Guns, Germs and Steel

I am almost finished `Guns, Germs and Steel' by Jared Diamond.

It tries to answer the question...
`Why did Europeans take over the Americas and Africa and not the other way around'

I think it successfully stops people from saying...
`If we whites hadn't arrived, the blacks probably would still be living in huts and wouldn't have yet invented the wheel'.

Here are some points that stood out for me.

1. The wheel was independently invented in two places, neither being from the ancestors of white Europeans. Mesoamerica (Mexico) and the Fertile Crescent (Israel/Palestine/Jordan). What made the wheel spread and be used in the Fertile Crescent was the domestication of animals in China. Wheels only really had use if there were domesticated animals to pull vehicles. The wheel didn't spread in Mesoamerica because there were no domesticated animals.

2. The language of Christ and the people of the area were Afro-Asiatic, not European.

3. China was on the verge of an Industrial Revolution and `discovered' Africa and America in the 1400s. It was only a dispute between the Eunuchs and the Ruling Powers that lead to hundreds of years of isolationism. This was mainly because China was unified so the decision of a few could not be disputed. Columbus on the other hand got turned down by several of the princes of Europe and changed allegiances several times until the Spanish King and Queen after much begging and pleading decided to sponsor him. Only once everyone saw how well he was doing did they decide that this whole `New World' thing was a good idea.

4. Things spread easier along an East-West axis, which is part of the reason things grew so quickly in Eurasia. When you have a North-South axis, the climate and conditions change. A result of this was that the Bantus spread South from Nigeria, but stopped at the Fish River, because beyond the Fish River, their crops did not grow. If they had not stopped at the Fish River, but had carried on to Cape Town... history would have been quite different.

There is much much more I found interesting in the book, but that will have to wait for another post. This one is long enough already.