Because, you know, realism or something
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HBO plans "Confederate", where the US South successfully seceded
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purple_kathryn
- Posts: 494
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Late to the party
[quote=""lpetrich""]
But they were conquered just the same, and their national governments are successors of the colonial administrations, not the original ones. Mexico isn't ruled by some successor of the Aztec Empire, and Peru isn't ruled by some successor of the Inca Empire.
[snip]
So they are autonomous communities inside territory claimed by their conquerors.
[/quote]
My experiences visiting Mexico and Peru tell me that the Aztec and Inca civilizations are still culturally powerful forces in the respective countries. Its not hard for me to imagine a modern day scenario where skillful demagogues capitalize on their roots to create New Aztec or New Inca empires come to power.
As for Peru in particular, it surprised me how much of the infrastructure, terracing slopes to create fields, irrigation canals, etc. was Incan and still functioning for its original purpose. Also the societal structures to regulate these resources were still in place. In one "unconquered village we visited high in the mountains, where the natives did not speak Spanish, we encountered a mens meeting where the annual tasks of regulating the irrigation of fields, designation of common areas, etc., were being hammered out for the following year.
Only missionaries made it that far into the hills, and the local priest maintained an uneasy truce with local Inca belief. I took the picture below of the school house roof (there wasnt a church) showing the cross flanked by two Inca bulls.
When first contact occurred, the Inca empire was, I believe, the second largest in the world. Pizarro happened to encounter it when it was excessively weakened by a succession dispute and consequent burgeoning civil war. Its not at all hard for me to imagine that, had Pizarro arrived ten years earlier or ten years later, when the political situation was stable, his small force would have been wiped out and the Incans would have gained horses and firearms. The future might have been very different!
In an similar vein, had Crazy Horse pursed the remnant of Custers force and seized the supply train, and turned his attentions elsewhere with the size force he had, the future of the northern plains could have been very different. Not too hard for me to imagine. Remember, its fiction.
But they were conquered just the same, and their national governments are successors of the colonial administrations, not the original ones. Mexico isn't ruled by some successor of the Aztec Empire, and Peru isn't ruled by some successor of the Inca Empire.
[snip]
So they are autonomous communities inside territory claimed by their conquerors.
[/quote]
My experiences visiting Mexico and Peru tell me that the Aztec and Inca civilizations are still culturally powerful forces in the respective countries. Its not hard for me to imagine a modern day scenario where skillful demagogues capitalize on their roots to create New Aztec or New Inca empires come to power.
As for Peru in particular, it surprised me how much of the infrastructure, terracing slopes to create fields, irrigation canals, etc. was Incan and still functioning for its original purpose. Also the societal structures to regulate these resources were still in place. In one "unconquered village we visited high in the mountains, where the natives did not speak Spanish, we encountered a mens meeting where the annual tasks of regulating the irrigation of fields, designation of common areas, etc., were being hammered out for the following year.
Only missionaries made it that far into the hills, and the local priest maintained an uneasy truce with local Inca belief. I took the picture below of the school house roof (there wasnt a church) showing the cross flanked by two Inca bulls.
When first contact occurred, the Inca empire was, I believe, the second largest in the world. Pizarro happened to encounter it when it was excessively weakened by a succession dispute and consequent burgeoning civil war. Its not at all hard for me to imagine that, had Pizarro arrived ten years earlier or ten years later, when the political situation was stable, his small force would have been wiped out and the Incans would have gained horses and firearms. The future might have been very different!
In an similar vein, had Crazy Horse pursed the remnant of Custers force and seized the supply train, and turned his attentions elsewhere with the size force he had, the future of the northern plains could have been very different. Not too hard for me to imagine. Remember, its fiction.
[quote=""Tharmas""]
My experiences visiting Mexico and Peru tell me that the Aztec and Inca civilizations are still culturally powerful forces in the respective countries. It’s not hard for me to imagine a modern day scenario where skillful demagogues capitalize on their roots to create New Aztec or New Inca empires come to power.
As for Peru in particular, it surprised me how much of the infrastructure, terracing slopes to create fields, irrigation canals, etc. was Incan and still functioning for its original purpose. Also the societal structures to regulate these resources were still in place. In one "unconquered” village we visited high in the mountains, where the natives did not speak Spanish, we encountered a men’s meeting where the annual tasks of regulating the irrigation of fields, designation of common areas, etc., were being hammered out for the following year.
Only missionaries made it that far into the hills, and the local priest maintained an uneasy truce with local Inca belief. I took the picture below of the school house roof (there wasn’t a church) showing the cross flanked by two Inca bulls.
[/QUOTE]
It is much the same in the rest of the Spanish empire; creating and managing a novel state from across the Atlantic would have been impossible; they mostly borrowed the existing administrations in urban areas, and failed to conquer rural ones at all. For instance, maps will often show Nevada and Eastern California as Spanish properties, despite the fact that they never so much as established a settlement north of the Gran Canon, let alone conquered it, nor did Comanche or Ute territory ever fall into their hands. (Indeed, until shortly before the loss of their colony, they wrongly believed that it was a much shorter distance between California and Santa Fe than it actually was). The Spanish and Portuguese drew some pretty grandiose maps of what they considered to be their territory, but their impact in most of the places they supposedly governed was more indirect than direct, until after those places fell into revolutionary hands. Likewise, the Plains and the Great Basin weren't conquered until the British and French had withdrawn, replaced by a nascent constitutional republic of confederated but autonomous states, modeled after the successful confederacy structures of the Northeast.
Europeans like to talk about the "Conquest" of the New World, but it was a synthesis of multiple cultures, occurring gradually over a several centuries; by the time the current national hegemonies of the US, Canada, and Mexico were established, they were blended cultures built from both "New" and "Old" World principles.
lpetrich;675102 wrote: But they were conquered just the same, and their national governments are successors of the colonial administrations, not the original ones. Mexico isn't ruled by some successor of the Aztec Empire, and Peru isn't ruled by some successor of the Inca Empire.
[snip]
So they are autonomous communities inside territory claimed by their conquerors.
My experiences visiting Mexico and Peru tell me that the Aztec and Inca civilizations are still culturally powerful forces in the respective countries. It’s not hard for me to imagine a modern day scenario where skillful demagogues capitalize on their roots to create New Aztec or New Inca empires come to power.
As for Peru in particular, it surprised me how much of the infrastructure, terracing slopes to create fields, irrigation canals, etc. was Incan and still functioning for its original purpose. Also the societal structures to regulate these resources were still in place. In one "unconquered” village we visited high in the mountains, where the natives did not speak Spanish, we encountered a men’s meeting where the annual tasks of regulating the irrigation of fields, designation of common areas, etc., were being hammered out for the following year.
Only missionaries made it that far into the hills, and the local priest maintained an uneasy truce with local Inca belief. I took the picture below of the school house roof (there wasn’t a church) showing the cross flanked by two Inca bulls.
[/QUOTE]It is much the same in the rest of the Spanish empire; creating and managing a novel state from across the Atlantic would have been impossible; they mostly borrowed the existing administrations in urban areas, and failed to conquer rural ones at all. For instance, maps will often show Nevada and Eastern California as Spanish properties, despite the fact that they never so much as established a settlement north of the Gran Canon, let alone conquered it, nor did Comanche or Ute territory ever fall into their hands. (Indeed, until shortly before the loss of their colony, they wrongly believed that it was a much shorter distance between California and Santa Fe than it actually was). The Spanish and Portuguese drew some pretty grandiose maps of what they considered to be their territory, but their impact in most of the places they supposedly governed was more indirect than direct, until after those places fell into revolutionary hands. Likewise, the Plains and the Great Basin weren't conquered until the British and French had withdrawn, replaced by a nascent constitutional republic of confederated but autonomous states, modeled after the successful confederacy structures of the Northeast.
Europeans like to talk about the "Conquest" of the New World, but it was a synthesis of multiple cultures, occurring gradually over a several centuries; by the time the current national hegemonies of the US, Canada, and Mexico were established, they were blended cultures built from both "New" and "Old" World principles.
"The truth about stories is that's all we are" ~Thomas King
Don't Give HBO's 'Confederate' the Benefit of the Doubt - The Atlantic by Ta-Nehisi Coates
He then asked which part of the South would have won. Not pro-Union Southerners, not the black population, but what everybody seems to have in mind: the Southern elite and its supporters.
TNC then continued with noting Hollywood's long history of featuring the "Lost Cause" mythology of the Confederacy in its productions. This goes all the way back to The Birth of a Nation in 1915. The Ku Klux Klan appeared in it as protecting virtuous white women from lecherous black men.HBOs Confederate takes as its premise an ugly truth that black Americans are forced to live every day: What if the Confederacy wasnt wholly defeated?
He then asked which part of the South would have won. Not pro-Union Southerners, not the black population, but what everybody seems to have in mind: the Southern elite and its supporters.
He then compared the Confederacy's return in post-Civil-War US with how Germany has been doing penance for Nazism. Unlike in postwar Germany, no Confederate leader was ever put on trial for treason.The distinction matters. For while the Confederacy, as a political entity, was certainly defeated, and chattel slavery outlawed, the racist hierarchy which Lee and Davis sought to erect, lives on. It had to. The terms of the white Souths defeat were gentle. Having inaugurated a war which killed more Americans than all other American wars combined, the Confederacys leaders were back in the countrys political leadership within a decade. Within two, they had effectively retaken control of the South.
He continues much like Berneta Haynes, asking why not these possibilities?
What if John Brown had succeeded? What if the Haitian Revolution had spread to the rest of the Americas? What if black soldiers had been enlisted at the onset of the Civil War? What if Native Americans had halted the advance of whites at the Mississippi?
John Brown? Presumably of
John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry. He wanted to provoke a slave revolt, but he failed.
Black soldiers in the beginning of the Civil War? That would likely have required endorsing abolition of slavery from the beginning of the war, and President Lincoln didn't want to make enemies of Union states with slaves, like Maryland. I don't know if he was willing to take that risk at the beginning of the war.
The Haitian Revolution spreading? Presumably becoming a major slave revolt in the Southern states. It would have been hard for it to get very far without outside help, I think. Like Spain wanting to hurt an Anglo nation.
As to halting the advance of European conquerors and settlers at the Mississippi, that would have been hard without doing a lot of catching up in advance. I suspect that it would have been helped by domesticating buffalo some millennia earlier, as I've described here.
What if John Brown had succeeded? What if the Haitian Revolution had spread to the rest of the Americas? What if black soldiers had been enlisted at the onset of the Civil War? What if Native Americans had halted the advance of whites at the Mississippi?
John Brown? Presumably of
John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry. He wanted to provoke a slave revolt, but he failed.Black soldiers in the beginning of the Civil War? That would likely have required endorsing abolition of slavery from the beginning of the war, and President Lincoln didn't want to make enemies of Union states with slaves, like Maryland. I don't know if he was willing to take that risk at the beginning of the war.
The Haitian Revolution spreading? Presumably becoming a major slave revolt in the Southern states. It would have been hard for it to get very far without outside help, I think. Like Spain wanting to hurt an Anglo nation.
As to halting the advance of European conquerors and settlers at the Mississippi, that would have been hard without doing a lot of catching up in advance. I suspect that it would have been helped by domesticating buffalo some millennia earlier, as I've described here.
[quote=""lpetrich""]The Haitian Revolution spreading? Presumably becoming a major slave revolt in the Southern states. It would have been hard for it to get very far without outside help, I think. Like Spain wanting to hurt an Anglo nation.[/quote]The slaves did not enjoy outside help in Haiti.
"The truth about stories is that's all we are" ~Thomas King
Black America: Amazon Alt-History Drama From Will Packer & Aaron McGruder | Deadline
While the US with its doing the opposite ends up going downhill.
Seems rather optimistic, but there is a path to that route. New Colonia could go the way of some other small nations that have had little taste for military adventures or international empire building. Nations like Sweden, Switzerland, Canada, New Zealand, Costa Rica, and Uruguay.Another alternate history drama series, which has been in the works at Amazon for over a year, also paints a reality where southern states have left the Union but takes a very different approach. Titled Black America, the drama hails from top feature producer Will Packer (Ride Along, Think Like A Man franchises, Straight Outta Compton) and Peabody-winning The Boondocks creator and Black Jesus co-creator Aaron McGruder. It envisions an alternate history where newly freed African Americans have secured the Southern states of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama post-Reconstruction as reparations for slavery, and with that land, the freedom to shape their own destiny. The sovereign nation they formed, New Colonia, has had a tumultuous and sometimes violent relationship with its looming Big Neighbor, both ally and foe, the United States. The past 150 years have been witness to military incursions, assassinations, regime change, coups, etc. Today, after two decades of peace with the U.S. and unprecedented growth, an ascendant New Colonia joins the ranks of major industrialized nations on the world stage as America slides into rapid decline. Inexorably tied together, the fate of two nations, indivisible, hangs in the balance.
While the US with its doing the opposite ends up going downhill.
To see what else might be domesticated, we can consider
List of domesticated animals
List of domesticated plants
List of domesticated fungi and microorganisms
Mallard ducks were domesticated around 4000 BCE in China, and mallard ducks are widespread in Eurasia and North America, so in this domestic-buffalo scenario, they may have gotten domesticated in North America also.
Greylag geese were domesticated around 3000 BCE in Egypt, and while greylag geese are Eurasian, there is a North American possibility: the Canada goose.
As to sheep, the bighorn sheep might be a suitable one to domesticate, but bighorn sheep live in the Rocky Mountains, and it may take a while for the buffalo herders to spread out to those mountains.
Sheep would first have been meat and milk animals; in our timeline, it took some millennia before they were successfully bred to be wool animals. So the Mississippi-Valley North Americans, in this timeline, would likely have imported wool sheep from Europeans before they bred wool sheep from bighorns.
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Turning to metals, that may be rather difficult for these Mississippi Valley farmers and herders, since metal ores are most easily accessible in hilly and mountainous areas. Appalachian ores may be the easiest to get to, and one could start off with copper and tin, as Neolithic Middle Easterners and southeast Europeans did. Rocky Mountain ores may also be good, but they will be less accessible.
List of domesticated animalsList of domesticated plantsList of domesticated fungi and microorganismsMallard ducks were domesticated around 4000 BCE in China, and mallard ducks are widespread in Eurasia and North America, so in this domestic-buffalo scenario, they may have gotten domesticated in North America also.
Greylag geese were domesticated around 3000 BCE in Egypt, and while greylag geese are Eurasian, there is a North American possibility: the Canada goose.
As to sheep, the bighorn sheep might be a suitable one to domesticate, but bighorn sheep live in the Rocky Mountains, and it may take a while for the buffalo herders to spread out to those mountains.
Sheep would first have been meat and milk animals; in our timeline, it took some millennia before they were successfully bred to be wool animals. So the Mississippi-Valley North Americans, in this timeline, would likely have imported wool sheep from Europeans before they bred wool sheep from bighorns.
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Turning to metals, that may be rather difficult for these Mississippi Valley farmers and herders, since metal ores are most easily accessible in hilly and mountainous areas. Appalachian ores may be the easiest to get to, and one could start off with copper and tin, as Neolithic Middle Easterners and southeast Europeans did. Rocky Mountain ores may also be good, but they will be less accessible.
[quote=""Politesse""]
True, but Haiti is much smaller than the southeastern US, and if a revolt gets started in the SE US, then nearby states would soon send in their militias.
The slaves did not enjoy outside help in Haiti.[/QUOTE]lpetrich;675357 wrote:The Haitian Revolution spreading? Presumably becoming a major slave revolt in the Southern states. It would have been hard for it to get very far without outside help, I think. Like Spain wanting to hurt an Anglo nation.
True, but Haiti is much smaller than the southeastern US, and if a revolt gets started in the SE US, then nearby states would soon send in their militias.
[quote=""lpetrich""]Turning to metals, that may be rather difficult for these Mississippi Valley farmers and herders, since metal ores are most easily accessible in hilly and mountainous areas. Appalachian ores may be the easiest to get to, and one could start off with copper and tin, as Neolithic Middle Easterners and southeast Europeans did. Rocky Mountain ores may also be good, but they will be less accessible.[/quote]
Copper was, in fact, routinely mined and used from 4000 BCE onward, though not generally for weaponry, which I assume is the only use you care about here.
Copper was, in fact, routinely mined and used from 4000 BCE onward, though not generally for weaponry, which I assume is the only use you care about here.
"The truth about stories is that's all we are" ~Thomas King
[quote=""Politesse""]
Mainly native copper, as far as I can tell, but I was thinking of copper for tools, and not just weapons. Like woodworking tools, what one would need to make wheeled vehicles.
Copper was, in fact, routinely mined and used from 4000 BCE onward, though not generally for weaponry, which I assume is the only use you care about here.[/QUOTE]lpetrich;675362 wrote:Turning to metals, that may be rather difficult for these Mississippi Valley farmers and herders, since metal ores are most easily accessible in hilly and mountainous areas. Appalachian ores may be the easiest to get to, and one could start off with copper and tin, as Neolithic Middle Easterners and southeast Europeans did. Rocky Mountain ores may also be good, but they will be less accessible.
Mainly native copper, as far as I can tell, but I was thinking of copper for tools, and not just weapons. Like woodworking tools, what one would need to make wheeled vehicles.
Successful domestication of American buffalo / bison would have an additional consequence: diseases.
Domestic bovines often carry a poxvirus that causes cowpox in us, and Indian water buffalo carry another poxvirus, one that causes buffalo pox. So it may be that American bison carry a poxvirus that can also cause disease -- bison pox. So the bison herders catch bison pox and spread it to the people that they meet. But despite getting very sick at first, they eventually reach a sort of detente with the disease, like Eurasians and smallpox.
When European settlers run into the buffalo herders, they also catch bison pox, and since they have had no previous experience with it, it is almost as bad as smallpox for them -- and it is mistaken for smallpox at first. So the buffalo herders give Europeans a big plague.
Another one is measles. Domestic bovines can carry a disease called rinderpest (German: "cattle plague"), and about 1000 years ago in Europe or nearby, the rinderpest virus successfully jumped hosts to the bovines' masters, becoming measles. So among these buffalo herders, could some of them have gotten "bison measles"?
Influenza A is carried by water birds like ducks and geese, and if the Mississippi Valley people start farming them, then they may also get strains of the flu from them.
So in this scenario, North America might get a reputation for being very diseased.
Domestic bovines often carry a poxvirus that causes cowpox in us, and Indian water buffalo carry another poxvirus, one that causes buffalo pox. So it may be that American bison carry a poxvirus that can also cause disease -- bison pox. So the bison herders catch bison pox and spread it to the people that they meet. But despite getting very sick at first, they eventually reach a sort of detente with the disease, like Eurasians and smallpox.
When European settlers run into the buffalo herders, they also catch bison pox, and since they have had no previous experience with it, it is almost as bad as smallpox for them -- and it is mistaken for smallpox at first. So the buffalo herders give Europeans a big plague.
Another one is measles. Domestic bovines can carry a disease called rinderpest (German: "cattle plague"), and about 1000 years ago in Europe or nearby, the rinderpest virus successfully jumped hosts to the bovines' masters, becoming measles. So among these buffalo herders, could some of them have gotten "bison measles"?
Influenza A is carried by water birds like ducks and geese, and if the Mississippi Valley people start farming them, then they may also get strains of the flu from them.
So in this scenario, North America might get a reputation for being very diseased.
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dancer_rnb
- Posts: 5241
- Joined: Sun Mar 08, 2009 3:38 pm
[quote=""lpetrich""]Don't Give HBO's 'Confederate' the Benefit of the Doubt - The Atlantic by Ta-Nehisi Coates
He then asked which part of the South would have won. Not pro-Union Southerners, not the black population, but what everybody seems to have in mind: the Southern elite and its supporters.
A better comparison is with post WWI Germany and the rise of Nazism.
I've heard it said the problem with post WWI Germany was that the Germans did not think the Kaiser's army was beaten in the field. Considering how the South reverted in a few decades at most I wonder now if it would have made a difference. If the difference after WWII was deNazification.
TNC then continued with noting Hollywood's long history of featuring the "Lost Cause" mythology of the Confederacy in its productions. This goes all the way back to The Birth of a Nation in 1915. The Ku Klux Klan appeared in it as protecting virtuous white women from lecherous black men.HBO’s Confederate takes as its premise an ugly truth that black Americans are forced to live every day: What if the Confederacy wasn’t wholly defeated?
He then asked which part of the South would have won. Not pro-Union Southerners, not the black population, but what everybody seems to have in mind: the Southern elite and its supporters.
He then compared the Confederacy's return in post-Civil-War US with how Germany has been doing penance for Nazism. Unlike in postwar Germany, no Confederate leader was ever put on trial for treason.[/quote]The distinction matters. For while the Confederacy, as a political entity, was certainly defeated, and chattel slavery outlawed, the racist hierarchy which Lee and Davis sought to erect, lives on. It had to. The terms of the white South’s defeat were gentle. Having inaugurated a war which killed more Americans than all other American wars combined, the Confederacy’s leaders were back in the country’s political leadership within a decade. Within two, they had effectively retaken control of the South.
A better comparison is with post WWI Germany and the rise of Nazism.
I've heard it said the problem with post WWI Germany was that the Germans did not think the Kaiser's army was beaten in the field. Considering how the South reverted in a few decades at most I wonder now if it would have made a difference. If the difference after WWII was deNazification.
There is no such thing as "politically correct." It's code for liberalism. The whole idea of "political correctness" was a brief academic flash-in-the-pan in the early 1990's, but has been a good conservative bugaboo ever since.
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dancer_rnb
- Posts: 5241
- Joined: Sun Mar 08, 2009 3:38 pm
[quote=""lpetrich""]
There is a fair amount of iron in Minnesota. In the Iron Range. PreCambrian sedimentary rock, not mountains.
Mainly native copper, as far as I can tell, but I was thinking of copper for tools, and not just weapons. Like woodworking tools, what one would need to make wheeled vehicles.[/QUOTE]Politesse;675364 wrote:Copper was, in fact, routinely mined and used from 4000 BCE onward, though not generally for weaponry, which I assume is the only use you care about here.lpetrich;675362 wrote:Turning to metals, that may be rather difficult for these Mississippi Valley farmers and herders, since metal ores are most easily accessible in hilly and mountainous areas. Appalachian ores may be the easiest to get to, and one could start off with copper and tin, as Neolithic Middle Easterners and southeast Europeans did. Rocky Mountain ores may also be good, but they will be less accessible.
There is a fair amount of iron in Minnesota. In the Iron Range. PreCambrian sedimentary rock, not mountains.
There is no such thing as "politically correct." It's code for liberalism. The whole idea of "political correctness" was a brief academic flash-in-the-pan in the early 1990's, but has been a good conservative bugaboo ever since.
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dancer_rnb
- Posts: 5241
- Joined: Sun Mar 08, 2009 3:38 pm
[quote=""lpetrich""]
You can tell Poli doesn't have a manufacturing engineering background.
Mainly native copper, as far as I can tell, but I was thinking of copper for tools, and not just weapons. Like woodworking tools, what one would need to make wheeled vehicles.[/QUOTE]Politesse;675364 wrote:Copper was, in fact, routinely mined and used from 4000 BCE onward, though not generally for weaponry, which I assume is the only use you care about here.lpetrich;675362 wrote:Turning to metals, that may be rather difficult for these Mississippi Valley farmers and herders, since metal ores are most easily accessible in hilly and mountainous areas. Appalachian ores may be the easiest to get to, and one could start off with copper and tin, as Neolithic Middle Easterners and southeast Europeans did. Rocky Mountain ores may also be good, but they will be less accessible.
You can tell Poli doesn't have a manufacturing engineering background.
There is no such thing as "politically correct." It's code for liberalism. The whole idea of "political correctness" was a brief academic flash-in-the-pan in the early 1990's, but has been a good conservative bugaboo ever since.
[quote=""dancer_rnb""]Mainly native copper, as far as I can tell, but I was thinking of copper for tools, and not just weapons. Like woodworking tools, what one would need to make wheeled vehicles.[/quote]
I don't see how technology was any obstacle to making wheeled vehicles; It wasn't that they couldn't carve things into circles from an early age, they just had no practical use for a chariot, without any equivalent to a horse. Until they arrived, of course, but wheeled vehicles arrived not long after they started using horses as transport, and for most it was easier to just buy them from the Europeans, though you did start seeing native cartwrights and so forth popping up in the Southeast shortly before Removal.
I don't see how technology was any obstacle to making wheeled vehicles; It wasn't that they couldn't carve things into circles from an early age, they just had no practical use for a chariot, without any equivalent to a horse. Until they arrived, of course, but wheeled vehicles arrived not long after they started using horses as transport, and for most it was easier to just buy them from the Europeans, though you did start seeing native cartwrights and so forth popping up in the Southeast shortly before Removal.
How does my background affect anything I wrote? I guess you're trying to insinuate that I don't know the difference between a furnace and a hammer when it comes to modifying metals? I'm aware that no one was smelting copper in the pre-European era of NA, but saying that copper was not used is nevertheless untrue.You can tell Poli doesn't have a manufacturing engineering background.
"The truth about stories is that's all we are" ~Thomas King
[quote=""dancer_rnb""]I've heard it said the problem with post WWI Germany was that the Germans did not think the Kaiser's army was beaten in the field.[/quote]
That was the Dolchstoss (Stab in the back) theory, the idea that the German military was nowhere near collapse due to a lack of supplies, that its generals capitulated for no good reason. I don't know if the same situation applied to the end of the American civil war.
At any rate, while it was one factor contributing to the rise of the NSDAP, it was only one of the causes for the rise of Nazism. Two others were crucial.
Firstly, the punitive Versailles Treaty and the French occupation of the Ruhr valley. When Ferdinand Foch saw the terms of the treaty, he said "War in 20 years." He was right for the completely opposite reason. He thought Germany as a nation should have been wiped off the face of the earth. Short of exterminating its people that would have been impossible. What the Versailles Treaty finished up doing instead was to generate an extraordinary amount of bitterness, resentment and "us versus them" attitude, none of which was conducive to engendering a desire for peaceful coexistence. That is one factor why Germany benefited from the Marshall Plan after WWII instead of being lumbered with Versailles Mark II.
Secondly, the Great Depression affected Germany more than any other industrialised country. In addition to the high unemployment rates that other nations had to endure, it also suffered from the added problem of hyper-inflation. People loaded wheelbarrows up with bundles of 100,000,000 Mark notes to buy half a dozen eggs - if eggs could be found for sale. The paper used to print money on became more useful as fuel in fire places for some people.
In 1930 the German economy began to improve. Hitler remarked on the impact this would have on the voters thus: "If the economy keeps improving like this we are done for." Luckily for him the recovery was short-lived. The US pulled up a tariff curtain and German unemployment reached its record high in 1932.
Anti-Semitism was a fourth factor, but between the 1880s and the late 1920s that sentiment was no greater than in France, probably less than in Russia and perhaps not much more than in Great Britain. It was the combination of all four that created the cocktail which then acted as the catalyst for the greatest human-made catastrophe of the 20th century and arguably of the entire history of humankind.
That was the Dolchstoss (Stab in the back) theory, the idea that the German military was nowhere near collapse due to a lack of supplies, that its generals capitulated for no good reason. I don't know if the same situation applied to the end of the American civil war.
At any rate, while it was one factor contributing to the rise of the NSDAP, it was only one of the causes for the rise of Nazism. Two others were crucial.
Firstly, the punitive Versailles Treaty and the French occupation of the Ruhr valley. When Ferdinand Foch saw the terms of the treaty, he said "War in 20 years." He was right for the completely opposite reason. He thought Germany as a nation should have been wiped off the face of the earth. Short of exterminating its people that would have been impossible. What the Versailles Treaty finished up doing instead was to generate an extraordinary amount of bitterness, resentment and "us versus them" attitude, none of which was conducive to engendering a desire for peaceful coexistence. That is one factor why Germany benefited from the Marshall Plan after WWII instead of being lumbered with Versailles Mark II.
Secondly, the Great Depression affected Germany more than any other industrialised country. In addition to the high unemployment rates that other nations had to endure, it also suffered from the added problem of hyper-inflation. People loaded wheelbarrows up with bundles of 100,000,000 Mark notes to buy half a dozen eggs - if eggs could be found for sale. The paper used to print money on became more useful as fuel in fire places for some people.
In 1930 the German economy began to improve. Hitler remarked on the impact this would have on the voters thus: "If the economy keeps improving like this we are done for." Luckily for him the recovery was short-lived. The US pulled up a tariff curtain and German unemployment reached its record high in 1932.
Anti-Semitism was a fourth factor, but between the 1880s and the late 1920s that sentiment was no greater than in France, probably less than in Russia and perhaps not much more than in Great Britain. It was the combination of all four that created the cocktail which then acted as the catalyst for the greatest human-made catastrophe of the 20th century and arguably of the entire history of humankind.
[quote=""Politesse""]
I don't see how technology was any obstacle to making wheeled vehicles; It wasn't that they couldn't carve things into circles from an early age, they just had no practical use for a chariot, without any equivalent to a horse. ...[/quote]
Wheeled vehicles are more complicated than that. A wheel has to fit onto an axle, and the axle and the wheel's hub have to be circular and nearly the same radius. Also, the wheel's rim ought to be centered on the axle hole's center. Making all that is rather difficult without metal tools, and that difficulty is a proposed reason why wheels took so long to invent.
Also, wheeled vehicles are good for transport in general. Think carts and wagons.
I don't see how technology was any obstacle to making wheeled vehicles; It wasn't that they couldn't carve things into circles from an early age, they just had no practical use for a chariot, without any equivalent to a horse. ...[/quote]
Wheeled vehicles are more complicated than that. A wheel has to fit onto an axle, and the axle and the wheel's hub have to be circular and nearly the same radius. Also, the wheel's rim ought to be centered on the axle hole's center. Making all that is rather difficult without metal tools, and that difficulty is a proposed reason why wheels took so long to invent.
Also, wheeled vehicles are good for transport in general. Think carts and wagons.
I concede that there is a problem with this scenario of domestication of American buffalo / bison. Which animals got domesticated first in our timeline (List of domesticated animals).
The first animal to be domesticated was the dog, descended from a now-extinct population of gray wolves in Eurasia, and domesticated before agriculture. The first domestic dogs were likely semi-wild, living off of our scraps and leftovers. "Village dogs" and dingoes likely live much like these early dogs. Domestic dogs spread to North and Central America, where some people developed some distinctive breeds like theChihuahua (dog) and the Salish Wool Dog. The latter was a breed of dogs developed in the Pacific Northwest to have woolly hair, like how sheep were bred for such hair in Eurasia.
The next one was the goat, in the Middle East about 12,000 years ago, roughly when Middle Easterners started agriculture. From Bezoar Goat | World Land Trust, wild goats' body weights are (male) up to 90 kg, (female) up to 55 kg.
However, theAurochs was much bigger at 700 kg, and the American bison at (male) 460 - 988 kg, (female) 360 - 544 kg -- very close. The aurochs was domesticated some 10,000 years ago in the Middle East, after Middle Easterners had domesticated not only goats, but also pigs and sheep. So starting with buffalo would have been like starting with aurochsen -- more difficult because of their size.
List of domesticated animals).The first animal to be domesticated was the dog, descended from a now-extinct population of gray wolves in Eurasia, and domesticated before agriculture. The first domestic dogs were likely semi-wild, living off of our scraps and leftovers. "Village dogs" and dingoes likely live much like these early dogs. Domestic dogs spread to North and Central America, where some people developed some distinctive breeds like the
Chihuahua (dog) and the Salish Wool Dog. The latter was a breed of dogs developed in the Pacific Northwest to have woolly hair, like how sheep were bred for such hair in Eurasia.The next one was the goat, in the Middle East about 12,000 years ago, roughly when Middle Easterners started agriculture. From Bezoar Goat | World Land Trust, wild goats' body weights are (male) up to 90 kg, (female) up to 55 kg.
However, the
Aurochs was much bigger at 700 kg, and the American bison at (male) 460 - 988 kg, (female) 360 - 544 kg -- very close. The aurochs was domesticated some 10,000 years ago in the Middle East, after Middle Easterners had domesticated not only goats, but also pigs and sheep. So starting with buffalo would have been like starting with aurochsen -- more difficult because of their size.