This week on the blog, we finish up our discussion of the Fremen Mirage, the pop-history myth that 'hard times' make 'strong men' who are morally and martially superior to their 'decadent' adversaries and why this is so unhelpful as a historical concept.https://acoup.blog/2020/02/28/collections-the-fremen-mirage-part-iv-desert-power/ …
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If by 'twist facts' you mean acknowledge the apparent exception, openly concede the facts you note and then point to the degree to which the fellows in question don't at all fit the literary trope we are discussing (and thus cannot save it), then yes. I did that.
When I teach my students argumentation, this is the bit we call "considering counter-arguments." You can reject a counter-argument or - what I do here - incorporate it into your own thesis. The Mongols are the real deal, but not because they're 'hardtime-strongmen.'
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The Mongols - and other steppe nomads - are effective because their specific pattern of subsistence plays into a specific pattern of warfare so well. Other, similarly 'hard-timey' peoples - including other nomads! - don't perform nearly as well.
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Even if we look at just steppe nomads, that’s over 2000 years of military might. Usually societies got around this problem, by paying them off and divide and conquer. That’s how China was kept from being overrun all the time.
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