way off the list center

[Brian D. McCary]

This has wandered pretty far afield, but I'm posting it anyways.  Monte
Davis' post on the Aztecs brought to mind one of the most interesting
books I've come across, William McNiel's "Plauge's & Peoples".  I probably
have the spelling wrong.

P&P is a history of human disease and its impact on human history
and culture.  The premise is that people (or living organisms) face
conflict on two level: macro-parasites and micro-parasites.  Macro-parasites
would be things like raiding parties, preditors, societal bodies (read 
govt.) and the like, while micro-parsites would be viruses, bacteria, ect.
He basically feels that we've studied macro-parasites pretty well,
but have been unwilling to look at history and the effects of micro-
parsites.  I think he does an excellent job defending his premise.

The relevant part: his departure point is the question of how Cortez
and six hundered men managed to topple an empire of more than a million.
His conclusion is biological warfare:  the spainiards carried with them
a host of diseases to which they were immune, which they passed on to
the Aztecs.  (Interestingly, after the first major battle, which the
Aztecs won decisively, putting Cortez in retreat, there was a huge
die-off in the Aztec forces, something like 80%, due to violent onset
of smallpox.)  McNiel wondered why the Aztecs didn't have diseases 
which had a similar effect.  In order to answer this question, he traces
the origins of the North American natives, which, in turn, points out
their role as macro-parsites on the North American large mammal population,
including horses, oxen, and mamoths.   There are some weak points in
his development, but it is a stunning effort, overall.  

There's so much more that I couldn't possibly do it justice.  The book
is, to an extent, anti-Pynchonian, since the premise de-emphisises the
role that people have had on the course of history.  At the same time,
however, it undermines both the happy-loving-aboriginal-tribe view
of history and the western-culture-won-because-it's-superior party
line.

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Brian McCary