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kleinbl00  ·  2206 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: What was the original format war?

Interesting. Reza Aslan would likely argue that "state" is a keenly Western idea and Diamond would likely argue that by that definition, New Guinea has yet to evolve states but it's a semantic beef. Kaplan would argue that the raider/farmer dichotomy is cyclical with society progressing from one to the other.

Wikipedia tells me wheat has been cultivated since 9500 bc but Sumer didn't arise for another 5000 years.

My 9th grade history teacher (who was basically cribbing Durant the entire time) emphasized that the Nile flooded predictably while the Tigris and Euphrates were wildly unpredictable; as a consequence the culture and civilization of Egypt was nerfed out with a gentle underworld and benevolent gods while the culture and civilization of Sumer was all about cleanly dispatching your dead so they don't come back to haunt your ass and destroy your culture.

I guess they both managed to figure out bread and beer.