Honestly, you should just go read Acemoglu’s “Power and Progress” as the other comment suggested. It’s written for a popular audience. Many of these assertions are wrong and intentionally elide huge swathes of the actual history. I dunno who would bother to engage with these wall text posts you make on here.
The author’s claim “history is not true” is a huge one and it’s reasonable to look up his background to understand where he might be coming from.
Unfortunately for him (the author) he’s not coming from an expert’s position, and whatever perceptions that creates in people is not fault of the commenter you’re replying to.
Equating invasions, bombings, and direct material support for local factions to "make some objective history available to people who want to read it" is extremely disingenuous.
> Historians look at past people and situations through today's lenses and bringing up what resonates with todays problems and dilemas.
Historian here. This is bias is among the first things you learn to discern as an undergraduate. Historical research never starts from a premise "We can observe X in current events, is it possible to find similar events and patterns in the past?" Why? Because the trap here is to apply modern concepts, schools of thoughts and ideas in a past context where they absolutely did not exist.
> Also the human nature isn't changeable so political and social and personal dilemas of ancient Athens, Rome or China can resonate with us.
The resonate with us because the past can inspire us and helps us reflect on human nature. But that's about all it does. Transposing societal structures, ideas, thinking and so on from Ancient Rome to the current day is a fallacy because it denies the 2.000 years of history and evolving societal, cultural, religious, economical, political thinking that happened in between.
Another fallacy is in this way of thinking is that history is teleological and ends with today being the end of human evolution and history; that today is the only logical outcome of everything that led up to today. Determinism really doesn't work well when you want to narrate and explain history.
It's also the reason why I'm skeptical of Yuval Harari's work. His re-telling of human history is thought provoking and prompts for reflection and debate. But in no way does it mean that his take on history is the definitive story.
That article pretty much ignores centuries of political scienes and historians' work. All based on some unconnected charts and a personal opinion on what projects are "good" and which ones are not.
> I have a lot of interest in learning about historical issues that are not necessarily commonplace 'in the West' but zero interest in learning it from armchair hacks who 'spin' ideas and misrepresent facts.
Part of reading is understand the author's intent.
The purpose of this piece was not to document historical fact, and the author explained as much in simple and up-front language. So if you're trying to "learn about historical issues" from this, aside from issues of historiography, that's your failure as a reader.
"History through modern lens" seems to be a bit out of topic complaint.
The rest of paragraph explains why author thinks he was wrong. It would be interesting to read historical dispute, but your complaint seems to be less about different interpretation of history and more about making criticism of past personalities taboo.
Again, none of this has anything to do with what the book is about. You picked a word or two and went on a tangent completely unrelated to the topic at hand.
However, coming from a country that was directly in the path of Ottoman invasions
Well, I come from a country that was part of the Ottoman empire for half a millennium. I don't feel it gives me license to poop in every forum I participate in.
Should I have allowed the lie to proliferate, for the sake of the interesting discussion that might come about?
You can't make up umbrage to derail discussions into your personal hobbyhorse discussions, at least not here or the place gets worse. It's one of the basic conventions of the site.
So you take issue with a couple of points, and your main argument against this is an appeal to authority: the suggestion that any dissenting opinion to your own clearly hasn’t read the “right” history books. Also you assert the source of this post must be some column which you are also demonstratively dismissive of, yet you don’t say why.
Have you conclusively dismissed all events stated in the article? It doesn’t seem your case is that strong right now.
So why don’t we try to focus on what’s your main dislike? Could you explain your reason for the reflexive desire to disprove? I don’t understand where the suspicion comes from. Why are you and others seemingly eager to dismiss these histories? What would be so troubling to you if it were true? I’m genuinely curious.
Herodotus made a hell of a lot up, relied on oral reports and explicitly states that none of what he writes is intended to be relied on - it is merely what people told him. I think you actually need to read the linked blog that you seem so dismissive of, and come up with some substantive rebuttals to the points he makes rather than just making this rather lame appeal to historical authority.
I stand corrected, and appreciate hearing your perspective. It does have a different structural feel to it compared to works I’ve read by respected modern day historians (which isn’t that many), so I think I can see what you’re getting at.
You seem to think the author is writing this paper with the goal of espousing a viewpoint or tying it back to current affairs. It's possible to write and read about history purely for the interest.
Hm, I followed the first few links on that page and I remain unconvinced. It's been a long time since I read the book, but I remember points being addressed that the comments there claim are not being addressed. And I think sometimes they missed the point completely.
Anyway - best everybody make up their own mind, and remember that EVERYBODY has an agenda. Even the good people on reddit. Specifically, perhaps historians don't like it if somebody advances on their territory with a different approach (combining different disciplines). Their agenda is to push their methodology so that they get more funding for their research.
You're right, he's not a professional historian. And that's a good thing, because History the academic field is hopelessly sick and outdated.
Turchin may not be right about everything (or most things), but the kind of thing he's trying to do is the path forward. The really interesting action in history (broadly construed) is all being done by people doing history within analytic paradigms, like Turchin. Look for work by people who call themselves economic historians.
That's not the best argument, given that the Marxist school of history (as exemplified by Eric Hobsbawm, who was respected by historians on all sides) is quite popular among professional historians.
That seems a bit disingenuous. While I am no expert and cannot verify if the claims in your article are true (though Wikipedia asserts the same), it is clearly different from the OP. Your link is (presumably) rooted in accepted historical fact, while the OP is speculation
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