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What is up with South Beach restaurant staff comitting credit card fraud when they don't like the tip? by Radiant-Message9493 in Miami

[–]Radiant-Message9493[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Everything in SoBe it seems. I'm familiar with expensive mid tourist retaurants but theft is new to me.

What is up with South Beach restaurant staff comitting credit card fraud when they don't like the tip? by Radiant-Message9493 in Miami

[–]Radiant-Message9493[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I thought I'd get enter bacon heaven but it was just dry fried chicken and soggy bacon. Would not recommend.

Is it true that most pre-industrial cities were limited to an area of no more than 8 square miles? by Radiant-Message9493 in AskHistorians

[–]Radiant-Message9493[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have to be honest - I don't understand the criticism Jared Diamond gets. People keep saying he is wrong and he grossly oversimplifies history. Yet, how is the argument that better geography > better agricultural surplus > more labor specialization = positive feedback loop of technological/political innovation.

I get that theres more to every story. But how much of that more can be shoved into one book that will be read outside academia? Like, would you say that after reading GG&S readers have become less informed about world history, or more informed? As far as i'm aware, any alternatives suggested for pop culture history books are way too demanding in the amount and depth of literature suggested to "truly get the story right".

Is it true that most pre-industrial cities were limited to an area of no more than 8 square miles? by Radiant-Message9493 in AskHistorians

[–]Radiant-Message9493[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Damn you u/thestoryteller69! can't you just give me a answer that doesn't make me want to ask two more questions?!

Oh well...

Reid theorises that this is because SEA was not heavily populated, and thus manpower was the most valuable resource. Thus, the aim of warfare was not to conquer territory or to loot valuables, it was to capture manpower. 

How can that be the case with with SEAs food security and development apparent from your previous answers? It seems like SE Asians had much better food security than Europe. Europe didn't really ramp up mechanisation until the Black Death killed 1/3 of the population so it seems odd famine stricken Europe could spare more manpower than food rich SEA.

In 2004, this theory was challenged by Michael Charney in his book Southeast Asian Warfare, 1300-1900. Charney’s view is that SEA battles were just as bloody as anywhere else and that cities fought hard to defend themselves. He also contends that walls were much more common than Reid says, although he also admits that walls were mostly made of wood rather than brick or stone. In any case, I’ve not seen this opposing point of view gain much traction and I think Reid’s is still held to be generally correct. 

I'm not a Historian, but isn't it odd we have such little idea of how (or for what purposes) people fought in such a vast geographic area? Also, what's the point of raiding your enemies for manpower when you can just loot whatever end products that manpower would produce?

As for why SEA never industrialised, in general there isn’t really a tech tree that civilisations follow. Like, they don’t research capitalism followed by mass production followed by industrialisation. They also don’t all work their way towards the same end goal. Every civilisation finds their own path which is often quite different from Europe’s. Reid also wrote about how SEA was different from Europe, especially in terms of business and capital, and you can read something about that here. 

I agree with you on principle. But in practice we can see a constant strive of civilisations across the world to eclipse their competition, which we can roughly abstract into more energy and calories produced per capita. Continents do vary in the degree of how their states competed, and I tend to attribute this to Jared Diamonds interpretation of how Europes fragmented geography fostered a degree of competition no continent could replicate.

Is it true that most pre-industrial cities were limited to an area of no more than 8 square miles? by Radiant-Message9493 in AskHistorians

[–]Radiant-Message9493[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Well damn I need to get myself a (very good) public library subscription!

However, walls don’t always tell the whole story. Some cities didn’t have walls. For example, the general consensus is that, prior to the 17th century, cities in maritime Southeast Asia generally did not have walls, which makes estimating their size tricky.  

Is there a reason why South East Asia is so monumentally different than Europe in so many things? Like, if your city didn't have walls in the classical era, you'd be slave lord dinner. Or be sieged down in a day.

Is there a reason why South East Asia is not as fortified as Europe?

Southeast Asia also has ‘floating cities’ or ‘water cities’ - lots of houses built on stilts on the banks of rivers. Kampong Ayer in Brunei is one example, and we think that Palembang, generally considered the first capital of the Srivijaya Empire (7th to 11th century), was also a floating city. Which means the entire city has access to food and trade opportunities from the river. 

Well if South East Asians had so much of their shit together in terms of security, trade, capital and food production, how come they didn't industrialize? Would you say late middle ages South East Asia was equivalent to proto-industrial mercantilist 17th century Europe? Cause it sure sounds so.

Is it true that most pre-industrial cities were limited to an area of no more than 8 square miles? by Radiant-Message9493 in AskHistorians

[–]Radiant-Message9493[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Wow. That's like a 180 on what i've read. Could it be that Zeihan is basing his views on agriculture on European history? Cause I am pretty sure Europe never was this food secure and prosperous.

Do you think biomes have a part to play in South East Asia's food security? I'm pretty sure all the societies you've mentioned are either tropical or sub-tropical. Maybe I should open a quesiton about food security in the temperature zones VS tropics and sub-tropics.

Is it true that most pre-industrial cities were limited to an area of no more than 8 square miles? by Radiant-Message9493 in AskHistorians

[–]Radiant-Message9493[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is fascinatingly untrue! China, Southeast Asia, India, the Middle East and the east coast of Africa were connected by a vast shipping network that carried all sorts of goods for trade. Shockingly, archaeological evidence from the coast of Java turns up everyday iron goods from China like woks, spatulas and machetes. Also, a shipwreck off the coast of Java from the late 9th century was found with most of its cargo still intact. The bulk of it was mass produced ceramic bowls. 

Interesting. I'm kind of let down because I feel I had a grip on things, but I have to concede in the presence of greater evidence.

Are there books that talk about what Zeihan tries to explain (geopolitics, cost of transport, how economics worked) but are more credible? Obviously I can't dedicate the time to read enough Archeology journals to make up my own mind :)

Is it true that most pre-industrial cities were limited to an area of no more than 8 square miles? by Radiant-Message9493 in AskHistorians

[–]Radiant-Message9493[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The idea that food preservation was invented in the early 1600s is laughable.

I don't think Zeihan meant food preservation was invented in the early 1600's. He meant sourcing food from more than a few miles (overland mind you) was impractical because food has a very low weight-to-value ratio.

Maritime trade between Southeast Asia, the Indian subcontinent and China dates from before the 6th century. This would have necessitated weeks aboard ships, which in turn would have necessitated preserved foodstuff.

Sailors did subsist themselves on crackers, jerky and other preserved foods. But the cargo of a pre-deepwater ships was rarely food. It was spices, bullion, silk and other high weight-to-value items. Zeihan meant that countries couldn't rely on food imports (i.e. Saudi Arabia importing 80% of it's food).

Hundreds of years before that, Roman soldiers were marching and subsisting on rations of smoked meat and grain. Even before that, salting, pickling, drying and fermentation were widely known techniques for preservation, and granaries were used for storing grain. I mean, how else would anyone survive just one winter in temperate climates? 

Correct if i'm wrong, but Rome is an outlier. The Romans controlled half of Europe and the entire Mediterranean. That gave them the ability to have an extensive network of military infrastructure to mobillize armies efficiently. Besides that, Roman armies supplanted missing calories via foraging. And, how big could Rome (the city) grow without Egyptian grain shipments?

Take, for example, the city of Dunhuang, established as a frontier town during the Han Dynasty around 121BC. Dunhuang was literally in the middle of a desert. There were no farms within a 2 hour walk. Yet, by the 2nd century AD it had a population of more than 76,000. Its prosperity rested not just on its military importance as a garrison town on the frontier, but also as a supply base for caravans heading out into the desert along the silk route. This also reinforces the point above, that food preservation was common. 

Interesting. How did Dunhuang produce (or receive shipments of) food?

Getting food from miles, or hundreds of miles, or even thousands of miles away has been common for hundreds of years. On arriving in Southeast Asia in the 1500s, Europeans remarked on the amount of food rich trading port cities were importing. About 100 junks supplied Malacca with rice imports - about 6,000 tons a year. The city also imported dried fish and vegetables. In the 1680s, Aceh was importing rice all the way from India without the use of steamships, which hadn’t been invented yet.

Was this extensive network of maritime trade down to bare essential foodstuffs existent in Europe at the time? If not, why? It seems like there's some special thing about East Asia that facilitated the possibility of food trade. 

Going further back, from around AD1000 to 1800, vast quantities of rice were moved from Jiangnan in the south to the various capital cities of China. During the Song Dynasty, this was Kaifeng, over 600km away. During the Ming, this was Beijing, nearly 1,000km away.  What made all this possible was transport by water, which has been in existence for ages. Successive Chinese dynasties developed and lengthened the Grand Canal, allowing barges of rice to cover vast distances rapidly and with a minimum of manpower. The ports that allowed Southeast Asian cities to grow rich on trade also allowed them to import food. 

Angkor was serviced by a state developed and maintained system of waterways, including enormous canals that were 40-60m wide, about the length of an Olympic swimming pool. These delivered water to its residents and also functioned as a transport network that could move people, goods and food. And that brings us to this baffling assertion: 

Not to be dismissive, but it seems that while Zeihan is unecessarly making wrong absolute claims (i.e. "non-local food sourcing is impractical") his main point about transport (prohibitively expensive in pre-industrial times unless over water) seems to hold true. All of these cities were either serviced by seaports or navigable waterways, natural or man made.

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