#8211; at least as far as the New World is concerned. If 1491 is accurate in &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/hawkdog.net\/wordpress\/archives\/251\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5,6,18,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-creatures","category-plants","category-random-stuff"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/sdqxx-germs","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/hawkdog.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/hawkdog.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/hawkdog.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hawkdog.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hawkdog.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/hawkdog.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/hawkdog.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hawkdog.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hawkdog.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}