African History Disproves “Guns Germs and Steel” by Jared Diamond

[@CynicalHistorian]

Thanks for watching, and please consider supporting the channel by buying merch: teespring.com/stores/the-cynical-historian Or by donating to my Patreon: www.patreon.com/CynicalHistorian See following replies for corrections and additional info, but first, check out the collaboration playlist: kzbin.info/aero/PLivC9TMdGnL_nFh7EtyLykEbzxCMH7nkB

[@CynicalHistorian]

*errata* 10:32 - not "Blaut's theory" but "Diamond's theory" (thx PunkSci)

[@CynicalHistorian]

*Racist comments will result in a ban.*

[@coltoncarrington2407]

@@CynicalHistorian have you ever heard of the book "The Accidental Superpower" by Peter Zeihan? I would love to see a video of your thoughts on it.

[@johnsphpaulin1162]

@@CynicalHistorian There is one theory that I heard about that I personally think is far more convincing. It is that because Europe has both a consistent and reliable climate that lends itself very well to agriculture, and a large number of different peninsulas and mountain ranges that made it impossible for any one civilization to control the entire region for any significant amount of time, European societies had both of the wealth and the impetus to constantly search out new and meaningful Innovations that could give them an edge over their rivals. Compare this to most regions in Africa that can support sustained agriculture, which were more often than not able to be dominated either directly or indirectly by a single Society. The same is true of the Middle East, India, and Eastern Asia which were all usually either controlled by a single overarching Empire or in limits of what could be described as a Warring States period that would usually results in another Empire conquering most of the region. If you don't mind me asking I'm curious what your opinion on this theory is, as I think it does a fairly decent job of answering the question question of why Europe dominated the world.

[@LambentLark]

My theory is, the weather is the reason Europeans progressed faster. The inevitability of freezing cold winters made procrastination deadly. If you live in a hot climate, catastrophe still comes, but at a slower rate. Getting things done in the quickest possible manner can actually be counter productive in the heat. Work to hard, over heat, ya gotta rest. In northern climates, you rest and you freeze. The populations learned different survival habits and those habits lead to invention to expedite their needs.

[@Oxtocoatl13]

It bears remembering that in Africa, germs protected the locals, not the colonizers. Europeans couldn't survive in the interior before quinine was introduced from South America and grown on mass plantations in Indonesia. The New World fell to smallpox, steel swords and horses, but Africa remained impossible to take until the Europeans had access to the resources of the entirety of the rest of the world and the industrial revolution had kicked into high gear, producing machine guns and steamboats. It's weird that Africa is seen as a place that was easy to divide up, considering it was only done when Europe had gained a massive upper hand and even then lasted less than a hundred years in most parts of Africa.

[@tyronechillifoot5573]

True the Portuguese suffered numerous defeats from african states and could only take the complete defenseless swahili cities but got destroyed when they attacked Ajuran Sultanates

[@ChiChiLand299]

biggest reason it took so long is because unlike the native Americans who got all killed by disease in Africa's case it's the other way around were Europeans and horses were the ones dying of disease. As well as the fact that the natives didn't die of which meant there were still many millions of them to fight against Invaders. In the Americas and Australia over 90% of the natives died within 50 years of contact.

[@saunleecoetzee9170]

Actually that is only partly correct, Africa, especially Southern and South Western areas were badly hit by smallpox. Angola, Namibia and the so called 'Khoi/San' people were decimated. It also had impact in the DRC region interior. The Gold Coast and East Coast were inoculated by trade routes. Slavery and colonization completed the triple whammy for Angola.

[@Oxtocoatl13]

@@saunleecoetzee9170 I actually didn't know that. Interesting. I guess that's a healthy lesson in remembering that Africa is huge and diverse and any blanket statement about is is bound to be untrue in some parts of it.

[@edgykeed5229]

@@saunleecoetzee9170 I have read somewhere that several Africans ethnic groups have been aware of inoculation way before it was commonplace in the West. A slave named Onesimus informed his American master of it from his experiences with inoculation against smallpox as a child, who spread it and became a member of a prestigius scientific institution while Onesimus was forgotten since he tried to escape slavery and failed.

[@puffapuffarice]

I'm on the fence with this video. It feels like it just ended almost mid thought. I think you might want to

[@wildfire9280]

Wait, what? I don't get it, can someone please explain the joke to me, all you did was cut

[@hq4287]

H

[@Boraheartsss]

@@wildfire9280 F

[@draco_1876]

Huh?

[@pierzing.glint1sh76]

I see what you did there

[@TJ-hs1qm]

I can travel by horse from Portugal to Korea; however, horses do badly in jungles and rainforests. And approximately 50% of the continent can be considered inhospitable, accessible only to highly skilled and experienced people. 30% to 35% for the Sahara and the Namib Desert, and roughly 20% is rainforest. Adding to this, there are huge challenges navigating the rivers and waterfalls, which is still a main obstacle for the transportation of food and goods. Africa has very few natural ports compared to its size as well as a rugged and steep coastal line. Climate and geography undoubtedly play significant roles.

[@MP-uw1qc]

Most of Africa is not jungle and rainforest, it is savannah and desert. The main issue limiting domesticated horses is disease, for which they did not have immunity to.

[@jaimeosbourn3616]

@@MP-uw1qc He didn't say it was. The figure he gave was 20%. please read someones post before responding

[@Restrocket]

Europe was all covered in impassable forest before it was cut down

[@ibrahimsuleiman8473]

You do realize that most of Africa is not jungle, example the Hausa people of Nigeria have a very rich horse culture.

[@jenniferh7020]

@@ibrahimsuleiman8473 Like Jaime Osbourn right above you pointed out, he said 20% of it is; and it does form a belt around the equator that is rather hard to penetrate and cross.

[@meganc1539]

I never finished reading Guns, Germs and Steel - I lent my copy to a friend from Rwanda, who never gave it back (because he was fascinated by it, rather than having thrown it away). Hearing the challenges you bring up makes a great deal of sense... I feel that Diamond's explanation should be combined with how Europe's geography created a natural selection push to colonialism. They were: A) constrained to a way tighter area than any other compeating nations, B) had huge areas of exposed coast lines, pushing them to compeat in developing stronger and more aggressive Navies (a quick look at who successfully invaded whom typically involved boats, especially as centuries passed), C) used up their own resources rapidly and had to go seeking resources elsewhere to keep compeating with each other. The explanation that, whatever other factors were relevant, Europeans had much more intensive forced competition than other continents, and especially competition involving invading by boat, and that they were jammed together in a way that involved much more spreading of diseases than other places with more natural distance, seems like it explains a fair bit... Not everything, but quite a lot. This isn't a question of superiority, btw, just specialisation.

[@squamish4244]

It is a good explanation, except that a lot of the same factors applied to India as well. It was politically fragmented for most of its history, had huge coastlines and a huge navy and yet never developed the way Europe did. It did have far more resources, so it wasn't looking outward. However, recently historians have convincingly argued that India was very close to reaching Europe's 'takeoff' trajectory a few centuries after it. Parts of India were in a state of proto-industrialization when the British conquest interrupted that. Then the British robbed India blind for 150 years, helping to power their own industrialization, while suppressing India's. Their policies may have caused the deaths of 100 million people. Had the Mughal Empire not collapsed and India fragmented yet again in 1700, leaving it vulnerable to British colonization, things might have gone very differently. But then we'd have to deal with the case of why a hegemonic state managed to industrialize just as well as Europe. It would have imported European technologies, but the point is that it was even in a position to do so politically and economically, whereas e.g. China was not. And if Britain hadn't started conquering India for another hundred years after the Mughal collapse, it might have industrialized anyway, for the same reasons. Bengal and Mysore were damn close in the late 1700s. In which case, in another century, India would have been too strong for the British to colonize. It's this sort of stuff that Diamond skipped right over in his book, if he was even aware of it. I found the last chapter to be remarkably weak, even when I first read it, as if the last 500 years were basically predetermined. Recent research of mine has strengthened this notion.

[@nosuchthing8]

Good post. My problem is that it seemed like pseudo history. He needed to at least have some computer models to back up part of his claims.

[@chrishooge3442]

I would add that Europe's shorter growing season forced societies to plan ahead. That ultimately resulted into Kingdoms and Empires that spanned the globe with colonial ambitions. Those in turn resulted in Imperial clashes that necessitated technological improvements. The final clashes being WWI and WWII which broke all the Imperial powers and left the US as the last industrial economy and navy standing.

[@TaigiTWeseDiplomat--Formosan]

Is that hell or just life.

[@jaydubya3698]

I don't know...though I agree with this presenter's main conclusion---that the reasons why Europe came to dominate the world can actually never be known--I don't think Diamond completely missed the mark as far as Africa is concerned. Though the argument that Africa was limited because of its axis does seem a bit weak, there are other factors: it never developed writing; you can't do much in the Sahara; the Congo is still, to this day, pretty much impenetrable; the Namib is harsh; the number of large and wild animals make for intense resource competition; Africa has tsetse flies, which are not on any other continent. So sure, there were some advanced population and trade centers, as there were in Asia and the Americas, but mulitple dense population centers didn't spring up in close proximity to each other as they did in Europe, which drove competition and arms races.

[@folding1490]

I always think a good way of putting the size of Africa into perspective is that the Sahara alone is larger than the 48 contiguous states.

[@stevenschoeffler8036]

Also the small population of Africa

[@DieFlabbergast]

... and there's almost no-one there. The Sahara is hardly representative of Africa as a whole, and I would point out that Eurasia is BY FAR the largest continent.

[@youcantmakeclaimsofexisten3898]

@@DieFlabbergastlol bro he was just putting the size of the continent into context which is right. One desert in Africa is bigger than the whole US not including Alaska and Hawaii 🤷🏿‍♂️

[@brotlowskyrgseg1018]

I'm not sure if Jared Diamond also goes into this, but isn't Africa's relative lack of navigable rivers and the great distances between them a much better geographic explanation for the continents lack of development than his idea of continental axis? Europe by contrast has tons of natural waterways, which makes it much easier and cheaper to exchange goods and thereby ideas over long distances.

[@CynicalHistorian]

Generally no. His theory relies on domestication rather than navigation, but that's an interesting theory

[@brotlowskyrgseg1018]

@@CynicalHistorian Thanks for the answer. I would definetly say that Europe's abundance of natural waterways did a great deal in terms of maximizing potential for economic development and inovation by making it easy to spread knowledge and the necessary resources efficiently over a wide area. No matter how deep inside the interior of the continent you are, it's never a long way to the nearest major river that provides a convenient transportation route to a sea port, which in turn is never far away from the next one. Ships have been and still are the most efficient way to transport goods anywhere, so having this much free transportation infrastructure provided by mother nature is huge advantage. This definetly can't be the only explanation for modernization, since there are simular conditions elswhere (China and North America for instance), but it's undeniable that natural waterways have had a significant imapct on human development. It's not a coincidence that most of the world's largest cities are port cities located directly at or close to the mouth of a large river.

[@cmhealy14]

@@ArmedSammy I seem to remember Diamond intentionally gives examples that control for 'race' in his case study of the Maori and their encounters with their peaceful distant cousins, the Moriori.

[@DriveCarToBar]

The importance of navigation cannot be understated. European powers spent a couple hundred years trying to figure out the Northwest Passage. Even today, the idea of navigating the myriad paths through Northern Canada is enticing, with climate change reducing ice in the general area but its still not a regular occurrence. Diamond was onto something about geography, he just went entirely the wrong way with it. Humans are social and love to trade. It's why Italy (what would become Italy) became fabulously wealthy. Trade and travel made Italy a great place to be. Continental Europe is relatively easy to traverse, especially in the warmer months. You have rivers, not too many large mountain ranges cutting the continent in half. No deserts to speak of. Europe is easy-peasy. Africa is a goddamn monster by comparison. The largest and most forbidding deserts. Enormous equatorial rainforests. Heat. Cold. Disease. Predators. Unfriendly, isolated tribes. North and South America are mini-Africas in some sense. North America has multiple mountain ranges splitting the continent North-South. The Sierra Nevadas, The Rockies, The Ozarks, The Appalachians, etc. Areas of the Western USA are not pleasant places to be without the comforts of modern society. Native Tribes took advantage of everything they could but when things like fly larvae are a staple of your diet (The Mono people) you know you're in a rough part of the continent. What did it take to regularly traverse the USA? Wagons well-supplied by developed cities, and eventually railroads. Back up 300 years and you quickly realize why Africa didn't grow like Europe. Yes, Eurasian geography made it easy to build Europe faster, but its not like Africa wasn't developed. It's just that with distances that vast and conditions so harsh, a cohesive culture couldn't form. Social humans and nice spots for them to live, make society much easier to build. People like to live in nice places, it's why California is so goddamned expensive.

[@ilikedota5]

Well, lets see. Africa has the Nile, Niger, Zambezi, Congo, Limpopo, Senegal and some smaller ones. Europe has the Rhine, Danube, Neva, Seine, Elba, Rhone, Loire, Volga, Po among others. Europe is also more compact, with many smaller ones. Africa has alot of smaller ones too. I think you could argue both have alot of rivers, but Africa is just overall larger.

[@elgatto3133]

The entirety of africa: conquered Ethopia: y'all hear somn

[@elgatto3133]

@Jeremiah for like 9 years, then they went back to being independent. colonization never took major root in Ethiopia like it did in other colonized African countries

[@elgatto3133]

@Jeremiah also to be fair this joke of mine doesn't really give credit to how hard the Ethiopians fought to stay independent

[@JohnnyLodge2]

@Jeremiah yeah post League of Nations which Selassie thought was set up to prevent such things and was befuddled when he appeared before it to ask bro wtf?

[@OttoGraff-fu8pj]

Don’t forget about Liberia

[@JohnnyLodge2]

@@OttoGraff-fu8pj Liberian doesn't really count as that country was created by US to send ex slaves back to, it was already under a sphere of influence

[@Steampunkkids]

The Cynical Historian, I may not agree with all of your counter-arguments, but I get where you were going with it. My perception of the book comes from a different place than yours. I feel Diamond wasn’t saying that the geology of Africa made it impossible to grow certain crops or have certain animals. I perceived Diamond’s message to be more about the grains and animals that were indigenous to different areas of the world. And, due to the limitations to what was indigenous, society’s could only develop so far. To me, Diamond’s message was more a out how people shouldn’t treat those of African or Native American decent as lesser than Eur-Asian simply because Eur-Asia developed better technology first. To me, the message was about seeing how not all society’s started with the same resources and that they shouldn’t be judged. Is that not the message you got?

[@differentialequation9471]

Steampunkkids I think the problem of his theory is it prevent we truly find a way to further social development in the third world.

[@Steampunkkids]

Differential Equation, how so? Please explain as I did not get that at all

[@chrisedwards3866]

I agree with you, and think that it was probably the largest goal of the book. He does spend considerable time explaining the intelligence required to be a hunter-gatherer, and I believe he says that Yali was one of the smartest people he knew.

[@xJavelin1]

Well said. Diamond's book tried to explain why the West has been by far the most powerful part of the world in the past few centuries. He doesn't state or even imply that geographical advantages made this inevitable. Nor does he state them as unique. He's well aware that for much of recorded history what is now considered to be the West was little more than a primitive backwater. For the vast majority of the past 2 millennia it was Chinese civilization which was the greatest. And many other lands have been top dogs at various times too. He's trying to answer the question of "what changed?" So to go back several centuries and point to sophisticated and wealthy civilizations existing in Africa or elsewhere doesn't affect Diamond's hypothesis at all. In fact, perhaps it even strengthens it. How could a backwards, weak and puny backwater like Europe come to so completely dominate the world when the rest of the world was actually way more advanced than Europe? Well it had several geographical advantages which helped to enable incredible boosts in technology. Like steel, and guns (amongst others). The germs part is more important in conquering the Americas. That tech advantage ultimately proved unstoppable. But also only temporary.

[@cmhealy14]

I think Diamond just tries to put an anthropologist's approach to the nature vs nurture argument on humanity. He gives a good argument as to why Europe's development due to its environment allowed it to dominate other civilizations despite some of them being quite advanced. Didn't his theories come out of his work with the various peoples of Papua-New Guinea? Seeing how the diversity of its climes led to the extreme differentiation in terms of culture and tech of what is really just one 'race' of people.

[@guillaumerusengo9371]

I do agree with Diamond that spreading ideas and skills was made much easier and faster thanks to latitude and the geography of Eurasia.

[@sandal_thong8631]

Right. I think the Cynical is hung up on the map. Diamond goes into how grains and animals can spread East and West through a Mediterranean-style climate and latitude, which latitude line they follow in the documentary. In sub-Saharan Africa they domesticated some foods in Ethiopia, but how much did they spread across the continent? Furthermore, if sea trade was so great, why didn't more spices and foods from Southern India and Southeast Asia make it to tropical Africa? Also, storage of tubers and other foods in the tropics wasn't as good as grain in the temperate zone.

[@guillaumerusengo9371]

@@sandal_thong8631 Tassili n'Ajjer, Gao, Songhai, Mali, Djenne, Timbuktu, Kano, Sao civilization, Nabta Playa, Bouar megaliths, Kerma, Meroe, Makuria, Alodia, Sennar, D'mt, Suakin,...

[@guillaumerusengo9371]

Lamu, Malindi, Mombasa, Pemba, Zanzibar, Gede ruins, Kilua Kisiwani.

[@guillaumerusengo9371]

Mapungubwe, Manyikeni, Domboshaba, Ziwa, Naletale, Great Zimbabwe,.Khami, Mutapa,...

[@guillaumerusengo9371]

Ashanti, gold, goldweights, Dahomey, Nok terracotas, Mbanza kongo, Luba-Lunda,...

[@coreywilliams4678]

Gun Germs and Steel was my first step into the world of history. At the time, it was novel for me to listen to someone try to reason out their arguments with primary and secondary sources. Jared Diamond might not have had all the answers, but I appreciate the time he put into writing that book. I might not be on the journey I am today without him.

[@davidward3848]

Guns, Germs, and Steel is 100% bullshit

[@bradsillasen1972]

@@pound7816 Can you support that statement? Links, dialogue, interviews etc?

[@weehudyy]

@@pound7816 What a crock . Have you read any of his other books ?

[@whyno713]

@@bradsillasen1972 don't feed the trolls, the p7 is obviously stupid. What I appreciated about the GGS is that itself lays out Diamond's weak points, ex it can be too deterministic, but boy did it provoke thought in this history noob. Quite grateful for it, would like to see it redone to a 2025 version tbh.

[@savagex466-qt1io]

What is the movie about ? Besides guns germs and steal lol

[@UsefulCharts]

I really appreciated this video. Like many people who dabble in history, I was familiar with Guns, Germs, and Steel. However, I was not familiar with some of the academic responses to it. So this was helpful. Definitely helps dispel some of the common misconceptions about Africa.

[@JukeboxTheGhoul]

Some Historiography is pretty good to read

[@bloodhawk122]

I got a history degree, it was sort of a meme where I came from. Everyone from students to professors joked about it.

[@stephenlitten1789]

@@bloodhawk122 There are a few books written by non-historians (but purporting to be histories) that historians like to point and then facepalm

[@catocall7323]

@@bloodhawk122 When it came out I definitely felt like the premises were not great. I'm only a history enthusiast though.

[@akiko3688]

@Faerûnian yikes

[@Le-cp9tr]

I’d actually argue the opposite, that African history is a great example of some of the principles in Guns, Germs, and Steel. For instance, West Africa has historically been a regional powerhouse with some of the wealthiest empires like the Mali calling it their home. However, because of the geographical barriers in Africa like the large mountain ranges, Sahara desert, thick wildernesses and difficult to navigate rivers, it was hard for trade to occur on a large enough scale for prosperity and advancement to be spread as easily as it could elsewhere. There’s a reason that East Africa remained mostly city states despite having trade with China and India, and that’s because external barriers prevented that prosperity to allow a major empire to flow Also note that Diamond’s argument is more meant to address why civilizations developed where they did and NOT about regional power shifts and the rise and fall of empires which are largely circumstantial

[@goldenfoxa1810]

There were large kingdoms in east Africa though like the Ethiopians and many somali sultanates I think the reason why these sultanates didn't expand to form an empire is due to non navigable rivers and you can only expand so far until you encounter the testse fly and malaria which horses can't handle and other domesticated animals

[@Le-cp9tr]

golden foxa Sorry, should have specified, the Eastern Coast bordering the Indian Ocean mostly remained city states. Ethiopia is an oddball because it had frequent interactions with everywhere from Arabia to Ancient Greece. It’s technically the oldest country with a Christian tradition. But, yes you are correct, should have been more specific to where I was referring to

[@blablablanogmeetbla3121]

Another reason is thee incredible cultural diversity in sub-sahara Africa. It's difficult to rule so many different kinds of people so a huge expansion was almost impossible before the hypothetical empire would collapse on itself.

[@Le-cp9tr]

blablabla nogmeetbla blablabla nogmeetbla It’s actually quite interesting. The reason for the genetic diversity and pronounced cultural differences is most likely due to geographical barriers such as great mountain ranges, dense forests, and impassable and unnavigable rivers. Such would limit both gene flow and interactions between peoples. There’s a reason the Bantu migrations took centuries to spread with them being the most unifying aspect to precolonial Subsaharan Africa. Therefore it’s no wonder why the cultures of Africa are so different and why there’s so much genetic diversity: there wasn’t anyone who conquered and enforced a singular cultural view

[@Hun_Uinaq]

blablabla nogmeetbla that kind of diversity is not a known in history. Usually, what happens is it the dominant power in poses its own language and culture on the smaller populations until they can achieve some form of homogeny. Then, it’s easier to rule the place.

[@infidelheretic923]

Concerning your first point. Africa’s East west axis is still smaller than Asia’s by a significant margin. Moreover Asia’s East West axis sits along a more temperate latitude.

[@g-rexsaurus794]

At the same time Asia has a lot of barriers like in South-East Asia(Zomia), Tibet or the Central Asian and Tarim basin and all the mountains inbetween.

[@briansaetre1642]

True. Also Europe, Asia and North Africa can be thought of as a single very wide axis that shared a lot of innovations and all produced powerhouse cultures. Sub-saharan Africa is very narrow in comparison. I think Diamond's explanation mostly holds up to this video's scrutiny. I don't remember if Jared went into it, but Europe and much of Asia also benefited from much better soils caused by the recent glaciations.

[@jackstrawful]

Infidel Heretic I agree, I think he’s dismissing the axis idea too completely. He doesn’t even mention the tropical vs temperate part of the argument - when he talks about Africa being almost as wide as it is tall, it just proves that he’s missing that vital aspect since that wide part is all tropics or desert.

[@Mishkola]

@Danny Archer Because it's a giant land-locked area, frequently dry and cold/hot as fuck. EDIT: It also happens to have been an engine of both european and asian civilization.

[@ringofasho7721]

That was my thought too. Cynical historian made a point to show that the east-west axis of Africa was large, all while overlooking the fact that the vast majority of that axis is inhospitable and virtually impossible to travel across.

[@Luvurenemy]

“My mom says there are a lot of black people in Africa.” - Cartman, South Park

[@jjnn2]

idk, sounds fake, might need a source for that

[@nyikomaswanganyi5983]

@@jjnn2 Lol he actually said it.

[@FroyourHistory]

@@nyikomaswanganyi5983 I think he's joking about the quote

[@rourkesdrift7614]

She shouldn’t generalize like that.

[@fullmetaltheorist]

Groundbreaking information.

[@thepangwin902]

The axis is a small part of it. What really drives the hypothesis is the animals that were available for domestication. For instance horses vs zebras. Different temperments. And in the Americas there were no big domesticated animals that were very useful for agriculture.

[@jonathanburmeister1946]

In North America yes, in South America the Inca empire had the LLama. Which immensely contributed to road building and trade.

[@chriswilliamson9993]

@@jonathanburmeister1946 Llamas are great, and they also had guinea pigs. But those 2 don't remotely compete with the host of useful domesticated farm animals available to Asia and Europe.

[@dennisfarris4729]

Exploitation. Not Invasion, divide and control, small tribes used as surrogates to rule over the former dominate groups. The old roman formula.

[@RileyBurke-dq3gf]

Peccaries

[@Lingbao-bm8dx]

Nah. The ultimate cause of it is actually agriculture and the crops endemic on the continent

[@catocall7323]

I want to thank you for correctly explaining why the Mercator projection is the way it is. It was always meant for maritime use and was never meant to be a political statement.

[@avaevathornton9851]

When I was reading GG&S, I never got the impression that it was meant to explain the differences between Europe plus the white Anglosphere plus Japan and the rest of the world. The vast majority of the text deals with the differences between the major continental landmasses _before_ the 15th century. The events of the last 400 or so years, in which Europe accelerated ahead of the rest of the world and in which Subsaharan Africa was left behind even by other developing regions, are only mentioned briefly toward the end of the book and these parts are clearly less developed than the main body of the text. To me these parts read more like offhand speculation than a position the author was seriously trying to defend. Certainly the book has nothing to say about the difference between British and Iberian settler colonies, it has nothing to say about the difference between Japan's rapid modernization and China's slide into utter misery and carnage, and it has nothing to say about why countries like Botswana, Costa Rica, China, and Malaysia have done so much better in recent decades than countries like DR Congo, Haiti, Afghanistan, and Niger. And I don't think it ever intended to. I'm not sure if Diamond has claimed that his book explains _current_ inequalities between countries or if I just wasn't paying enough attention, but I feel like a lot of people have taken this book and turned it into something much more profound than it was ever meant to be.

[@idori6611]

Agreed. And there is something so weak in Anglo scholarship. First, there is the money as greed and censorship issue. You just can't write a book called "Why America Sucks." So the answer has to be something white Anglos can stomach easily, at least to the author's mind which makes genuine scholarship even more weak. Second, to really understand you have to go live there, change your mind, etc. especially in the third world. No American or Westerner is willing to make that sacrifice. So it can only be an interpretation of a living reality. For example, Braudel says China's big mistake was to move the capital from Nanjing to Beijing. But he will never understand the general fear of the Chinese from the Mongols. China did not slide into miser by the way, it was attacked by the whole world.

[@fiddleback4903]

Costa Rica was settled by Spanish families. Unlike other parts of Central America. A lot of Basques to. It's the tropics, and very mountainous. Yeoman farm families like in the United States and Canada is the norm. There were hardly any native Americans there at all. It was considered a backwater and the poorest colony of the Spanish Empire. But it's been the exception to every rule of Central America. They even export food and have no military. And one of the highest literacy rates in the world. All alone they debunk Jared Diamond's book.

[@travisjohnson6703]

@@idori6611 China ran out of arable land at the same time that land became more productive and population exploded. The huge numbers of people,particularly men, without prospects led to unrest. The Manchu domination led to rebellion. And the loss of face in the Colonial era led to collapse. China had internal issues as well as external issues,there is never "a simple explanation." Mine, for example, leaves out trade issues and many other details.

[@spearfisherman308]

so of they countries you mentioned have only recently be doing better but that's because of an embracement of capitalism diamonds book was about how your moved forward at a faster rate then continents like africa, and dispels the idea it is because of race, that's the main thrust that he is making.

[@fiddleback4903]

@@spearfisherman308 Diamond is an evil man.

[@GnarledStaff]

You have not discredited any of Diamond's arguments, only pointed out that they are not monolithic, which he admitted in the book. The argument was not that continental shape determines the outcome of civilization, but rather that continental axis can influence the spread of plants and animals. Yes, humans crossed the Saharaearly on. To refute Diamond's argument you need to show that they brought plants and animals which thrived after crossing the Sahara- on those earlier trips, not centuries later. That eurasian plants thrived below the sahara when later introduced does not disprove the theory like you seem to claim. Rather, Diamond points out that the sahara, as well as other climates in Africa, prevented those crops from getting to the latitudes where they thrive until much later. The point is that latitude acts as a barriers that slows, not prevents, the transport of domesticated animals and plants.

[@CaomhanOMurchadha]

Alternative Hypothesis perfectly contradicts this garbage book. There is a ridiculous amount of false information in thay book. Wouldn't believe it was possible.

[@kevin6293]

Wait, why would being able to plant Asian vegetables in Europe have any effect of the technological development of Europe?

[@kevin6293]

Klaus Brinck, okay, so it’s about crop diversity. Was sub-Saharan Africa prone to famine? I’m no anthropologist, but it seems apparent to me that Africa’s climate and relative isolation must have played huge roles in their lack of development. From my understanding, sub-Saharan Africa never had bronze, which indicates that there were no tin mines in Africa, and that they couldn’t import it, which suggests to me that sub-Saharan Africa didn’t have nearly the same access to resources that Europe and Asia had.

[@CaomhanOMurchadha]

I think you're all missing the bigger point. You can talk about crops all fucking day long, but the key problem with this book in a nutshell is it's extreme appeal to environmental explanation for why some people did better than others. This radical belief that genetics doesn't have anything to do with how civilizations turn out. As if evolution stopped at the neck.

[@kevin6293]

Caoimhín Ó Murċaḋa, genetics are why European diseases wiped out the native Americans. Are you referring to something else?

[@julietfischer5056]

In the introduction of the book, Diamond didn't say he had THE answer. It's not his fault that people uncritically accepted his argument rather than investigating his ideas.

[@MBCthunderstruck]

@@andrewbergman4783 I LOVE that conversation

[@jesperburns]

Sure, but to this day, he's still peddling stuff that has now been debunked. Like the "you can't domesticate zebras" myth. I think I heard him say that this year in a conversation with Sam Harris. We knew we could when he wrote that book, and there's now videos of it online, yet he's still pretending we can't. He's a bullshit merchant, and knowingly so.

[@cygil1]

"Guns Germs and Steel" is full of contrived just-so stories, disingenous arguments, and selective evidence. He literally argues a handful of conquistadors could defeat massed armies because of steel weapons and armour, while the Aztec wooden weaponry would bounce harmlessly off. (Hint: BULLSHIT) He claims the Maori and Moriori cultures were radically different in their belligerance due to differing environments, despite evolving SIDE BY SIDE. He claims Africans didn't domesticate zebras because it's impossible, when we (as a commentator points out) knew it to be possible at the time he wrote the book. He's a bullshit artist of the first order.

[@LELANTOS11]

@@cygil1 the reason for the difference between Maori and moriori proclivity towards violence was circumstancial. The reason that the moriori became culturally peaceful was due to them living on the small Chatham islands with a population of about 2000 which obviously meant their small population didn't have much capacity to survive the proportional conflict that their Maori ancestors (they were originally Maori who colonized small islands and adapted culturally for survival) and 'cousins' endured. Other than that I agree with ur other points

[@Fuhrerjehova]

@@jesperburns Where and when have zebras been domesticated?

[@HogeyeBill]

Good review. I do think it gave the mistaken impression that Diamond believed in the axis theory for trivial reasons like the width and breadth of the continent. The reason that domesticated plants and animals more easily travel east-west rather than north-south is climate. Africa and the Americas had the same issue.

[@jryan2552]

But doesn’t he mention that crops brought from Europe by colonisers adjusted relatively easily to the new African climates?

[@cadentannery4626]

@@jryan2552 Yes, but just in southern africa. Climate zones ( or in our case, where certain plants can thrive ) tend to follow latitude. This is why western European crops were successful in NA, because they pretty much had the same climate. Now imagine mirroring the northern hemisphere over the equator. Europe would pretty much be located where southern Africa is, having somewhat the same climate. But more importantly the ability to grow the same crops. Of course there are always exceptions to the rule, but this is generally the rule of the thumb.

[@davidradtke160]

@@jryan2552 yes…southern Africa that had similar climates to Europe. So South Africa was pretty well colonized early on…but central Africa was much much harder to influence and control. A lot of crops brought to central Africa come from the Americas along similar latitudes.

[@blairweinberg6279]

@@jryan2552 Sure, but Africa had access to those crops for thousands of years before European colonialism. Why didn't they develop wide-spread economies and major political powers like Europeans did? I'm not saying I definitively know the reason, but there is *some* reason, and it's certainly not that Africans are simply incapable.

[@walkingmap]

Your thesis here doesn't so much disprove "Guns, Germs, and Steel" as put limits on its scope. As you said you think it still applies to the Americas. Also, one of the key points Jared Diamond makes is about the domestication of animals and of the major 14 types only cattle, Eastern Sahara, and the donkey, northeast Africa come from the continent and then only from the northern part. Having domesticated animals as a part of the culture for a longer time in Eurasia must have significantly freed up the humans there to more specialization etc. That certainly played a part in western hegemony, no?

[@CynicalHistorian]

that's a good way of putting it, though I'd point out animal domestication in Africa long predates other continents. Diamond's contention is that they are the incorrect animals for gaining hegemony. Problem is many of those animals were transported to Africa to great effect. Basically, history is a lot more complicated

[@walkingmap]

@@CynicalHistorian Amen to complicated history, makes it fun. Yes your conclusion holds that the question remains mostly unanswered. Looking up references about domestication all the major farm animals of Eurasia came earlier or at the same time as cattle see www.thoughtco.com/animal-domestication-table-dates-places-170675 Metal working, now there is where Diamond's contention about western hegemony has real weight, I think. Keep up the good work Cypher

[@TheEnoEtile]

@@CynicalHistorian lots of animals especially larger animals didnt do so well in the interior of Africa. The tsetse fly theory is fairly plausible. It must have had some impact since from what I remember, later in African history the tsetse was a root cause to the never ending demand for horses in Africa since they tended to not live very long.

[@Phrenotopia]

@@CynicalHistorian You're right in not going so far as to brand GG&S as pseudoscientific. It does present a theoretical framework for some useful interpretation, but as with every transient theory in science, it's not perfect. It's all about refining our understanding and this is what is happening with a qualified debate of this calibre.

[@Phrenotopia]

@Colin Cleveland Indeed! I think pinning it purely down to the proportional lengths of the axes may be too simplistic. There are the other factors like climate zones and how these affect population density and such.

[@markstuber4731]

Why is it racist to speculate societies that depended upon irrigation needed more central control to build and manage the canal? That's blaming the circumstances influenced the culture, not the genes. To me, just dismissing that theory as "racist " is just a thought terminating cliche.

[@emilycopping3956]

seems pretty obvious... the legitimacy of western democracy is greatly exaggerated and the tyrannical, manipulative, cruel depictions of Eastern powers were tools of colonial politics, not based on a good faith interrogation of Asian political philosophy. Secondarily, a LOT of dictators in Asia were propped up by the West against the will of the people that lived there. Orientalism is western condescension toward the east. Assuming all Asian people just love to be ruled by despots sounds pretty racist to me.

[@shooter5503]

Edward Copping It might not be so much as a comparison to legitimize western democracy but admitting that some societies requires the centralization of power to function as a unified state lest it fall to anarchy. I’m not a person who wholly believes in democracies which can be universally applied. Some cultures simply won’t accept democratic values and often devolve to infighting and separatism without the foundations to have citizens that appreciate democracy. Hell, China stills struggles to give water supply to millions of its people. Once governing a huge state with so many people, cultures, and various environments it becomes necessary to implement despotism unless the entire institution shatter into warring states. China would be the best example of this as even if there would be free elections within that state there are too many incompatible peoples that value contradictory beliefs. Unless this new Chinese mainland government wishes to fracture to separatist, it must implement a one-party democracy to remain a unified state and those in power will more often than not want unification. This willingness to glorify democracy under all circumstances can have fatal consequences in the failed projects like in Weimar Germany, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

[@jacobwiren8142]

@@shooter5503 Yeah, the reason democracy works in North America is because of the abundance of food and the commonalities of the inhabitants. Take the USA for example. What do almost all the people have in common? They are all descendants of immigrants who, for one reason or another, were not welcome in their original countries. That common cultural heritage binds the USA together. Because of racial mixing, almost every single US citizen can trace their ancestry back to a person who was exiled from their original country. That motivates us to cooperate in a democratic fashion, because we are a population of exiles trying to survive together. What does China have? They have 5000 years of history of using the SAME government system. Their heritage stretches back to a time when most civilizations didn't exist. They were pioneers of math and science, and the Great Wall can still be seen from outer space. That is the heritage that binds them together. To be born in China is to inherit that history, whether you want to or not, so why would they switch to anything different? At the end of the day, the "Communist Revolution" that they had was just an elaborate excuse to throw off western influence and reform the dynasty system, and it works just like it has always worked for 5000 years. Claiming it is "wrong" is just stupid since the Chinese clearly disagree.

[@lividtaffy7411]

Jacob Wiren great comment, I agree with your point. The Great Wall can’t be seen from space though, only from a very low orbit on a clear day.

[@jacobwiren8142]

@@lividtaffy7411 So from near-space? xD

[@airestesshistory8100]

I remember studying Diamond’s works in Physical Anthropology in community college, but we never used his theory in regards to Africa, but rather the Americas (in particular the decline of Easter Island).

[@TOITN]

Collapse is a great book.

[@evilemuempire9550]

The conquest of Africa doesn’t really fit super well into guns germs and steel does it? Like, with the exclusion of some trade ports and North Africa, the continent wasn’t really conquered until the 1800s whereas North America was colonized much earlier. So it could be argued that the fruits of the new world were what really gave the Europeans an advantage over Africa.

[@careymcmanus]

@@evilemuempire9550 You could also argue that the transatlantic slave trade significantly reduced the population of working age peoples in Africa significantly weakening their societies leading to the being more vulnerable to colonization.

[@careymcmanus]

I vaguely remember that his ideas about the cause of the decline of Easter Island are disputed with one theory postulating that it was not poor land management but stowaway rodents that led to the ecosystem collapse. I could be wrong though this was like 12 years ago

[@hochmeisterjer]

I think the problem with your counter-arguments to Jared is with scale. You claim Africa and its' civilizations had access to the same crops through trade and sometimes had similar political systems. You also claim Africa wasn't isolated, which is true. But the reasoning behind Jared's arguments still stand. Africa was isolated "enough" so that none of the crops that could have spread through trade were adopted (with notable exception of rice near madagascar). They had complex politcal systems but not "often enough" for them to rival the hundreds of states throughout Eurasia. History, especially at such a large scale, is complicated enough to find rareties to point out as proof for counter-arguments. However you ignore the big picture by doing this. Africa was definitely more isolated than Eurasia despite trade on the east coast and trade through the Sahara. They definitely had worst crops and domesticated animals. They definitely had great barriers to expansion and trade (Sahara, inner jungle regions). Pointing out singularities like the few sub-saharan states and how once entrenched european crops did grow there is insufficient proof for the overwhelming differences observed between continents.

[@marclacey2263]

Because the argument being made is largely an ideological one, based on the usual cherry-picking and shame the West tactics. The map example is typical of this approach. Who cares who lives in the biggest continent? Ideologues do. The map was not designed to belittle Africa. To suggest that it does is ludicrous. It is a navigational tool and that is its use. The video emphasises racist attitudes in the West throughout. How telling. Who like to use race as an argument? Racists do.

[@fuzzydunlop7928]

@@marclacey2263 It wasn't designed to belittle Africa - that's looking at the notion assbackwards. The whole idea is that the map was designed from a Western-centric focus - which it naturally was because that's who designed the thing. lol So no, nobody suggested that. Someone said one thing, and you heard another. Because you're a closet ideologue playing coy.

[@jamesgolden1304]

"the few sub saharan states" Africa had *many* different states or kingdoms, that *rose and fell,* no different than any other continent. To state otherwise is completely ignorant of the historical facts, concerning africa and her city-states.

[@hochmeisterjer]

​@@jamesgolden1304 To claim that African states were similar to Eurasian states in frequency, size and complexity is ignorant. You are comitting the same mistake this video has made by ignoring scale.

[@jamesgolden1304]

@@hochmeisterjer Your mistake is still clinging onto preconceived ideas of african states and being ignorant enough to not admit your lack of knowledge concerning historical facts dealing with the continent of Africa. The richest king to ever live wasn't even European. It was Mansa Musa, the Empire of Mali. You don't generate that type of wealth without high levels of sophistication, complexity, size and frequency with an advanced government bureaucracy to moderate such an expansion of an empire. That's just one example out of many but you already knew that right? Lol doubtful. Looks like someone needs to hit the library and read some history books. It'll help with your lack of knowledge on this subject.

[@SirCharles12357]

I've read Gun, Germs, and Steel. Still a great read, especially as a starting attempt to understand how human development occurred. Yet, I'm also happy that so much evidence has been provided to correct the many mistakes that Jared Diamond made. So in the end, a win-win by man! Thomas Sowell (Economist) also wrote on the "Africa Problem", I can't remember the books title, but he added, large ship unfriendly coast line, sheer number of languages, Tsetse fly (killing domesticated animals), and poor navigability of rivers.

[@jamberry8026]

You like Sowell, because he makes you feel comfortable blaming the victim and forget about the Native Americans who have now gone almost extinct because of your presence.

[@Alsatiagent]

@@jamberry8026 Your accusation is a complete non sequitur to an entirely harmless comment. It's as though you have a script and will paste anywhere you please. Some people from Europe might very well be descended from the first migrants to the Western Hemisphere but to denounce their very presence as guilty is just logic challenged.

[@moderatecanuck]

The Songhai Empire were able to use the Niger River to conquer its neighbor, while the Swahili coasts used the Red Sea to trade.

[@DonMeaker]

Diamond doesn't have to have all the answers to have some answers. After the development of commercial ships and shipping, the Mediterranean became a very good road from east to west, emphasizing the east west transportation routes in both Africa and southern Europe. In like manner, the north-south routes in east Africa were greatly enhanced by ocean going traffic. The criticism of Diamond reminds me of the criticism of geometric tactics of Jomini and Clauswitz based on the development of trains. One might also note that the east west length from Gambia to Somalia are rather long, permitting Diamond's thesis to operate there too, and indeed we do see significant early development of agriculture.

[@MrEnclave86]

@6:28 yeah but nobody was transposing crops on the Eurasian northern axis between India and the sparsely populated Siberia - so it’s relative size to the African one is kind of moot. Seems like a bit of a reaching argument Cypher.

[@patrickklocek3332]

Rice is not well suited to Europe but wheat is fine in north east China. Rice might have been OK for Egypt only.

[@willek1335]

@@LuisAldamiz I seem to remember that east asians have one and half times longer intestinal tube (Idk what you call it in English) to digest rice. The western half of Eurasian have shorter, which were better suited for wheat. It's one of those minor things people might not be aware of.

[@infini_ryu9461]

The difference between India-Siberia and Central America-North America is not all that much, we have evidence of Maize(Corn) travelling in every which direction and within centuries, not just on a north-south axis. Native Americans also have access to cousins of the Aurochs, ancestors of modern cows. Horses in fact originated in America, so they absolutely had those, they simply hunted them to extinction instead of domesticating them. Africans also had their very own cousins of the Aurochs(Cows) and Equus(Horses). The idea that they did not have access to anything is laughable to suggest to anyone honest enough in the discussion. GGS was supposed to be a dig at Europeans, but it also assumes that Native Americans are so dopey that they could not take any one of the boats(that they had) and sail up the coast of central America to avoid the terrain difficulties(Which we know they did), just like every other culture in existence that did so. The continental/axis/"summer and winter rains"(The part people convenitently leave out for good reason, as it's stupid) theory just doesn't stand up to scutiny. The only intellectuals who hold to it are those who didn't even bother to question it, they just use it to confirm their own biases.

[@ronagoodwell2709]

If I'm not mistaken the whole continental axis idea refers to the mass of territory stretching along the temperate zone where life was good--not too hot and not too cold. A sort of Goldilocks view of geohistory. Add rivers and you've got something.

[@iansings7428]

Yes, that was one of the reasons i remember as being significant in Diamond's theory. Latitude being similar "globally" (Goldilocks) Longitude being too variational. i also remember thinking to myself about why the "primitive/tribal" cultures of Oceania etc. didn't bother with technological advances. too easy to realise ! when you live in a paradise why change? "The Superior Western Cultures" are too materialistically greedy for their own good. Where are the smiling faces of these money/power hungry "never satisfieds" ???

[@myfairlady343]

​@@iansings7428 he also stated that afrikan local animals where never domesticated because they had a long time to adapt to humans as they came from africa and where as a consequence hard to domesticate. Examples being zebras.

[@jaredburrell6370]

The video's comparison between Africa's width and length really had nothing to do with the silk road corridor.

[@najminaufal1458]

In 6:29 you said eurasia has a n-s axis. The mercator projection distorts area further from the equator, so actually eurasia is much more e-w than it appeares on a map.

[@ringofasho7721]

I was looking for this comment. It spans nearly half the globe

[@zacharyhenderson2902]

Prior to the Industrial Revolution, African, European, Asian, an American kingdoms existed at similar points and technological innovation, and we're separated only by each nation's culture and available resources. However, from the Industrial Revolution onward, new technological innovations were made at such a rapid pace and we're not traded traded with African kingdoms in the same way that salt, gold, and slaves were. This meant that newly invented Technologies couldn't be implemented and adapted to use in Africa, and as a result Africans and Americans didn't have the opportunity to improve upon them. Geography did play a part in this, because People these days seem to forget how slow international trade was 500 years ago, and how rapidly European nations industrialized, and just how new many things we take for granted today are.

[@alexdunphy3716]

That's completely false. Europe has been the most technologically advanced civilization since the bronze age, China and hadn't been too far behind but then started to stagnate about 2kya until they started to pick up western technology. Africa has been behind most places except northern hunter gatherers groups and Australian natives forever, don't try to pretend otherwise

[@zacharyhenderson2902]

@@alexdunphy3716 not true. First off, "Europe" is not a single civilization and the northern and central European tribes were about on par with most central African civilizations until their Christianization, when trade really developed between most of Europe. Second, your use of the term "behind" indicates you hold onto a view of technological development that only exists in your own imagination.

[@nebojsag.5871]

There are three things that accelerate scientific/social development for a stone-age culture 1)Stable climate 2)Domesticable animals and plants 3)Ease of travel/information exchange There were enough chunks of land all over Afroeurasia where the first two existed together, and a lot of them were in Africa, but nobody ALSO had 3 in even *remotely* the amounts Western Europe had them. Europe is a bunch of peninsulas sticking out of larger peninsulas, and ships, specifically short-range, coast hugging ships, were the quickest form of transportation until literally 200 years ago. They also had plenty of navigable rivers, which made this mobility advantage even more OP. When you throw in Europe's A+ climactic stability(Gulf stream), and it's first-rate domesticable plants/animals, it guarantees it the absolute best chance to reach the industrial age first. Africa has some 1, but not as much as Europe, or even much of Asia(Too few mountains to produce reliable rains in many places.) It has little trouble with 2 It's absolutely effed with regards to 3, it's massive size compounds it rather than reduce it. It's got vast tracts of land that are distant from both navigable rivers and oceans. It's no coincidence that the most developed parts of Africa were always North and East, they were the best connected with other hubs of civilization, while the inlands were backwards. When plague wiped out the Native Americans, the Europeans had a modest advantage in weaponry over Africans, which, when combined with the massive demand for slave labour from European colonies, resulted in a reorientation of African activity from, you know, human stuff, to slave raiding for the purpose of buying European guns to defend against slave raids. This severely retarded the development of Africa, while developing European technology further. You also need to factor in Africa's horrific tropical diseases also crippled growth. Much of inland Asia has traditionally been populated by nomads whose herding economy predisposed them to extreme violence and, therefore, authoritarian social organizations; If the only real form of wealth(cattle) is highly mobile (it has legs), durable and cheap to maintain (eats otherwise worthless grass) and your group never sticks around one place too long, you have a hell of an incentive to attack and plunder anyone you come across. You can run away with your loot and avoid the consequences of aggression. If you, as a sedentary tribe, attack and plunder another sedentary tribe, you can't just to run away from retaliation, because that means abandoning your crops, which means you're screwed. Occasionally, a great Khan would unite these steppe nomads and wreak absolute ruin on any nearby sedentary civilization. See Ghengis, Attila, Tamerlane etc. These nomads, being so constantly devoted to violece, produce almost no meaningful development, while retarding the development of any civilization near them. That's why China, India and indeed Eastern Europe were pushed back behind Western Europe in terms of development. At about the year 1500, Western Europe's domination of the World was set in stone.

[@julietfischer5056]

Savage nomads with brutal leaders. What an inaccurate stereotype. These weren't glorified bandits who refused to weave cloth or do a bit of farming and stole everything that wasn't nailed down. They could have social structures every bit as complex as settled, agrarian, peoples. They did not wander at random, but traveled established routes and had intimate knowledge of those areas so that they had water, grazing, edible plants, and other resources. They traded for what they couldn't find or make for themselves. That doesn't mean they didn't raid. It simply wasn't the ONLY thing they did. They certainly didn't do enough of it to have the effect you claim.

[@julietfischer5056]

@Colin Cleveland - You completely misunderstood my comment.

[@libertatemadvocatus1797]

@@julietfischer5056 Not all nomadic groups were warlike, but plenty were like the Huns, Cumans, Mongols, and Scythians are all examples of warlike nomadic people.

[@julietfischer5056]

@@libertatemadvocatus1797 - I never denied that. I was reacting to the 'all raiding, all the time' characterization of nomadic peoples that denied them any cultural complexity and creativity.

[@julietfischer5056]

@J P - Don't forget the physical injuries from combat and the diseases that follow battle. When half the camp has the shits, you figure out what to do; when your men are alive but screaming from their injuries, you find out how to put them back together.

Here is my theory: A wide range of factors played a role.

[@willek1335]

@@eamontdmas In engineering, if a bridge fail, the bridge theory was incorrect. In the humanities, I find there's no bridge for which to test ones hypothesis in the same manner. Thoughts?

@@willek1335 since human aren’t machines you can’t apply logic from engineering to humanities. At least not whole sale!

[@globalistgamer6418]

Even if Diamond might sometimes roughly state his continental thesis in terms of proportions between longitude and latitude, it's clear from the detail of his argument that what in his thesis really matters for increasing the probability of civilisational development is *absolute* longitudinal contiguity, as that is the mechanism which creates opportunities for crops and then higher-order technologies to spread. In that respect, Eurasia is still fortuitous relative to Africa, regardless of projective distortion.

[@dennisparsons4656]

Well said. On my globe it seems that London to Shanghai is 35% further that Gabon to the Horn of Africa.

[@DieFlabbergast]

*fortuitous = fortunate

[@minchul80]

Guns, Germs, and Steel wasn’t wrong - it was merely incomplete due to it’s focus on geography. Societal/institutional factors such as rule of law, private property rights, and competition also allowed Western societies to advance faster than others in the last 500 years. He also omits later innovations such as glass and mechanical clocks, which also hugely accelerated the scientific revolution in the West.

[@aaronnilestoussaint5672]

It was good for its time but also is right about societies. Societies like Aztecs and Mayans had limits even if left alone the Aztecs likely Dont even reach Rome level.

[@aliceinwonder8978]

Not sure how those allowed society to "advance" faster?

[@Treblaine]

Why was there such an imperative to build such an accurate timepiece? Because the European powers were extremely advanced in naval technology, they needed a clock to accurately measure longitude, it was valuable so they put great effort into it and it took a lot of effort. The advances in glass were important for functional literacy in old age but it wasn't unique for Europe to have lots written down in books, many cultures have that and get around myopia with scribes and dictation. I think what was so important is the western european naval arms race, that desperate struggle to get one over each other led to them being in such a position it was practical that any of them could exert huge influence around the globe. If Britain in particular wanted to trade with the continent it had to have naval power and people wanted trade as Britain had a near monopoly on tin mining and had some of the most accessible coal, some coal was exposed on the coast you could directly load it onto ships. Steel and guns didn't matter everywhere, India had guns and steel yet were part of the earliest to fall under Western hegemony. Also in North America, the indigenous quickly got guns and steel weapons.

[@gareth2736]

It does discuss (lack of) competition as the factor that held back China. One unified state that decided at times to not exploit a new technology while in fragmented Europe there would always be a state ready to take advantage of any new tech that would then dominate while any state that didn't use new tech would be overrun or at least marginalised.

[@michaelpohlod9131]

Agree 100%

[@Ennio444]

I find your analysis a bit lacking in depth. Usually you are more explicit and concise in your criticism. I didn't see examples that disprove Diamond, only comments on how his perspective is flawed and how he may contradict himself, or ignore certain things, but I'd have liked a more hands on criticism of Guns Germs and Steel

[@redcapetimetraveler7688]

7:20 those images of horses are a mistake , one major problem for african economy and warfare has been (and is still an issu) the fact that deseases spread by flies kill horses in large numbers : it has been such a problem that great western african empires were dependent for centuries on import of horses in order to maintain their military might , that obliged those empires to rely on unequal trade ( gold or slaves= try to compare with how mercantilism in17th century europe boosted industrial development) to buy those horses..if you compare to how war horses built Europe , the Middle East and Asia ( and helped some native american cultures to resist europeans conquest) : you can understand why north africa by its cultural and climatic proximity with Europe could be equal in might for long time and novadays , while subsaharian africa needed and still needs a good health system to thrive..and that developped in the 20 th century after the independences from colonial systems which did not spread technologies as they pretended . but when globalization allowed those nations to sell their ressources to buy those technologies.and to import more food.

[@FriendoftheDork]

Regarding Mali in particular, it was wealthy and powerful at the time when it could sustain a large number of native horses and animals. However, with climate change the area became warmer and wetter, which meant disease-carrying insects came in abundance and these horses died out, eventually leading to the decline of the Mali and Songhai civilization. Issues like this may explain why some of these African empires failed to develop the way the European ones did, although not the only one, since the Asian civilizations were also outpaced by Europe during the Enlightenment.

[@redcapetimetraveler7688]

@@FriendoftheDork , i've to desagree about the Enlightenment as the main engin of this westerners strength , and "outpacing" of Asia. The Enlightnement was more an philosophical international of sciences against the faith of the 18th century while the conquest of Asia China ( opium wars) , India (Great Mutiny) , Corea and Vietnam (french expeditions) , Japan ( Perry's expedition ) hapenned when westerners got their steamers fleet during the 19th century ! this westerners' 19th century was not enlighted at all , after the defeat of Napoleon in 1815: Europe and the USA became more nationalistic , racist and bellicist thanks to industrialization, the pseudoscience was just a "moralization" of racism and colonization.

[@redcapetimetraveler7688]

@penguins inadiorama , racism is correlated with "social darwinism"and with the pseudoscience which produced the racial hierarchies of the colonial systems, both talking about "natural" proces but both hiding subjective and cultural selections , segregations of populations. novadays very rare are the ideologies which unveil themselves as racists , most of them are moralist like the meritocracy ( a freaking hypocrisy meaning aristocracy or ploutocracy) or are "defensive" like white supremacists who pretend to defend themselves against the great replacement ...i can guess from your questions that it could exist some determinisms or adaptations of human populations to their environment , a way to justify autochthony and the privilege of being the first in one land..but it matches a state of the world so old , and it's totally outdated by the transportation's means of today ( i don't talk about what i want but about what i see). i hope to have answer a little bit to your question ;)

[@redcapetimetraveler7688]

@penguins inadiorama , lol calm down budy , chill , i owe you nothing ;p and contrary to you , i always open the door to debate and contradiction , "define" it's for people filled with themselves , i totally disagree with your assomption about human races: homogeneity among human populations is a total myth ! many groups have had common traits but always diversity too.

[@redcapetimetraveler7688]

@penguins inadiorama , no you just agree with your interpretation of fact , you 're trying to say that races matter because of genetics like the 19th and 20 th centuries colonialists tried to justify their violence.and plundering..racism is no science, but an attempt to use science to moralize inequality and intolerance. the obscession for ancestors' blood ( mapping of haplogroups, and other dna collectings ) is just a re-branding of old superstitions.

[@Szentatyaisten]

About the axis thing, you are forgetting that though Africa is almost as wide as it is tall, that eastern-western axis happens to contain one of the most inhospitable part of the planet, while in Eurasia, it's mostly pastural communities easily making a buck on trade. I don't know about the crops and species that the eurasians had and you say the africans also did, some elaboration would have been appreciated. In my opinion Europe's lead over Africa had more to do with the difficulity of travel between the large african population centers, in Europe technology advanced faster because there was a constant incentive for it in the form of neighbouring powers ready to conquer. That, and the crops.

[@JohnnyLodge2]

Yes, the narrator mentions that africa has .more genetic diversity between its groups than there is between africa and non Africa. The reason for this is the great number of geographical barriers that limited the spread of genetic material (and all others) between population groups.

[@Ugly_German_Truths]

" wide as it is tall, that eastern-western axis happens to contain one of the most inhospitable part of the planet" A) it's not that long in the past that the Sahara was less than 1/3 it's current size and B ) there is far more habitable land north and south of the Sahara/Sahel that still lies in the East West Axis. It is NORTH SOUTH that is only arguably a choice but has the biggest obstacles to communication and commerce on the continent. I'm tempted to blame the Gulfstream for a lot of the advantages of Europe as it is a big game changer in levelling out the climate throughout most of the smallish continent, while Asia has a whole third or so that is barely habitable, more if you include the Himalayas and surrounding highlands... and in the Americas the same with basically the complete coridlleres from Fireland to Alaska and Canada also climatologically disadvantaged in a degree Europe does not know (scandinavia is far less of the overall mass than the icy half of North America was. That may not look like that bad a condition, as of course the Americas also have all the other climate zones like temperate, sub tropic and tropic, but it includes the opposite effect, that summer and winter show much crasser opposites... Washington is the lattitude of Rome IIRC but in summer it's about subtropical in climate and in winter has x feet of snow... Rome does not go as far to either side and where you reach the similar winter conditions, say in Denmark, the baltic or Scotland, your summers aren't anywhere as suffocatingly hot, while still allowing above subsistence level farming. For another point of Diamonds... "germs"... what a load of crock... Europe lost at least 1/3 - half its population in each of three major plague waves, better imunity my arse.

[@ArmedSammy]

Btw, this is one of Diamond’s key arguments. This axes theory is tangentially related, and this video ignores outright the other 95% of Diamond’s arguments. Cypher seems to have a bit of tunnel vision this video, again.

[@JohnnyLodge2]

@@ArmedSammy I also find Diamond's reasoning the least racist of all of them as in, these places just happened to have these wild animals/plants available at this time and people absolutely hate it which I find curious.

[@JohnnyLodge2]

@@LuisAldamiz that is only if you assume that diversity started in the rift valley and wasnt concurrent with the diversity that resulted with the migration(s) out of Africa

[@pascoett]

There always many factors large and small contributing to the fate of humans, Black Swans included. Diamonds approach was new and brilliant, read it, loved it. No book can speak about large sections of history and places without generalizing. In our (German-Swiss) universities, Anglosaxon Generalizations haven’t a great appeal normally, while the French History school was propagated strongly although we also deemed it a bit inaccurate at times. In conclusion: read and don’t stop reading. Ask questions and accept that there may be no answers or truths.

[@hoi-polloi1863]

Another critic of Diamond is Victor Hanson, who wrote "Carnage and Culture" as a direct response to GG&S. Hanson's theory is that it was Europe's social geography that made it so strong. It's an interesting argument, and well worth reading!

[@Ekvitarius]

That isn’t just the fault of the Mercator projection. Any cylindrical map projection will have the same problem

[@Ms95670]

Where I to write my version..it would be titled "Filth,banking,oxen,constant war, and the fact that most indigenous peoples hated each other as much they ever hated us"

[@abandonedchannel281]

East African traders were ahead of there time in many respect, they had boats capable of sailing as far to India, and even possibly China, East Africa had massive history of Trade. Kingdom of Benin is one of the riches and largest empires at the time.

[@2013Arcturus]

He literally says that the European, Mediterranean model of agriculture only applies in South Africa, where the climate is ideal for European style farming. He points out that it failed once the colonizers pushed north, yet they continued to push the European template. This template said, _"build cities near rivers"_ which is perfect when your rivers aren't swarming with disease carrying insects and dangerous reptiles, because there are great industrial, agricultural, communications and transportation benefits. The African natives chose instead to live in the dryer highlands that weren't as agriculturally viable, but the Africans had adapted perfectly to that environment so felt very little external pressure to change until the arrival of the Europeans. Nowhere does Diamond argue that Africans *"couldn't"* do things, he argues that they *_didn't need to._* "Necessity is the mother of invention" underlies the entirety of Diamonds work, and his entire point was that because humans had evolved in tandem to the rest of creation in Africa, they were perfectly adapted and didn't NEED to change. However as humans pushed out of Africa they were confronted with new challenges which provoked innovation as a matter of survival. Again this isn't to imply that innovation and survival weren't factors in Africa, I'm saying THE RATE AT WHICH innovation occurred was obviously increased as humans encountered environments and species they didn't evolve to inhabit. Jared Diamonds argument is less about the people themselves and their capabilities, and more just "Whoever lived in Europe was predestined to surge out ahead due to Europe's unique geography, climate and access to the largest variety of grains and domesticated animals.

[@seekeroftruth45]

@@The_Crimson_Fucker I don't think all cultures are equal. By most metrics of success. Some are superior to others.

[@robby319]

West Africa was wealthy because of its connection with the Meds.

[@dexboat1733]

@@The_Crimson_Fucker it's possible that the argument of culture, ethics, etc, determines the success of a people once they benefit from the factors discussed in GG&S. That could be step 2.

[@lif3andthings763]

@@seekeroftruth45 subjective.

[@kwamester14]

Among African peoples like the Bantu and others who migrated from Nigeria, building settlements near rivers was the rule. It is baked in our spirituality. Why? Because its how one makes iron. Gold was typically found near rivers as well.

[@pittland44]

I think Diamond is a victim of what I call "Intellectual Overextension" and I'll explain what I mean by that (this is my term and if someone can come up with a better one I'm all ears). What I mean by intellectual overextension is the natural habit to take an idea, even a good idea or a true idea, and take it way past the point where it's feasible, usable, good or true. You see this with things like pacifism, which takes a good idea, we should try to live in peace with other people, and stretches it past the point of good judgment, we should live in peace with people, even people who mean to do us harm, because of reasons. Or overextending anything from Newtonian physics (denial of quantum theory), Darwinian theory (eugenics), to IQ theory (cognitive determinism I think is the term), or any other number of ideas. You see this all the time with intellectuals and scholars discussing topics that are outside their field of study. You have Arthur Schlesinger Jr. (whose area of expertise was the administration of Andrew Jackson, debating tariff policy, you have Paul Ehrlich (whose big area of study was termites and ants) talking about global oil prices, even Neil Degrasse Tyson (who is an astronomer) debating biological origins, renewable energy and high school class structure.

[@robby319]

Right on!

[@EbonFang_92]

it's like that phrase you can't make a mountain out of a mole hill

[@iliketurtles2531]

And that's the exact thing socrates was fussing about. People know stuff tend to think what they don't know by proxying what they know. The problem of this is what you don't know is still what you don't know, regardless of your ability to form a theory.

[@bigredracingdog466]

I can only speak to NDT. He's a scientist. He knows and understands the process of science. I don't think he's making wild ass guesses when it comes to matters of biology, energy, and education. I'm willing to bet he's reviewed the literature and consulted experts before forming an opinion on subjects outside his area of expertise.

[@pittland44]

@@bigredracingdog466 Well Tyson's an interesting case because he falls prey to the idea that scientists are more or less infallible and their ideas trump the ideas of everyone else, basically to the point of advocating for a technocracy (or possibly even Italian Fascism, depending on how far you want to take his ideas). He's flat out said that scientists are smart and doctors are stupid, that we should shun analyzing scientific ideas and their implications from a philosophical and moral basis. And that nothing bad can come from the scientific mind. All of which is A) completely nonsensical, and also utterly unscientific and B) the exact opposite of what history has born out. Not to put to fine a point on it but scientists have done some pretty grizzly things in the past. Also, as someone who is a scientist (my degree is in biochemistry) who taught school (I taught middle and high school math) and who does know both the research and what I saw with my own two eyes (my mother's area of expertise is early childhood development and she taught me a ton when I started teaching) I can say that his knowledge of high school class structure is primitive at best. He's never been in that world, and he doesn't know what's needed to help the kids learn (which makes sense given the fact that he's never taught at that level nor has he done any serious research on it).

[@SilactheHallowed]

It has been a while since I've read the book, but my recollection is that his main argument is why some parts of the globe developed agrarian and urban civilizations by c. 1500 while others stayed hunter-gatherer and tribal. He broaches why western Europe rose to global dominance from 1500 on but doesn't provide a satisfactory answer. It's a shotgun-approach pop academia book so he doesn't go into particular detail about advanced African societies or hunter-gatherer societies in Eurasia. A large portion of Eurasia' North-west axis is due to Siberia that (I believe) remained tribal until colonization by the Russians. Conversely, large segments of Africa remained hunter-gatherer or herder until Bantu and later European colonization. Like all his books, it's more important for opening discussion topics than as a final answer to the question. I also think it's an important work in arguing against the blatantly racist "Africa/America/Australia/Oceania got conquered by white people because the natives were stupid" or "Africa/America/Australia/Oceania got conquered by white people because white people's cultural values are superior."

[@dmoneyonair]

My high school history teacher gave me that axis explaination in regards to how “nothing ever happened in africa”

[@LOLquendoTV]

Well, hopefully there will be a thoughtful civil debate in the comments about the question of western hegemonic power in modern history

[@miltonperez3421]

Pope gifted the world to the European kings then they used religion to conquer the colonies to use as beachheads for full war.

[@LadyTylerBioRodriguez]

Civil debate? NOPE!

[@LOLquendoTV]

@Qwerty well, to be fair, my comment was basically just asking for irony deficient types to comment this type of nonsense

[@Peristerygr]

Ιt says "African", so that is not gonna happen.

[@DS-ib8ih]

*argues about zebras for several hours*

[@porteal8986]

'history is not a science' If more people understood this, our understanding of history as a society would be much better

[@conorkelly947]

I have never met a single person who thinks history is a science

[@perhaps1094]

​@@conorkelly947 its not that they think its a science but the fact they treat it like one. People put far too stock into sources that really could be a single dudes opinion.

[@Delgen1951]

@@perhaps1094 which is why you use a lot of diffrent scorces, and not relie on one scorce. The art of history is a lot of hard work, sometimes in old langages of which there may only be scrapes left, and study any new iteams that apeare, like estate records, tax rolls and personial invetory records and the like. IT is not true that only the winner writes the history, if that were so we would not have any records of say Cartage which Roma rasied to the ground and salted the earth so that nothing would grow, but we do have the records of Cartage and its tail.

[@Bojoschannel]

I think it's far more powerful to realize that history is discovered and not something alrrsdy written thousands of years ago

[@aguy559]

How is history not a science? You examine evidence and draw conclusions.

[@parus6422]

I like diamonds theory a lot, but it does have a lot to be desired, but I think if we combined it with the concept of "great filters" we might find a better answer. So let's take diamond's theory and retool it to an advancement cap. Some societies advancement is caped by geography, but not all. Like Stagnation, or a huge collapse. After the fall of Rome, Europe was basically a fallout game. The Middle East and China were having golden ages while Europe thought hydraulics were magic(the middle east and china had crude hydraulic contraptions). But the middle east fell from infighting and outside pressure, and China purposely stagnated and cut it's self off. So a society needs both the right geogphey, and ot overcome hurdlres.

[@jaein7779]

If you want to help the developing world, just leave them the alone and let them determine what is best for themselves. If they come to the UN for assistance, sure, assist away, but just focus on what they are asking you for assistance; don’t go all “I’ll save you!” Mode and try to recreate them in your own image. Usually doesn’t work.

[@paryanindoeur]

Diamond was *only* going to settle on a theory that made Europeans' successes _entirely external_ to Europeans.

[@russelldevaney7001]

Diamond was in fact going out of his way to avoid racisl implications in societal development. Thus his emphasis on geography, domestication, and disease immunity, all characteristics not controllable by the populations. Germs were an obstacle for Europeans in hot and humid climates, but they obviously survived and prospered in spite of thus obstacle. Whereas indigenous populations did not tend to fare well with European germs. Apparently there is more to Diamond's germ thesis than can be dismissed so easily. Now it is true that Africa indeed had civilizations that likely surpassed early European civilizations, so what hapoened? Why did Africa end up losing control of its destiny to European invaders? What was different in these African empires that doomed them to eventual defeat? One clue lies in the list of north-south trade goods in Africa mentioned in this vudeo. ALL of the goods from the north, with the exception of salt, were manufactured goods, whereas ALL of the goods from the south were extracted raw materials. Why is this? Why did not Africa begin to produce its own manufacturing? Remember this was before colonization stopped this competition. What is the answer to this key point? Countries that produce only raw materials will inevitably lose out to those who add value to the raw materials. This question cannot be ignored However, one of Diamond's main points, to me his most important point, was the firrce competition between nation states in Europe, which forced rapid development of technoligy as a survival strategy. Compare to China, FAR more advanced than Europe prior to the 14th century, yet a very few hubdred years later was dominated by Europeans once barely above savagery in comparison to the Chinese. Diamond's answer was the lack of inter-state competition in China, which achieved a great and powerful society whose elites then saw no reason to change anything. Add to that the beliefs of the Emperor who decided to stop exploration (Chinese sailing vessels were INCREDIBLE, much better than anything Europe had to compete with) and turned his kingdom inward, which he could do. No European country could do any of this and survive. So, the question then appears to remain. If it wasn't guns, germs and steel, and it wasn't geographic orientation, and it wasn't the Sahara, and it wasn't racial, then what was it?? Why did Europe end up with all the cargo? Your answer is?

[@MrKrtek00]

Nice video. Actually, much of Europe in ancient times was not able to produce most of the common crops: nowadays Germany, UK were wastelands from an agricultural point of view. On the other hand the northern part of Africa (eg Lybia, Egypt) was the most fertile lands of Rome, and their domination was key to the stability of the Roman Empire.

[@vincelovato3083]

I had some of the same misgivings about Diamond's theory applied to Africa but this video does nothing to put forth an alternative theory. Was it religion? Culture? I realized as a college student 40 years ago that all the great and long-term civilizations developed between the 30th and 50th latitude lines. I hope we all agree that race is simply not the explanation. I think Diamond has a bold and insightful theory but that is what it is: A theory. The question still remains: Why not Africa? I read one theory about massive climate changes on the continent that makes some sense. I watched this video with anticipation but it seemed clipped because they did not put forth any new theories. Still, and open and civilized conversation about anything nowadays is refreshing. Thanks.

[@stsk1061]

What do you consider great and long-term civilizations? Your definition excludes Mesoamerica, the Andes, almost all of India and Egypt, half of China and Europe.

[@hpsauce1078]

I was under the impression that Jared diamonds core argument is that of geographical determinism not necessarily of these specific arguments these are simply supporting arguments for the central crux of diamonds book

[@rufus8765]

yeah it is, but this guy is only focusing on that one point

[@lacasadehonor9408]

He doesn't, Jared's theory works for prehistory and the begining of civilization, but jared agrees with the theory of institutions as the factor of wealth

[@elgatto3133]

Europe may have become hegemonic partially due to its culture and geography Starting off with culture, European countries demonstrated extreme adaptability. They took ideas from the silk road, science from the crusades, they fought each other to develop tools of war, and the feudal system kept Europe "relatively" stable post-Rome. (When major states collapsed, dukedoms were able to function like countries for periods of time.) And regarding geography, europe is really difficult to invade. From the West there's the Atlantic ocean. From the south there's the Mediterranean, but Europeans put a lot of effort into their navy, so invading that way would prove difficult. From the East there's the Urals and Istanbul blocking the way, or you'd have to cross through Egypt and Nubia to invade coming from the east. And there's the silk road where eastern ideas came into Europe which Europe readily adopted. Even in the Crusades europe took much of the Islamic scholarly texts back to Europe, and soon the rediscovery of the classics started the Renaissance. This doesn't answer the question of why the East ended up being relatively weak though; after all the silk road flowed two ways, but those are some of the factors which made Europe particularly strong.

[@elgatto3133]

@White Chocolate seems to me that until the renaissance Europe had little to give and much to take regarding knowledge

[@MALICEM12]

@@elgatto3133 the classical period had alot of knowledge, but between that and the Renaissance Europe (in general) was trying to get back on it's feet. But this rise and fall model applies to the middle East and far east as well.

[@elgatto3133]

@@MALICEM12 I think feudalism has a lot to do with why Europe never collapsed again after the fall of Rome, although many major empires died some vestige of the old systems usually remained to keep order

[@decus9544]

Guns, germs and steel isn't incorrect, merely incomplete. There are in practice hundreds if not thousands of individual variables that define and shape the course of history. The factors noted in GG&S are relevant, including to Africa. Being able to transport a crop across the Sahel is not an argument against it being difficult to transpose across the dozen or so climate zones from North to South. The point that it was technically possible to travel the Sahara, does not mean that it wasn't relatively more isolated then anywhere in Eurasia, even if it course less than North America. These are not on or off switches, but spectrums. GG&S does an admirable job of describing some of the main ones.

[@m.g.3013]

Is it possible that the western African societies were so stable that they kind of, idk, stagnated? Things were so good and there was no external pressure like lack of space for food and shelter or invasions/crusades and thus the need to innovate or explore became unnecessary.

[@Leonthotskys]

The question of the great divergence is answerable through Marxist dialectical materialism. Population in the year 1500 was centered in China, India and Japan. Europe was a distant backwater riven with social contradictions and internal divisions. Africa and the Americas never had the same population size as the great powers of China, India and Japan. The intense social chaos of the Black Death and medieval Europe created a Europe where destabilizing innovations like Protestantism, loaning money at interest, science and colonialism were allowed to develop even to the detriment of the home countries. This was because of the competition between individual states. By 1918, Europe was a shell shocked wreck but it’s colonial project had largely succeeded.

[@Kabayoth]

A shorter book I invite you to pick up is "The Man Who Loved China" by Simon Winchester. It serves as a wonderful prologue to a fairly simple question: why did Chinese science, engineering, and clear advancement over the rest of the world stop and rest on its laurels about 800 years ago?

[@TomFranklinX]

The simplest answer is probably the printing press + the nature of Oriental writing systems. 1. The Gutenberg press was the single pivotal technology that sparked the Enlightenment. 2. The Chinese, while being the first to invent printing, could not effectively utilize it because their writing system is logographic instead of phonetic.

[@blairweinberg6279]

@@TomFranklinX China had its own massive issues, both politically and militarily. 800 years ago was the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty, and their collapse and the subsequent Ming dynasty had many profound effects on the development of China. The arrival of Europeans in the 16th century brought its own unforeseen consequences, combined with natural and political disasters that led to the complete downfall of China by the 1800s.

[@dingusdean1905]

My personal take is that while Guns, Germs and Steel are the correct answers as to why the Europeans were so successful, his conclusions as to why Europeans got them are much less concrete.

[@coolbule1238]

@Juan Sanchez no

[@midcadet]

This may be a revised version but what I understood as Diamond's argument was that the plants, both brought from Africa and native, merely had more land of consistent climate to grow than biological diversity.

[@LOLquendoTV]

For good or ill, guns germs and steel has been really influential. I find a lot of people Ive met who subscribe to its conclusions but who have never even read it. This probably speaks to a sense of it sort of "feeling" right if that makes any sense

[@GeraltofRivia22]

You mean intuitive.

[@LOLquendoTV]

@@GeraltofRivia22 aye, that is the word I was looking for, thanks mate

[@matthewbadley5063]

Everybody sitting here trying to come up with complicated reasons for how Europe was able to conquer the world. All it really boils down to is they had the political will to do it. There have been others who came close in Eurasia (the mongols) but they allowed themselves to fragment. The chinese could've done it but the sustained political will wasn't there. Europe saw they could strong arm locals when they came to places and took advantage of that. They employed the classic tactic of divide and conquer, once their empires got bigger it became easier to conquer more, and they sustained this effort for 400 years. The answer to "how did Europe conquer the world" is just simply...they tried really hard to do it.

[@madolinwade8621]

I literally had two separate history teachers in high school screen Guns Germs and Steel.

[@abthedragon4921]

I read Guns Germs and Steel last year and it really opened my eyes to history and historical thinking. This video has caused me to question some of the things the book tught me and caused me to look at history in another new way. Thanks a lot.

[@wanderingwizard1361]

Just be careful to be skeptical in both directions. Historians may scoff at Diamond playing a bit too loose with his geographic determinism theory and applying it to places where it probably doesn't belong (and he does do that), but serious historians are not going to question the idea that Eurasian civilizations had tremendous advantages by being integrated into the Eurasian technological, agricultural, and intellectual worlds in a way that the Inca did not.

[@Tedinator01]

Looking for a single factor or a “ Holy Grail” is the true mistake.

[@MetaNerdzLore]

Thanks for this. This was really fair and informative. I always felt like there was something missing, wished there was an explanation of what happened to the great African nations, but also can't stand the wholesale dismissal of every point in the book by people.

[@pennyforyourthots]

This is a weird place to see you lmao. Although, I guess Star Wars takes a lot of historical inspiration, so I guess it's not that weird

[@krispalermo8133]

Think of it this way, .. other than if you are from a few given urban locations .. Out of around 3,000 years starting with Greek civilization till now, New York city, London, ... hell Roman and the rest of Greece barely, just barely had electricity for barely for the pass 120 to 140 years. Tv & home radio, .. barely since WW II which is around 80 years. F*ck I remember when Nintindo game boy came out along with the cell phone .. I had a pager ! Oldest cave painting in Spain are about 30,000 years old and we barely had farming in the middle east for the pass 5,000 years along with Egypt. And we only had , .. what .. camera phones for the pass 15 years ? Let's call it 20 years now for simpler math. In one or the main regard, Western civilization is only around 150 to 180 years more advance than any other part of the planet. On a science fiction Star Trek or Star Wars time line, Earth humans are just infants or barely starting to act like junior high school students. Back in the 1980's the use to brag that our current high schools and junior colleges teach what state or national .. College Universities .. taught back in the late 1800's. Yeah, US education has real slide back wards, ...

[@tajsalaam8850]

My questions have always been, if European geography is so blessed, why leave it to steal, exploit, and pillage other societies around the world? Why create pogroms to plunder more “cargo”?

[@TheGreatMoonFrog]

The thing that made Europe the world power of colonial times (in my humble estimation of course) is because of the intense state of almost constant war between small states. The Chinese emperors and European kings of old were no less tyrannical to their populace, but while China enjoyed being the defacto super power of it's surrounding neighbors, European Kingdoms were constantly jockeying for advantages in their constant warfare with eachother. This meant that China did not need to worry too much about their neighbours and were more focused on worrying about maintaining power and status quo internally. Of course technological disruptions pose a great threat to the status quo, and so while guns were originally invented in China, they did not find widespread use besides rebellions. Meanwhile in Europe constant warefare between small states meant that internal strife was seen as secondary threats as compared to the threat of your Kingdom being anihilated from outside groups. And so any military advantage you could find was seen as a great boon. This focus on military technology to gain advantage over your neighbours, and the fact that your neighbours were ussually of comparable strength and technology, meant that European nations had to look elsewhere for easier conquests. Meanwhile China had lots of "weaker" neighbours to choose from and they focused on repeatedly trying to invade those peoples (Korea, Japan, Vietnam) instead of seeking other far flung "weak" territory to expand. You see similiar adoption of firearms and military technology with the Japenese, who were in a similiar situation to that of Europe being that they were comprised of many constantly warring small Kingdoms of relatively equal strength. Indeed when Japan was unified after the introduction of matchlock guns Japan's military saw a drastic reduction in the weapons, as internal danger now became the larger threat. Guns became more important militarily after European ships started becoming a larger outside threat later. We see this increase in military technology played out in WW1 and WW2. Again, nations of comparable strength fighting eachother incentivized developing any military advantage you could over your opponent. As such we saw an increase in military technology at such a rate that we have never seen it again since. There have been wars since but the threats havn't been as big and the power relations have not been as equal between the opponents and as such we see slower military technology advancements.

[@liamtahaney713]

Wow I'm amazed to hear Africa is actually a square who knew

[@heinzguderian9980]

Actually, it's shaped like a heart. Everybody knows it's called the "heart of darkness."

[@larryphilby4918]

It's a square but the lower left corner is missing.

[@salokin3087]

Whats your thoughts on "Why Nations fail"?

[@daviddunkelheit9952]

I think "Guns Germs and Steel" was more about the Americas than Africa. I read the book myself while in University while studying Environmental Science. Africa had many enemies and desertification.

[@stephenbrand5661]

I started college 7 years after Guns, Germs, and Steel was first published, and I remember most academics seemed to absolutely HATE it. The bigger question could also be this: Why is sub-Saharan Africa so underdeveloped? To me, the answer is obviously tropical diseases that made low population densities advantageous everywhere that wasn't high enough in elevation to avoid tsetse flies and other disease vectors. Just look how tiny Africa's population was in 1900 or even 1950. Since 1950, Lagos, Nigeria has grown from 325,000 people to over 15.9 million today.

[@NancyLebovitz]

I thought part of Diamond's theory was that sub-Saharan Africa didn't have navigable rivers (at least not out to the ocean). This didn't prevent long-distance trade, but it limited how much weight Africans could move.

[@willek1335]

In England, I think you're a days walk away from a major navigable river. No wonder the Vikings had such success. 😁

[@httohot]

@@willek1335 Yes but there are no deserts or jungles in England just easy to travel plains and forest....compare that to Africa where you are about a weeks walk from a major navigable river and thats a week through a dense jungle =( . You are talking out your ass. I have lived in both rural england and Africa. Its hard to get lost in rural england, rural Africa I can get lost just going outside to pee in the jungle no joke......In rural africa you literally cant see more than a few yards ahead in any direction. Think about this: It took Eurpeans 40 years to reach central africa with their advanced technology and they sufffered and bitterly complained about it. This is with steam boats, modern medicine, horses, telegrams, etc. and even then they only made money from ivory and gold. Trading normal goods from African colonies was only profitable when they built railroads to move goods to ports. So it took Eurpeans building railroads to make trade reasonable for any good other than ivory or gold....what did you expect africans to do ...

[@burnsloads]

@@httohot you're dumb, you don't know about camels and caravans. They also could sail.

[@sakabula1285]

@@burnsloads camels and caravans might work in North Africa..but not the jungles of Central Africa.

[@chrisrautmann8936]

Guns, Germs, and Steel regards the fundamental formation of societies and the skills/tools that each society developed. It has basically nothing to do with modernization theory (how best to bring societies into the modern world economic/political structure). Explaining how environmental conditions influenced basic societal organization will not give a good road map as to how those societies can be integrated into the modern world culture, or even if it is a good idea. Also, the axis theory has to do with climates and environmental differences, not the distances. A crop that grows well in China can spread across the Eurasian Steppe and make it all the way to Europe (or vice versa). A crop that grows well in South Africa has to be transported across the Tropics and the Sahara Desert to make it to the Mediterranean Basin before it can grow again. That leap of distance is the significant barrier. Also, the food and culture of the Indian subcontinent did not transmit itself easily over the Himalayas, because the largest mountain range in the world is a significant barrier to trade and the spread of staple food crops. And since Guns, Germs, and Steel is about foundational development of societies, the fact that Europe was able to easily transport their crops across the major geographic barriers using their developed technology is pretty much a point in Diamond's favor.

[@padraicburns9278]

How is "Oriental Despotism" racist when it doesn't criticize any race, but is about political systems that existed in a geographic region? Was he claiming that east asians evolved to be despotic, such that it became a racial characteristic in the same way as epicanthal folds?

Forget it, Jake, this is History-town. Your logic don't cut no Diamonds here.

[@faustopancake234]

Huh, I honestly never thought of GG&S as being about why the "west" is strong. When I read it, admittedly quite a long time ago by now, I saw it more as offering another piece of possible explanation as to why some ancient peoples got a huge "head start" on others. I didn't notice a huge western bias, but that could be because of my own western bias. I could also be confusing parts of GG&S with other Diamond books I read around the same time. They made for interesting reading, but I never saw them as offering another possible piece to the puzzle of our shared history. Our shared history is much too large and dynamic to be encompassed by any one theory anyway. I don't remeber reading the epilogue though, maybe I skipped it, kind of glad I did from the sound of it. Anyway, nice vid man.

[@chrishoward140]

Congrats on the video. And to the commenters (for a change)! Lots of interesting points being made and discussed. My guess is that “the answer” (if there is one) would be *complex* (ie. *lots* of separate facts which are interrelated) and that chance will have played a big role too.

[@johnmoore-alameda4241]

Around 8:03 you say that he claims that Afric wasnt interconnected until European conquest but I do not think this is the case as I did not get this impression from his book. In fact he talks about how the bantu farmers spread across Africa and how crops from all over the world were grown in Africa far before European conquest. I think he is saying that it wasnt interconnected until the the agrarian lifestyle and civilization spread across the region, and that this happened later than it did in Eurasia because of it arising initially in Eurasia and because of the greater differences among African climates as it is a much more diverse climate than say Europe and thus a single crop has a harder time being grown in all areas of Africa as opposed to Europe.

[@terrulian]

This was very interesting and I do delight in the parsing of large theories to see if they tick. However, isn't your argument a bit anachronistic in some respects? By the time of the Roman empire, large cities and agriculture had been around for, say, eight millennia. Doesn't what happened previously play into Diamond's hypothesis?

[@geoffk777]

I think that theories like this which are based on geography are destined to be partial answers at best. Look at Japan. When guns were introduced there, they quickly became the leading gunsmiths in the World. Then they abandoned guns, strictly for cultural reasons. When they picked them up again in the Meiji era, they again became a World class power in a few short years. The reasons had little to do with natural resources or geography and a lot to do with wide-spread education, literacy, a work-oriented culture and a history of learning and craftsmanship. Similarly, the Jews have prospered over many centuries, despite persecution, by always rewarding scholarship and hard work. Great cultures are not an accident of environment--their people make themselves great.

[@floridaman318]

Exactly. All these deterministic theories are so dehumanizing. It's like human agency and choice don't exist at all! We are just robots reacting to stimuli! No capacity to envision something that doesn't exist yet! I believe the number one factor in the prospering or decline of any culture are the aggregate results of its people's choices and habits. Material wealth, accessibility, environment, that's all secondary to what people actually decide they want.

[@Lttlemoi]

There's the hypothesis that harshness of environment can shape industriousness of culture. If it's too easy to survive because food is abundant and freely available throughout the year, there's less incentive to consistently plan long-term or to amass resources for later. If the environment is too harsh, it is hard or impossible to sustain the large populations required for some technological advances. If the environment falls between these, exploration, risk taking and hoarding are naturally rewarded.

[@professorspf]

In a sense the examples Cypher gave could explain intra continental advantages based on geography. The Mali and Songhai Empires emerged in Northwestern Africa, the widest part of the Continent where the axis ratio is closest to the one Cypher presents here. The further south one goes, the narrower the continent, and the less representative the ratio.

[@zeenuf00]

Huge deserts. No inland rivers. Not hard to figure out.

[@T33K3SS3LCH3N]

I still thik the essential geographic argument holds up, even if not in the exact form GGS presented it as. African climate zones, languages, and cultures are much more fractured than the European. There are more borders of various kind, whereas Europe had significant migratory movements spanning the entire continent. Its early mediterranean powers were able to exchange with a large number of different cultures directly and indirectly,. The knowledge and technology gained that way propagated through the rest of central and western Europe by the Roman Empire. And many of those connections remained active even after the Roman Empire ended, whereas the remnants of African Empires often were left fairly isolated in terms of cultures and number of people they could reach. The same goes for the rich trade and manufacturing hubs, which in Africa often stood on their own whereas those of Europe were directly connected with large populous kingdoms.

[@jonmarkusringen1067]

Not really relevent to the video, but I think the translation in my native lanuage is better: "Våpen, Pest og Stål." Directly translated "Weapons, Plauge and Steel."

[@JMM33RanMA]

"Rats, Lice and History" was interesting, too, but I believe that more recent studies of epidemiology and transmission vectors have cast doubt on it. As in this and other theories, there are interesting and potentially useful ideas, but everything needs to be taken with abundant caution. Thanks for another interesting and fact filled video.

[@robby319]

He did say that history is not a science. Rather it is history. History provides the data that the sciences can use and also reminds us of the scientific theories which have emerged over time.

[@Brimp555]

'Gun, Germs and Steel' has a number of interesting insights. We can see further than Diamond because we are standing on his shoulders. The new world had corn, potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, squash, sunflowers, cocoa, beans, avocado, peanuts, and many other plants that have been domesticated. Llamas and turkeys have also been domesticated. Yet 260 Europeans led by Pizarro was able to defeat the Inca empire. GG&S describes how this was possible but there are holes in this area too.

[@evilallensmithee]

7:50 I believe what Diamond is referring to is the patch work of nature of Africa’s geography. From a historical view, you may recall empire that last are unified by geography. Travel time is a limiting factor on unified geography, few empires have lasted when travel to the boarder takes more than half a year. We are want to say language unites, but in practice it really only reunites, it starts by being imposed. Empires were the next step to dominance after farming. Farms create interdependence where hunter-gathering creates independence. Once you establish a local community you get nations all based on the most local culture. Empires unite these elements of culture and allow for a natural selection of cultures all united by the challenges of a similar geography. Kingdoms in Africa didn’t have as large an area to unite under. This leads to more wars. More wars means less overall technical advancements.

[@MariusRiley]

: I remember when the book came out. I read it and saw real problems with it, though most folks I knew, including a variety of academics, especially the political ones, loved the heck out of it and contributed to its promotion.

[@analoguedragon7438]

Diamond is beholden to materialist determinism. He wouldn't touch culture and ideas with a ten foot pole.

[@therach7841]

Uh no. He just believes that culture and ideas are determined by material conditions. Which is true.

[@tomtimelord7876]

Yeah, answering any question about the fate of nations by pointing to their culture or ideas doesn't answer the question, it just pushes the question back one step. Where you then have to ask, okay, why do they have different culture and ideas? I agree with TheRach the the environment ultimately plays a roll. There's a reason why Britain became a naval superpower and Switzerland did not.

[@krispalermo8133]

@@tomtimelord7876 Britain built their steam power factories nearly right on top of their coal mines. And they did everything they could to get roads and railways from their coal mines to their iron deposits for quicker smelting.

[@jasongaylard2547]

I think Rome had a huge advantage in that Italy has one short land border that is guarded by a major mountain range. The rest of it is protected by sea. Major seaborne invasions are really hard to pull off successfully. That gave Rome a long time to cement its culture, people could see the benefits of technology and learning.

[@robby319]

Which is why the Arabs were never able to conquer Italy.

[@blairweinberg6279]

@@robby319 Hannibal gave it a good shot, though!

[@roflmows]

Sane People: "today we're discussing African history" Most Others: "does Africa have any history?" Sane People: "facepalm"

[@lif3andthings763]

@@robkitchen5344 Timbuktu Manuscripts? Merotic Script? Ge’ez?

[@handanyldzhan9232]

I appreciated the way he backed up his arguments and connected causes to effects in the book. My favorite parts were about the role of taste in the evolution of fruits, and the spread and evolution of diseases. I thought they were pretty ingenious theories (even though he himself of course didn't come up with all of them), and especially the latter taught that new diseases would always emerge due to domestication and the always increasing world population. Yesterday polio, today COVID, tomorrow whatever. However, the real world is complicated, and the more you try to fit everything into a single elegant machine, the farther from the truth you get. Things become oversimplified when you ignore the human/social element when you start with huge ambitions to explain everything, so his approach was fundamentally flawed.

[@peterinbrat]

Guns, Germs and Steel is so much more than this and the latitude/longitude aspect is just one small aspect of the book. I also agree that transportation and trade isn't given enough importance in the book. Hunter gatherers a horticulturalists do not have the excess time to produce trade goods or build megalithic structures.

[@casperchristiansen2458]

Diamond: "Europeans had the advantage of widespread literacy." Me: (laughing in Classical Arabic).

[@IamRayson]

Casper Christiansen ههههههههههه!

[@lukejolley8354]

He’s talking about mountain chain axis, not distance axis lol

[@doctordoggo8604]

Literally all history disproves this book, hell agriculture and general understanding of what is talked about disproves this book

[@BlueBeamProjectionist]

Europe is small north-to-south and surrounded by water on three sides with mountain ranges largely dividing its northern regions from its southern regions. I think this led to a strong reliance on ships for trade, creating a strong maritime culture and bolstering the importance of naval development. Look at the geography of the most successful colonial powers: Britain, France, Spain and Portugal. All were bound to adapt to not only sailing on the ocean, but fighting naval battles to keep access to the most lucrative trade routes to the Mediterranean.