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Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies Jarred Diamond
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History is never the same again. Now I think of history geographically. The book, recommended by James Gosling and Bill Gates, tried to answer a daring question, “Why is the world today dominated by Eurasian descendants, instead of Australian, Native American, or African?” Jarred Diamond refused to accept the common and obvious answer that people from the Eurasia continent are genetically superior. All people are intellectually about the same, he has observed that first-handedly. There must be a different answer.
This is where you should stop reading, unless you don't mind me ruining the book.
Homo Sapien started from Africa and Eurasia. After many thousands of years, they migrated to America and Australia. When they came to the new continents, they quickly hunted all big mammals to extinction. Those mammals never saw human before and therefore defenseless. We human were more than happy to digest the protein.
Back in Eurasia, specifically around the Fertile Crescent and China, people started to develop agriculture. That changed the society to sedentary, from nomadic. Agriculture was more effective in food yield. Domesticated animals provided milk, meat, and energy other than human muscle. Population and density both increased. Technology, civilization, and political structure developed. Germs from animals jumped to human and people developed resistance to them.
But the diffusion of those advances encountered natural barriers in America and Africa. These two continents were delayed by more than 10,000 years in terms of food production technology and other progresses that come with it. Around 500 years ago, the clash happened when Eurasian developed modern ocean capable transportation.
Jarred claimed that germs Eurasian brought over killed more native Americans and Aboriginal Australian than guns. Historical records show that common germs wiping out whole native American and Aboriginal Australian tribes. Their populations reduced to a fraction of that before the encounter and the continents are now entirely dominated by Erasmus.
The most controversial chapter is the epilogue. Jarred speculated the reasons why China is less dominant than western Europeans. In that chapter, he observed something very unique about Chinese — it is the only old continental culture that remained unified for over 3000 years. Not even USA enjoys the same consistency in language and political unity. For thousands of years, China has been centrally governed. For this reason, it enjoyed centuries of leading position in technology and innovation. But since about 500 years ago, the unity reared its ugly side. A single government can stop or reverse the progress much easier than a diverse one. China stopped ocean exploration in 1500 A.D. and missed the opportunity to colonize America. European came few hundred years later and profited handsomely. Similarly, China stopped metallurgy, guns, rocket, clock, water-powered mills, etc. The diversity of Europe slowed down its innovations but also provided more venues for them to survive. Columbus, for example, tried many kingdoms before being funded by Spain. If he was in China, there will be no 2nd chance for him.
Is history predictor for future? Is so, what has Jarred taught governments and corporations today?
How exciting.