“Study the past if you would define the future.” – Confucius We think we’re taught History. But we’re really taught Propaganda. This is the first of a series of articles. When you read the series, you will realize that most of what you learned in History class in school was irrelevant, designed to take advantage of you, and that it prevented you from understanding how the world really works. And if you can’t understand how the world works, you can’t prepare for the future.
Very interesting analysis. If you have traveled around the world it would be straightforward, the plain lands encompass the richest regions and high productive terrains. However, in some countries like Colombia, it does not work that way, astonishingly it is the other way. I do not know what the situation in other Andean regions is, but in Colombia the richest lands are located in the mountains and the poorest lands in the plains, having both of them a lot of rivers. It would be possible to add as a complimentary explanation, to that given by Tomas Pueyo, the terrain land-use or maybe the geological traits of these regions? Most of the times the Geography obeys the Geology rules, and it would be the same constrains for the Technology and future human advances; the Geology will be the chessboard of the World.
- big urban areas correspond to areas that were historically useful. Eg Cartagena
- at this latitude, plains are not fertile because of the Amazon Rainforest effect, which extracts all nutrients from the topsoil, making agriculture at lower altitude impossible. The same happens in Africa. Mexico also has its population in mountains
Really succinct analysis. One problem: Why are Russia and Eastern Europe (relatively) poor?
Potential Reason 1: They're just hard to defend. Missing that protective, mountainous ring, the doors of the vast Eurasian Plain are open for everyone from the Mongols to the Nazis to blow on through. But that didn't stop the very-flat, heavily-contested, and oft-invaded Low Countries from becoming very rich, and even being world powers, for a time. Denmark's even more vulnerable there, closer to the East, and is far richer than Poland or the Baltics.
Potential Reason 2: History. There was a time when the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was the most progressive polity in the world. To the southeast, Ukraine not only has some of the most fertile land in the world (renowned as far back as when it was known as Scythia by the Ancient Greeks), but also excellent ports along the Black Sea. The Austro-Hungarian Empire in that plumb little basin you mentioned was one of the most formidable in the world... until WWI. And now all of those areas are geopolitically marginal and militarily suspended between outside superpowers. And that erosion of sovereignty began as early as Ancient times or the Middle Ages for most of them. Was this just historical contingency, or back to Reason 1?
Potential Reason 3: Primary production makes a country rich in the period of primitive accumulation, but can become a trap at later stages of development as you eventually become far richer from trade, capitalism, and innovation than from primary production or resource extraction. The UK has some fertile lands in Southern England, but that's not why it became rich. Even its modest Pre-Norman wealth came from exporting slaves and tin and then by the Middle Ages from wool. But at least it could grow its own food. Japan, meanwhile, is as hopeless for agriculture as Greece, but was powerful enough by the late 19th Century to defeat the vast, productive lands of Russia in a war and is still the third-richest country in the world. Switzerland, Luxembourg, and the Nordic Countries, by your geographic schema, shouldn't be among the richest countries in the world, but they are. So, this all puts into question how deterministic this "Chessboard of History" remains, doesn't it?
I've written an article on that! The massive difference with the NL is the rivers, the access to the ocean, and the smaller distance to the mountains (Jura, Vosges, then Alps) compared to Moscow. Poland-Lithuania was just like Moscow, but being sandwiched btw powers made its development much harder.
Tomas -- very nice analysis & insights. I fear geography is rapidly changing from the promoter of civilization to the enemy of the people -- when coupled with climate change. Coastal cities founded on maritime convenience are facing inundation, as are riverside communities flooded by increasingly intense rainfall. The American breadbasket drained by the Mississippi River will experience crop failure and may become unlivable due to extreme summertime heat and humidity. I'm looking forward to your observations about technology, especially its potential for supporting continued human habitation of this planet we still, somewhat longingly, call home.
it would be really great to have a table of content of your blog, or a "post of posts" that collects and sorts your content. Sometimes I want to share your blog for a particular reason with a friend (e.g. Geo History or Macro techno-socioeconomic trends) and there is no way to link this particular section easily.
Sometimes I also would like to read the content of your blog about a particular topic like a book, but Substack's archive view is not too suited to this.
Your analysis is great and here in Greece we do have the common knowledge that many facts in our history is unbreakable connected with our geography. Βut I have 2 points to mention:
> "No wonder Greece only recently emerged independent from 2000 years of occupation, first by the Romans (from present-day Italy), then by Byzantium , and finally by the Ottoman Empire (both of the last two in present-day Turkey)."
This is not quite true. Byzantium is a recent term that more or less describes the Eastern part of the Roman Empire after the separation. When we speak for the eastern part of the empire, you basically talk about Greeks (Roman Law - Orthodox Christianity - Greek Language). So to talk about 2000 years of occupation, it is not accurate.
> "Remember this when you hear in the news a German minister telling Greeks they need to work harder."
On top of this, geographically speaking, its different thing to have Belgium as a neighbour and totally different story to have Turkey. (Greece' spending 3-5% of GDP in defence purposes).
Although when I talked about Byzantium I didn’t mean the empire but the city. The power didn’t lie in any city of Greece but in Byzantium, which is a substantially better geographic location than anywhere in Greece.
This also tallies with my research on collective intelligence - check out the last chapter (e pluribus unum) in the augmented collective intelligence at www.supermind.design
I started reading your paper the other day. It’s very interesting — but very long. Is here a place where you have digested the core points, as an introductory piece of content?
Ah! I cover Spain, France and a few other countries in a future article. It might be for premium readers only. The only thing I'll add: My views of Catalonia have pretty dramatically changed since I've been writing about this topic!
Very interesting and well written article however I don't understand the connection with the education at the beginning when you state that they don't teach you the actual things. Everything you wrote in the article is explained and thought in the school since the elementary school, at least in Italy and I am pretty sure in Europe. We spent hrs in understanding the importance of the geography: just think about Egypt or better the Mesopotamia. I am instead curious about your finding on how the technologies and the current period can change this "natural" behavior.
I can confirm this (at least partially) from German school education. The connection between geography and mostly the early civilisations/empires (Egypt, Greece, Rome) was part of the curriculum. For the time from the middle ages on, the aspect of „geography is fate“ was not the focus anymore however in History lessons. I am very curious how this series here continues as, obviously, geography becomes far less important as we can now send pictures of cats around the globe with the speed of light.
I'm very glad to hear! I've been in the Spanish, French, and American educational systems, and I didn't learn it this way. Sure, they talk about both hist and geo, and connect them a bit, but I never had the causality. Glad to hear it's not the same experience for all!
... the old civilizations ARE part of the German History curricula. My son (5th grader) excerps Ancient Egypt, the bijective relation of civilization with the River Nile, the transition from just fertiliting the riverbanks to necessity to use papyrus and develop writing to collect tributs for collectively watering the land professionally, the jump in civilization through success of societal organisation and technology ...
History and geography, so good! Very nice North-South (due to the plates) argument complementing Jared Diamond’s East-West (Guns, germs...) arable land thesis. So interesting, thank you!
if i look at the map i also notice tie danubian plains and i must say the southern part of romania(except the capital bucharest and the back sea ports) and northern part of bulgaria(not only are not united,even though your predictions would suggest that) but are poorer than the mean of their countries.why is that?how does that align with your views and do you have any prediction about this area of the world?
The Pannonian Basin is a geographic unit, but it’s not coastal. The parts closer to Central Europe are more connected to its trade and are thus richer. The mountainous parts in the south, north, and east should geographically be even poorer Thant the plain for these reasons.
I have another theory but its related. Its too hot the closer you get to the equator for you to be able to want to do much. As we know the heat tires you out. So its not just the lack of water but also the fact if most people around you are not supporting the world you live in with intense commerce you won’t get anwhere much. Look at the old world map and you get the same results
When I sent this to a friend he wrote "Interesting and edifying. One thing he doesn’t mention (yet) is climate. I seem to recall someone (I seem to think it was Montesquieu) theorized that northern/colder climate nations were more advanced than southern/warm weather nations because of climate. Warm weather made people less ambitious and industrious and more hedonistic. I responded that I'm not sure the theory of climate has sufficient supporting data.
Egypt, Greece, Italy, the Incas, the Aztecs, the Ottoman Empire, to name a few were all
founded in warmer climates and dominated big swaths of the globe for a time. During the
Roman Empire, it was northern Europe that were considered barbarian including what is now
the British Isles. It would seem that the development of "technology" driven by trading
over waterways, the consequent sharing of knowledge, and the rewarding impacts of such
information to do things better gave those groups great rewards, and tangible advantages, along with influence and power.
One might argue that the decline of such powerhouses of the warmer climates may be due in part to their incorporation and insidious influence of religions, more than anything
else, that came to interfere with the progression of knowledge to such a degree that Europe entered what has been referred to as "The Dark Ages" which stunted learning until the Renaissance when religious "doctrines" could be pushed back by the compelling elements of science.
One can see that tendency today as nations, including ours, struggle with the forces of
fearful religious groups for influence in how we live. I know of no country dominated by
theocracy that is a model of democracy, personal freedoms, and the development and
encouragement of new ideas. Ironically, the so called communist nations have borrowed
heavily from religious organizations in their demand for unquestioning faith, absolute
loyalty, and personal surrender to the tenants of "the system". I would offer that the
successful indoctrination of humans from birth with the principles of such mind numbing
and anti-thinking dictates are at the core of much of today's strife and unconscionable
Ah I will be writing so much about these topics! A few will be about the role of technology. Yet another one about how Geography is determined by... Astrophysics!
Very interesting analysis. If you have traveled around the world it would be straightforward, the plain lands encompass the richest regions and high productive terrains. However, in some countries like Colombia, it does not work that way, astonishingly it is the other way. I do not know what the situation in other Andean regions is, but in Colombia the richest lands are located in the mountains and the poorest lands in the plains, having both of them a lot of rivers. It would be possible to add as a complimentary explanation, to that given by Tomas Pueyo, the terrain land-use or maybe the geological traits of these regions? Most of the times the Geography obeys the Geology rules, and it would be the same constrains for the Technology and future human advances; the Geology will be the chessboard of the World.
I’d love to understand better. Some hypotheses:
- big urban areas correspond to areas that were historically useful. Eg Cartagena
- at this latitude, plains are not fertile because of the Amazon Rainforest effect, which extracts all nutrients from the topsoil, making agriculture at lower altitude impossible. The same happens in Africa. Mexico also has its population in mountains
Really succinct analysis. One problem: Why are Russia and Eastern Europe (relatively) poor?
Potential Reason 1: They're just hard to defend. Missing that protective, mountainous ring, the doors of the vast Eurasian Plain are open for everyone from the Mongols to the Nazis to blow on through. But that didn't stop the very-flat, heavily-contested, and oft-invaded Low Countries from becoming very rich, and even being world powers, for a time. Denmark's even more vulnerable there, closer to the East, and is far richer than Poland or the Baltics.
Potential Reason 2: History. There was a time when the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was the most progressive polity in the world. To the southeast, Ukraine not only has some of the most fertile land in the world (renowned as far back as when it was known as Scythia by the Ancient Greeks), but also excellent ports along the Black Sea. The Austro-Hungarian Empire in that plumb little basin you mentioned was one of the most formidable in the world... until WWI. And now all of those areas are geopolitically marginal and militarily suspended between outside superpowers. And that erosion of sovereignty began as early as Ancient times or the Middle Ages for most of them. Was this just historical contingency, or back to Reason 1?
Potential Reason 3: Primary production makes a country rich in the period of primitive accumulation, but can become a trap at later stages of development as you eventually become far richer from trade, capitalism, and innovation than from primary production or resource extraction. The UK has some fertile lands in Southern England, but that's not why it became rich. Even its modest Pre-Norman wealth came from exporting slaves and tin and then by the Middle Ages from wool. But at least it could grow its own food. Japan, meanwhile, is as hopeless for agriculture as Greece, but was powerful enough by the late 19th Century to defeat the vast, productive lands of Russia in a war and is still the third-richest country in the world. Switzerland, Luxembourg, and the Nordic Countries, by your geographic schema, shouldn't be among the richest countries in the world, but they are. So, this all puts into question how deterministic this "Chessboard of History" remains, doesn't it?
Here's the article on Switzerland:
https://unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com/p/what-you-want-switzerland-and-how
I've written an article on that! The massive difference with the NL is the rivers, the access to the ocean, and the smaller distance to the mountains (Jura, Vosges, then Alps) compared to Moscow. Poland-Lithuania was just like Moscow, but being sandwiched btw powers made its development much harder.
Tomas -- very nice analysis & insights. I fear geography is rapidly changing from the promoter of civilization to the enemy of the people -- when coupled with climate change. Coastal cities founded on maritime convenience are facing inundation, as are riverside communities flooded by increasingly intense rainfall. The American breadbasket drained by the Mississippi River will experience crop failure and may become unlivable due to extreme summertime heat and humidity. I'm looking forward to your observations about technology, especially its potential for supporting continued human habitation of this planet we still, somewhat longingly, call home.
Hi,
it would be really great to have a table of content of your blog, or a "post of posts" that collects and sorts your content. Sometimes I want to share your blog for a particular reason with a friend (e.g. Geo History or Macro techno-socioeconomic trends) and there is no way to link this particular section easily.
Sometimes I also would like to read the content of your blog about a particular topic like a book, but Substack's archive view is not too suited to this.
Best regards
I'm halfway through that! I might do in in the coming weeks!
Thx for the feedback, it might accelerate the timelines
Your analysis is great and here in Greece we do have the common knowledge that many facts in our history is unbreakable connected with our geography. Βut I have 2 points to mention:
> "No wonder Greece only recently emerged independent from 2000 years of occupation, first by the Romans (from present-day Italy), then by Byzantium , and finally by the Ottoman Empire (both of the last two in present-day Turkey)."
This is not quite true. Byzantium is a recent term that more or less describes the Eastern part of the Roman Empire after the separation. When we speak for the eastern part of the empire, you basically talk about Greeks (Roman Law - Orthodox Christianity - Greek Language). So to talk about 2000 years of occupation, it is not accurate.
> "Remember this when you hear in the news a German minister telling Greeks they need to work harder."
On top of this, geographically speaking, its different thing to have Belgium as a neighbour and totally different story to have Turkey. (Greece' spending 3-5% of GDP in defence purposes).
Thanks for sharing :)
True!
Although when I talked about Byzantium I didn’t mean the empire but the city. The power didn’t lie in any city of Greece but in Byzantium, which is a substantially better geographic location than anywhere in Greece.
Agreed on the neighbor luck, at least after 1945
Being in possession of valuable, flat, fertile land= some one will try to take it from you. War=technological progress= wealth.
This also tallies with my research on collective intelligence - check out the last chapter (e pluribus unum) in the augmented collective intelligence at www.supermind.design
I started reading your paper the other day. It’s very interesting — but very long. Is here a place where you have digested the core points, as an introductory piece of content?
There’s an “executive summary” on the website - link here https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5e95059565bf963c169f906a/t/5f26d975b4be7d6b1c3eed8e/1596381559289/Augmented+Collective+Intelligence+Summary+Published.pdf Else you can look at specific chapters, and disregard the technical notes since they’re more for implementation.
Very interesting Tomas. Easy and fun to read. Looking forward to your development about Spain from the eyes of a Catalan reader
Ah! I cover Spain, France and a few other countries in a future article. It might be for premium readers only. The only thing I'll add: My views of Catalonia have pretty dramatically changed since I've been writing about this topic!
Claro y conciso . Clarividente. Me encanta y aclara para quien no lo sepa, las diferencias de reparto. Gracias¡¡
Very interesting and well written article however I don't understand the connection with the education at the beginning when you state that they don't teach you the actual things. Everything you wrote in the article is explained and thought in the school since the elementary school, at least in Italy and I am pretty sure in Europe. We spent hrs in understanding the importance of the geography: just think about Egypt or better the Mesopotamia. I am instead curious about your finding on how the technologies and the current period can change this "natural" behavior.
I can confirm this (at least partially) from German school education. The connection between geography and mostly the early civilisations/empires (Egypt, Greece, Rome) was part of the curriculum. For the time from the middle ages on, the aspect of „geography is fate“ was not the focus anymore however in History lessons. I am very curious how this series here continues as, obviously, geography becomes far less important as we can now send pictures of cats around the globe with the speed of light.
I'm very glad to hear! I've been in the Spanish, French, and American educational systems, and I didn't learn it this way. Sure, they talk about both hist and geo, and connect them a bit, but I never had the causality. Glad to hear it's not the same experience for all!
The Indian education system fits this description quite well. Mostly a deluge of dates. No context, no co relation or causality.
... the old civilizations ARE part of the German History curricula. My son (5th grader) excerps Ancient Egypt, the bijective relation of civilization with the River Nile, the transition from just fertiliting the riverbanks to necessity to use papyrus and develop writing to collect tributs for collectively watering the land professionally, the jump in civilization through success of societal organisation and technology ...
History and geography, so good! Very nice North-South (due to the plates) argument complementing Jared Diamond’s East-West (Guns, germs...) arable land thesis. So interesting, thank you!
Ah you're going to love the next article!
Fascinating analysis - looking forward to the next installments, particularly on Technology. Thank you!
Thanks!
if i look at the map i also notice tie danubian plains and i must say the southern part of romania(except the capital bucharest and the back sea ports) and northern part of bulgaria(not only are not united,even though your predictions would suggest that) but are poorer than the mean of their countries.why is that?how does that align with your views and do you have any prediction about this area of the world?
The Pannonian Basin is a geographic unit, but it’s not coastal. The parts closer to Central Europe are more connected to its trade and are thus richer. The mountainous parts in the south, north, and east should geographically be even poorer Thant the plain for these reasons.
Somebody's been reading George Friedman
I haven't AFAIK! What would you recommend from him?
I have another theory but its related. Its too hot the closer you get to the equator for you to be able to want to do much. As we know the heat tires you out. So its not just the lack of water but also the fact if most people around you are not supporting the world you live in with intense commerce you won’t get anwhere much. Look at the old world map and you get the same results
When I sent this to a friend he wrote "Interesting and edifying. One thing he doesn’t mention (yet) is climate. I seem to recall someone (I seem to think it was Montesquieu) theorized that northern/colder climate nations were more advanced than southern/warm weather nations because of climate. Warm weather made people less ambitious and industrious and more hedonistic. I responded that I'm not sure the theory of climate has sufficient supporting data.
Egypt, Greece, Italy, the Incas, the Aztecs, the Ottoman Empire, to name a few were all
founded in warmer climates and dominated big swaths of the globe for a time. During the
Roman Empire, it was northern Europe that were considered barbarian including what is now
the British Isles. It would seem that the development of "technology" driven by trading
over waterways, the consequent sharing of knowledge, and the rewarding impacts of such
information to do things better gave those groups great rewards, and tangible advantages, along with influence and power.
One might argue that the decline of such powerhouses of the warmer climates may be due in part to their incorporation and insidious influence of religions, more than anything
else, that came to interfere with the progression of knowledge to such a degree that Europe entered what has been referred to as "The Dark Ages" which stunted learning until the Renaissance when religious "doctrines" could be pushed back by the compelling elements of science.
One can see that tendency today as nations, including ours, struggle with the forces of
fearful religious groups for influence in how we live. I know of no country dominated by
theocracy that is a model of democracy, personal freedoms, and the development and
encouragement of new ideas. Ironically, the so called communist nations have borrowed
heavily from religious organizations in their demand for unquestioning faith, absolute
loyalty, and personal surrender to the tenants of "the system". I would offer that the
successful indoctrination of humans from birth with the principles of such mind numbing
and anti-thinking dictates are at the core of much of today's strife and unconscionable
stupidity.
Ah I will be writing so much about these topics! A few will be about the role of technology. Yet another one about how Geography is determined by... Astrophysics!