Most notably, the Eurasians had access to a rich mixture of the best grains and beans in the world for food production (as opposed to “hunter-gatherer”-style food acquisition) and the most valuable, domesticable animals.
The Culture Gap
The Africans, North Americans, South Americans and Australians did not. Meanwhile, diffusion of resources and technology across the East-West-oriented Eurasion continent was easy, while such diffusion on the North-South-oriented continents of Africa and the Americas were not, for both climatory and geographical reasons.
The combined effect of these advantages led almost inevitably to exactly what happened: a massive gap in the rate at which Eurasian cultures advanced vis-a-vis these other cultures, such that, by the time the Old World and New World collided, the latter peoples didn’t have a fighting chance.
A Plug for ‘Plutonomics’
One striking feature, pertinent to other columns in thefrontpageonline.com, is that the subtitle of GGS could accurately be changed to “A Plutonomic Theory of History”. Specifically, the author essentially proceeds by straight plutonomic analysis from front cover to back cover without relenting: he identifies the major environmental appreciables, both positive (flora, fauna, and mineral resources) and negative (germs, geographical boundaries, climatory incompatibilities).
He then matches—or shows the absence of a match between—these appreciables and the corresponding capacities, both positive (ability to read) and negative (immunity from disease), of the various peoples on the five populated continents.
He explains “the fates of human societies” on the basis of this interaction. In short, GGS is literally a plutonomics-based argument, albeit unintentionally so.
Pointless vs. Focused
As an aside, reading this work immediately after having read Freakonomics made for quite a contrast: GGS is as focused as Freakonomics is pointless, the former as integrated as the latter is random.
On another side point, notice that environmental destruction is far from a new problem.
Little Horse Sense
In fact, as GGS points out, the extinction of horses—probably from over-hunting by humans—in North America in about 13,000 B.C. was a pivotal event in human history: if Spanish conquistadors had met Native American cavalry instead of infantry, and Native American cultures had had all the other benefits of this beast of burden, world history would probably look very different.
The lesson is clear: environmentalism is not just for tree-huggers. It’s a political, military, and cultural issue with nation-making and nation-breaking consequences that dates back several millennia.
Thanks to and lavish applause for Jared Diamond, author of Guns, Germs, and Steel.
S.E. Harrison is the author of “Plutonomics: A Unified Theory of Wealth.” (http://plutonomics.wordpress.com).