I was suggested this book from someone on another website and the views are one way or the other…either people think this man is a genious or they think he’s a communist scum bag.
Is it worth a read? I’m limited on funds but his approach interests me.
~Michael
Read Paul Johnson’s A History of the American People instead.
It was written by a Noam Chomsky of history, Howard Zinn. I hope that answers your question.
I haven’t read the Zinn book but based on the Amazon reviews it does not sound worth reading.
Read Paul Johnson’s A History of the American People instead.
Agreed; excellent book.
I was suggested this book from someone on another website and the views are one way or the other…either people think this man is a genious or they think he’s a communist scum bag.
Is it worth a read? I’m limited on funds but his approach interests me.
~Michael
Howard Zinn is about as worthless as you get as far as professional history. I don’t know what you can gain by buying and reading the book, other than to locate the orignator of some of the very horrid ideas underlying the demonization of Columbus, America, the founding fathers, etc.
Why is there so much hatred of Columbus anway?
Columbus himself did not do anything horrible, but the Spanish conquest of Central and South America was pretty brutal–mass slaughter, slavery, etc, etc. Whatever one may think of the existing native cultures (and in some ways they were more advanced than Europe at the time) the Spanish conquest was not an improvement. Columbus gets blamed somewhat for that because he led the way.
ARI’s view: http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pag…tivism_columbus
In the bloody math of pre-Enlightenment, the conquistadors certainly were an improvement over the man-sacrificing and utterly malevolent Aztecs, Incas, Toltecs, Mayas, and the rest.
Even 50 years ago people realized that Columbus led the way to the conquistador invasions, this is not a discovery of today’s post-modernists and cultural relativists; the question should be asked why he was still respected ‘back in the day’.
In the bloody math of pre-Enlightenment, the conquistadors certainly were an improvement over the man-sacrificing and utterly malevolent Aztecs, Incas, Toltecs, Mayas, and the rest.
I don’t understand how you can call it a certain improvement. As an aspiring historian, one thing that drives me crazy bout a lot of objectivist historians is the same trouble subjectivist and intrinscist historians have: lack of causality.
Both cultures were bad, because both suffered from the same self-sacrificing plague of mysticism. The conquitodors enslaved the aztecs and felt a duty to massacre them because of their dilusion of mystic significance. Yes, they were a more advanced society, and yes they had a greater respect for the key elements that make human advancement possible. But they did it with a bad philosophy. Evil must stand upon good to thrive. The evil of mysticim paired with the good of individual rights and advancement manifest itself in the early european settlers.
How can you condone coercion, even if it abolishes ignorance. The ends do not justify the means. Open trade would have been more rational.
PS: I know I said something bad about objectivist philosophers, don’t get upset. I’m not in anyway condeming the pholosophy, only a few people’s inability to be consistant. :lol:
Hi Megan,
Have you studied, say, the culture of the Aztecs? Compared to them, the scalping done by North American Indians seems benevolent and enlightened.
Hi Megan,
Have you studied, say, the culture of the Aztecs? Compared to them, the scalping done by North American Indians seems benevolent and enlightened.
OK, OK, you’re right. But I just needed to get that off my chest. I think of only consistantly rational people as superior, everyone else dwells in varying degrees of absurdity.
By the way, it was the European settlers who started the scalping.
think of only consistantly rational people as superior, everyone else dwells in varying degrees of absurdity.
Do you think that? Or is that what you were protesting against?
By the way, it was the European settlers who started the scalping.
Where’d you get that little tidbit?
In the bloody math of pre-Enlightenment, the conquistadors certainly were an improvement over the man-sacrificing and utterly malevolent Aztecs, Incas, Toltecs, Mayas, and the rest.
Mass murder, rape, and enslavement were an improvement on their exisiting lives? Sorry, but that’s absurd.
Mass murder, rape, and enslavement were an improvement on their exisiting lives? Sorry, but that’s absurd.
How was the Spanish treatment of the Aztecs any different than how the Aztecs treated themselves?
I don’t understand how you can call it a certain improvement. As an aspiring historian, one thing that drives me crazy bout a lot of objectivist historians is the same trouble subjectivist and intrinscist historians have: lack of causality.
Both cultures were bad, because both suffered from the same self-sacrificing plague of mysticism. The conquitodors enslaved the aztecs and felt a duty to massacre them because of their dilusion of mystic significance. Yes, they were a more advanced society, and yes they had a greater respect for the key elements that make human advancement possible. But they did it with a bad philosophy. Evil must stand upon good to thrive. The evil of mysticim paired with the good of individual rights and advancement manifest itself in the early european settlers.
How can you condone coercion, even if it abolishes ignorance. The ends do not justify the means. Open trade would have been more rational.
PS: I know I said something bad about objectivist philosophers, don’t get upset. I’m not in anyway condeming the pholosophy, only a few people’s inability to be consistant.
The Spaniards who conquered the Aztecs and Incas were soldiers left over from the campaigns to kick the muslims out of Spain. They acted as marauding armies, but they weren’t just a band of nomadic barbarians, they succeeded for various reasons demonstrating their own cultural superiority (even though the soldiers were probably the worst exemplars of it) and demonstrating the inferiority of those they conquered. In both the downfalls of the Aztecs and Incas, the tributary tribes were open to helping the invaders get rid of their native overlords. The Spanish soldiers passed on diseases to the people in the Americas because European cultures had long been domesticating aminals, where many deadly diseases orginate. Animal husbandry is an important part of civilization and the fact that many Indians had no immunity to these diseases demonstrated their backwardness. Also the Spaniards brought another implement of European modernism, guns, but with so few Spaniards these were more psychological than military.
Again I must refer back to the fact that many tribes flocked around Pizarro (Incas) and Cortez (Aztecs) to get rid of the two great empires of the Americas. Now the aftermath was a complete disaster as should be expected from the spread of diseases the Indians couldn’t combat and the fact that the soldiers were there for gold, silver, or land. However a true benefit from the overthrow of the Aztecs especially was the ending of human sacrifices to the sun, which were drawn as tributes from conquered tribes.
I think it is undeniable that the end result is preferable to how it was, but the means were messy, bloody, irrational, wrong, etc. But I defy anyone to show me a military conquest from the sixteenth century that fit any rational or Objectivist ideal, which is a contradiction in terms almost. We cannot judge historical actors in their own time because they didn’t come up with all sorts of ideas, the precursors of which didn’t exist. Aristotle had only been rediscovered by Europeans a few hundred year prior and the Renaissance was just beginning to reach its form. Had Ayn Rand been born at this time period I can guarantee she would not have been any life-altering philosopher for anyone, because too many things necessary for 1905 Russia to exist had not yet been developed or taken place.
In looking upon these events, we must judge them primarily by their ends. The means should also be discussed, and certainly if their were and Aztec Empire today we would deal with it differently than Cortez did, but this is an irrelevancy. What is important is how American (and subsequently Mexican) culture and civilazation was changed by the conquest, good and bad. And on the whole I think it was a net benefit.
Aztec Empire today we would deal with it differently than Cortez did
Did we deal with Nazi Germany much differently?
But I defy anyone to show me a military conquest from the sixteenth century that fit any rational or Objectivist ideal, which is a contradiction in terms almost.
Actually, the actions of the Dutch and the Swedes during this period are worth inspecting, especially people such as Gustavus Adolphus. England especially was in the process of amazing advancement in the fields of Representative Government. The treatment of the savages (Aztecs) was conducive to the nature of the savages (Aztecs).
Godless Capitalist,
I must repeat the same question I asked of Megan. Have you studied the Inca culture, or the Aztec culture? I assure you, they do not deserve your sympathy.
I am not for the conquistador culture, though it had a few small elements I don’t mind. I am primarily against the South American Indian cultures, which were some of the most horrific and abominable inventions in mankind’s history. Anyone who inflicts “cultural cleansing” upon such abominations deserves my gratitude and sympathy, regardless of the base motives for their invasion.
I’m not defending or sympathizing with the Inca or Aztec cultures. I just don’t think the Spanish conquest was an improvement, at least not initially. I think its absurd to present the European conquest of the Americas as something that was overwhelmingly positive for the natives; it wasn’t.
Why is there so much hatred of Columbus anway?
While we can disagree about whether Columbus can be held accountable for the Spanish atrocities that followed in his wake, entries from Columbus’s own logs show that he was personally responsible for enslaving, maiming and killing hundreds of people:
On his second voyage, Columbus enslaved 1,600 Arawak Indians. Of the 550 shipped back to Spain, 200 died en route, probably of disease. The remainder of the 1,600 were assigned as servants to Columbus’s men who often used them for sex.
To further the collection of gold, Columbus imposed a quota system on the natives of Hispaniola. All adults were required to produce a certain minimum of gold. Failure to reach the quota resulted in the worker having one or both hands chopped off.
Columbus also recommended slavery to the Spanish monarchs as a means of profiting from its New World lands.
None of these facts are disputed by even the most sympathetic of Columbus’s biographers.
Where’d you get that little tidbit?
This is a pretty well-known fact. Most serious historians have abandoned the “brutal Indian scalping poor settlers” thesis. I tried to narrow it down to one link to put here, bu there are so many great resources on this subject. My advice is to simply google the phrase “history of scalping” and you will be innundated with resources dating the practice back to 11th century England.
The british government introduced the practice to Native Americans by offereing British Settlers 100 pounds per Indian scalp. The Iriquois adopted it from there.
And I was protesting context dropping and loose causality in historians, even some Objective ones.
