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Does the natural environment/geography determine the course of history? Does technology?
>>1032853
>Does the natural environment/geography determine the course of history?
of course. anyone who claims otherwise is an overzealous liberal. the tigris and euphrates caused mesopotamian society to flourish, the nile caused egypt to flourish, etc.
>>1033042
What about the Congo and Amazon?
>>1033042
what liberals reject that geography determines history? this seems to be more likely for /pol/-types to reject since it is counter to the claim of there being superior races that do better than inferior races
>>1033815
There are more leftists who have a problem with Jared Diamond's "Guns. Germs, and Steel" than there are /pol/tards.
>>1033807
There are only two major cities that take advantage of the Amazon, Manaus and Belem.
And they happen to be ports that mostly use the river to transport goods.
Compare that to Egypt or Iraq where 90% of the population is concentrated along the rivers.
>>1033807
Jungle, despite being lush with plant life, has really shit soil unfit for agriculture. Not only do you need to clear huge amounts of trees to even start but the soil is just devoid of minerals. Egypt and Mesopotamia on the other hand were grasslands and arid areas which had better soil, flooded regularly, and didn't have a lot going on on the ground to prevent growing big staple crops.
Geography, technology and great men all affect history and each other.
>>1033818
Lelno, both cunts are assinflamed with Jared Diamond's shit.
It really depends on exactly what kind of question you're trying to answer. For example, geographical determinism could explain why Eurasia advanced more than the Americas, Africa, and Australia, but it couldn't alone explain stuff like why Europe dominated India, why Indonesia converted to Islam, or why Japan modernized instead of China.
Geography (including climate, ecology, natural resources, etc) is most important in deciding where civilization develops. Geography decided that civilization would develop in the Nile and Mesopotamia and would then spread to areas along similar latitudes. Geography also decided that civilization would not arise or spread in Africa until extremely late. It's never the only factor at work but it's usually the biggest one.
On the other hand, the way in which civilizations develop has less to do with geography and more to do with culture. True, geography might encourage a unified Egypt and a dis-unified Greece, but it can't explain the development of Egyptian hieroglyphics or of Greek philosophy. Western civilization has dominated the globe for the last five centuries, and that was certainly encouraged by geography, but it was equally due to cultural factors like the crusading ideology of the Iberians, the competitiveness between European states, the development of capitalism, developments in naval and military technology, and so on. Geography played a part in all of those factors, but ultimately they were cultural developments and none of them were 'determined' by geography.
Geography always plays a role in determining a society's development and at no point has it ever stopped being relevant (you can hardly explain the success of modern Singapore without looking at its geographical position), but I think the more developed a society becomes the more cultural factors come into play like ideology, technology, politics, education, economic institutions, and so on.
Plus, pure chance is always a factor as well.
>>1032853
>The French revolution happened because France is a country in Europe and has coast on both sides and also mountains
Like this?
People who dismiss material reality are easily undone by it.
