Catastrophe: An Investigation into the Origins of Modern Civilization
Catastrophe: An Investigation into the Origins of Modern Civilization – Review
David Keys is more a storyteller than a historian. While his prose is simple and engaing, it is deployed to cover up several gaping holes in the evidence he uses. The number of other interpretaions of tree ring and ice core evidence are completley largely ignored (it is strongly suspected thay simply reflect local, and not necessarily climatic, conditions), casting the existance of ANY disaster at all into doubt. His use of textual evidence is fraught with supposition, all his chronicles and myths lacking all historical credibility. particilarly with the chinese texts, his performance of organizing events important because of their statistical relevance is devoid of any qualative element. Even if it is generally conceded that a lack of encouraging evidence does not really make Key’s inpossible, his freely mingling of fact and fiction is manipulative and decieving. He KNOWS a little, but professes to know a lot. This slightly patronising, narrow, un-self-critical method is inadequate in an accademic historical context.