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Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond has a clear focus, seeking and convincingly providing the answer to the question "why did human development proceed at such different rates on different continents?" In other words, why did Columbus discover America and Pizarro conquer the Incas rather than the Inca "discovering" and conquering Europe? Why did Europe colonize Africa instead of vice versa? And he isn't satisfied with simply considering the immediate causes -- "Guns, Germs, and Steel" -- but rather pushes back in time 13, 000 years trying to determine why it was that Europe and not the Incas that had the guns, germs, and steel. His approach is scientific, with a bend towards Darwinian biological explanations. He is not interested in the technicalities of historical accident, but rather the broad sweep of history. And his inquiry into this one question leads to one fascinating insight after another.
Geography, in particular, islands like Madagascar and New Guinea plays a very important role in Guns, Germs, and Steel as well. Their geographic position provided many substantial affects such as useful geographic position, wealth, and important satellite colonies. The extensive East-West orientation of the Eurasian landmass, as opposed to the North-South orientation of Africa and the America proves to be the crucial determining factor in the fate of man. By the time he has laid out all the evidence and his conclusions, which before would never have occurred to you, seem patently obvious. "That demographic shift of the last 500 years [from Europe to the Americas]... has its ultimate roots in developments between 11, 000 BC and AD 1. " (p. 375) "In short, Europe's colonization of Africa had nothing to do with differences between European and African peoples themselves, as white racists assume. Rather, it was due to accidents of geography and biogeography -- in particular, to the continents' different areas, axes, and suites of wild plant and animal species.
That is, the different historical trajectories of Africa and Europe stem ultimately from differences in real estate. " (pp. 400 - 401) .".. some environments provide more starting materials, and more favorable conditions for utilizing inventions, than do other environments. " (p. 408) Basically, food production is essential to the growth of large concentrations of population, to the rise of states and the consequent rise of writing and technology. Food production ultimately depends on biology and evolution and related geographic considerations; hence the science of biology can provide insights into the course of human history and ultimate destiny of man. At the same time, domestication of large mammals for food, work, and warfare plays an important role in history. Also, this leads to the passing of animal-borne diseases to man, leading to differences from one continent to another. The degrees of exposure and immunity to those diseases, which, too, plays an important role in history with diseases from Europe decimating the native populations of the Americas and also of Australia.
Dealing with all of human history, worldwide, in very broad strokes, Guns, Germs, and Steel focuses on what really matters: geography, food production, diet, domestication of mammals: all the stuff that traditional history courses ignore. Bibliography:
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