> The critique is: there's a difference between taking decades to colonize it (hence "decisive") and centuries to colonize it.
Cool. Now tell me what the difference is.
This argument just seems silly to me. Is the argument really that it could have gone the other way?
Is there a reasonable counterfactual where the Aztec civilization successfully repelled European colonization efforts and eventually attacked and held European home countries?
Like from a vantage point of the mid 1400s when none of this had happened yet was that an equally likely outcome?
I mean that’s superficially plausible to me. Maybe it was just historical luck of the draw. If that’s what critics think then the critique should say that without hedging.
Cool. Now tell me what the difference is.
This argument just seems silly to me. Is the argument really that it could have gone the other way?
Is there a reasonable counterfactual where the Aztec civilization successfully repelled European colonization efforts and eventually attacked and held European home countries?
Like from a vantage point of the mid 1400s when none of this had happened yet was that an equally likely outcome?
I mean that’s superficially plausible to me. Maybe it was just historical luck of the draw. If that’s what critics think then the critique should say that without hedging.
If not, the next question has to be why.