I am reading Blout. The introduction totally sucked. I had to skip
through a large portion of it and was about to tell you all how badly
Blout blows.  He was squarely in the middle of the narrative beating
himself in the chest, doing the war-dance and calling his imaginary
opponents names.  He also appeared trying to inflate the subject out
of proportion making sweeping generalizations about the "western"
scholarship while actually making rather modest claims about what he
was about to prove.

The chapter was riddled with forward references and had little in the
way of substance. Since the subject of the book is rather broad I was
bracing myself for another pointless liberal rant devoid of original
research or ideas.

Things did not look much better in the beginning of the second chapter
which Blout started with extensive introduction of its own. Complete
with forward references and chest beating.

But then, when he got to the point, it picked up. So Blout is an aging
academic who, like so many of them (us?), enjoys hearing himself speak
(or is it reading himself write), but he himself did some substantial
original research in the 60-ies and 70-ies and is familiar with
concrete scholarship in the area.

So I was happy when he started to engage the subject. He quickly
dispensed with implicit and explicit racism in scientific studies out
of hand.  That was not much fun -- we heard it all before and done
better.

Then went his debunking of what he calls "African nastiness" as a way
of explaining why Africa did not develop.  I like the term and most of
the prejudices he discusses I either harbor myself or heard all too
often. His idea that the historians and historiographers continue to
cling (possibly without even knowing it) to disproved or
unsubstantiated notions of african/asian inferiority rings true.

    To back it up he cites mainstream historians which are rather
    recent -- 70-ies and 80-ies, sometimes late 80-ies. Blout quotes
    and deconstructs their statements. And they sound like bigots.

Blout got my trust when I started reading his extensive footnotes.
BTW, whoever got the bright idea of putting footnotes at the end of
the chapter should be shot. I am reading Blout with one finger stuck
in the text an the other --- in the notes and flipping back and forth
-- extremely irritating.

So the African Nastiness theory has the following flavors

- the african soils are not fertile enough (that's an odd one, never
  thought of that). It turns out that they are different and may
  indeed be poorer than some from more temperate climates.  However,
  Blout cites research (a few of his own works included) showing that
  they are just different, have to be farmed differently quite often
  far more fertile

- african nature is too bountiful so people did not have to work to
  support themselves (the bearded founder of historical materialism is
  guilty of that as it turns out)

- african nature requires people to work too hard to support themselves
  so they don't have time for inventions, etc.

  Blout quotes one fellow who manages to combine the two theories
  above. That was amusing.

- shifting agriculture destroys the land. Blout cites studies (again
  some of his own and others) that shifting agriculture was practiced
  carefully in Africa and was not detrimental. One subtext is that
  since the agriculture is shifting -- the people have to move and
  never had time to "truly" settle. He showed it not to be the case.
  People farmed such that they did not move

- africa is an unhealthy place where everyone is sick. That one I new
  was bogus, but Blout cites a few studies and talks convincingly
  about it.

- africans did not domesticate crops before europeans arrived -- yeah
  hogwash

- the sub-saharan continent was empty and the Boers just took the
  vacant land. Yeah, right, and the indians in North America, saw the
  Europeans, understood the Europeans' moral superiority, and their
  right to own the continent and en masse decided to quietly disappear
  into the thin air.

So Blout turned out to be fun after all. He just moved to Asia.

-----------------------------

Okay, I remember why I was particularly annoyed with Blout's intro.
He presents the Euro-centrism as a cardinal sin of the europeans (for
which his book is an atonement we are expected to assume) perpetuated
from time immemorial. Putting ones region/country in the center of the
historical narrative is a trivial folly every region is guilty of. Get
over it, Jim, didn't you know that Russians invented pretty much
everything from radio, printing press and bicycles to rocket science
while americans cut eurasia in half on the worldmap so that Kansas is
in its center?

Overall Blout is uneven. I remember he dispensed with Malthusian
explanations of the periphery's backwardness with one bold citation.
What's the point of discussing somebodys' position for a number of
pages if the only counter argument would be: "bah, nonsense, see this
citation for details"? Same goes for his treatment of various strands
of racism.

Currently Blout treats the theory of Asia's need for irrigation (and
hence the need for communal work) as the source for despotic regimes.
See the despots breed in the sludge of irrigation canals.  Kind of
like maggots.

----------------------------

I am on page 130 or so of Blout.  The main takeway so far is his
catalog of euro-centric explanations that historians/geographers and
whoever else tries to write about "European Miracle" put forward. In
his citations and quick analysis they look like horses arses. The
history books are modern -- 70-ies and 80-ies. I, myself, recall
reading similar passages in history books. Blout certainly inoculates
from any of that crap.

He commands respect as a scholar but gets only a passing grade as a
writer. Incessant gratuitous backward and forward references annoy.
His shallow critique makes one wish for the anal but meticulous
refutations of mainstream theories by Gould, Ben Anderson or
Finkelstein. Blout's signature counterargument is (nonsense) in
parentheses.  He feels sloppy and smacks of Wallerstein.

   Anyhow, he is refuting the speciousness of european families as a
reason for the "eropean miracle". I am able to follow him just because
we have just read a good book on family history.

------------------------------

I ordered reorient. BTW, we maybe we should get a break from this
string of "globalization" books and read some good fiction or
something?
 
I am almost done with Blout. I am too busy to write a decent rant. So
here is the synopsis. Blout's case is overblown. It seems in attempt
to "straighten the euro-centric bias" he feels he needs to bend the
stick all the way in the other direction and paint himself as a
anti-euro-centric-super-hero.
 
        He is good at debunking pre-1492 theories of european
        superiority and that's the strongest point of the book. His
        ideas that europe was no better than the other parts of the
        hemisphere and possibly even marginal sound credible.
 
        His idea of criss-cross (decentralized) diffusion of ideas also
        sounds reasonable. "Telescoping history" is a useful term.
 
            The euro-centric historians/geographers that he cites do
            ring very familiar and do sound like idiots. However, my
            recent thought on the subject was this. Most of these
            historians were just _not_ focused on the issues that bug
            Blout so to tie up their stuff they just repeated the
            common assumptions or their own misconceptions and Blout
            just waylayed them.

After 1492 Blout becomes sloppy and less entertaining. No wonder his
opponents are having a field day poking holes in his arguments.

   So, the idea that the europeans reached america first and started
its colonization because of geographic proximity sounds reasonable.
We know that a large portion of American population was wiped out due
to European diseases. Blout does not discuss as to why the diseases
where so euro-centric.

   The idea that european merchants were able to use "excess" precious
metals imported from america to undermine the asian/african merchants
and take over the trade is interesting.

However, Blout does not say much as to why the riches that
colonization of America brought to the europeans were used to
jumpstart the industrial revolution rather than just being wasted on
the enrichment of the privileged classes. Like so many other
territorial conquests in history.

Blout talks of proto-capitalism. Which is just merchant-capitalism
that existed, alongside usury, since antiquity. It has little to do
with industrial capitalism and capitalist mode of production. Which
distinguished Duch/English capitalists and analyzed by the bearded
founders of historical materialism.
  
Besides, Blout's idea of forward progress and "development" across the
eurasian continent (until the europeans got the leg up with American
conquest) smacks of "stagism" in history.

So anyhow, I think overall it is a decent if occasionally annoying book

-------------------

I am done with Blaut. for the drawn-out annoying introduction, blaut
is surprisingly succinct in the end -- wrapping up the last chapter
and giving a 3-page conclusion.

Endearingly Blaut refers to C.L.R James and Eric Williams as the guys
to read. Them rebels actually read each other.

Re: Louis' comments on critique of Blaut's work that I forwarded
earlier.  So I was not the first to observe that according to Blaut
the Iberian states appear "got all the money" from American conquest
yet cap-ism developed in England/Holland. And Blaut and Lou had to
defend it on the internet before. Now I remember Lou posting a long
study a year or so ago on cap-ist development of Spain.

Goody, the internet debates become interesting as one gets a clue. All
I have to do is to make sure I keep my dayjob.