LoL, I seriously doubt you read or more probably understood anything in the second book you're recommending. But I'm glad you brought it up since that was what I had in mind when I discussed China and Japan's isolation from the rest of the world and the advantages the Middle East had in being at the center of trade routes to explain East Asia's lack of progress in comparison to some other civilizations.
I guess it doesn't get any more ironic than that (especially since you're spewing quasi triumphalist explanations for the success and lack thereof for historical peoples).
But hey, thanks for recommending a book you didn't seem to understand.
When the Islamic empire was producing all the scientific discoveries in the world at the time
Suuuure they were.
I'm sure there were small minded youths who were going round saying 'empirically, the Asiatic man is more intelligent than the uncouth pale-skinned barbarians living to the west of us - they don't wash, read etc'.
I'm sorry, do you have any comment to the overwhelming scientific evidence that there are physiological and anatomical differences between ethnic groups - including mathematical ability, brain volume, athleticism, etc?
And tell me, why would I expect people to have all the same abilities when they evolved over tens of thousands of years to unique environments? Why would people who live in the plains of Africa have the same abilities as those who live in the mountains? To me, it's logical that if endurance is more valuable to survival than explosive speed, then a people will come to inherit that trait and the ability run in short bursts of speed will be lost because it either has not value or is not used. And in evolution, if you don't use it you lose it.
But hey, I'm patient. I'll let you reply to anything I've said beyond book recommendations, herp a derp comments or brown supremacist statements.