A Short History of Progress
This is a short book, and the content is kind of like a heavily abbreviated [b:Guns, Germs, and Steel|1842|Guns, Germs, and Steel|Jared Diamond|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1158959888s/1842.jpg|2138852] and [b:Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed|475|Collapse How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed|Jared Diamond|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1156921664s/475.jpg|1041106], all rolled into one. The brevity makes me think it would work better as a series of lectures than as a book.
Wright’s style is pretty good, and he writes about interesting things. If that was it, this book would be checked “worth consuming”. But then there were the endnotes.
I’ve complained before about how I didn’t like having to page back and forth when I was reading America, and that was only one or two pages each time. This book has way too many endnotes, probably over 3 per page. In fact, the book has 132 pages of content and 54 pages of endnotes. What the heck is that? I had to use two bookmarks and it was nothing but flip flip flip flip flip.
Worse, many of the endnotes were useless: half of them were conversions from imperial to metric measure or citations, which aren’t awful, but which I had no interest in at the time. The other half actually had content, sometimes close to a page of content to expand on a short paragraph in the text, so I never got to the point where I felt I could just give up on the endnotes.
Worst, the guy seems to have a hate on for [a:Jared Diamond|256|Jared Diamond|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1205143138p2/256.jpg]. There are two endnotes that drive this home to me. First, Wright mentions that Diamond’s description of pre-Columbian New World agriculture is flawed, without saying how, and how Diamond’s portrayal of certain New World conquests by the Spanish is tendentious. Given that Wright doesn’t support his claim about Diamond’s work, I thought tendentious was kind of amusing.
Later on in the book, after a paragraph that states that China’s civilization has done as well as it has for 3000 years is partly due to the fact that much of its area is covered by very thick topsoil, he tacks on the following endnote:
The main crop was millet, until wheat appeared around 1300 B.C. It took wheat 6,000 years to reach China after its domestication on the far side of the continent, hardly the rapid transit of technology in the Old World argued by Diamond (Guns, Germs, and Steel).
Why is 6,000 years not rapid? Given the technology available at the time, the lack of roads and trade, and so on, how long does Wright expect such a transit to occur? What examples has he of similar transits being made rapidly to compare? And, the question that’s really on the tip of my tongue, “What’s any of this got to do with thick topsoil?” The endnoted paragraph had nothing to do with millet, wheat, or the transit of technology. It seems like Wright just said, “It’s been a while since I bashed Diamond without backing my opinion up. This seems like a good place.”
Now, I’m probably biased because I read and enjoyed the Diamond books, and that’s likely why I’m so upset. However, I’m perfectly willing to entertain the idea that Wright is right in all he says about Diamond’s works, but he could have at least backed his comments up. Trash someone if you must, but at least do it well.