Module 2: European Advantage

Being a biogeographer and evolutionary biologist, Jared Diamond attempts to show the correlations of history and science. Unlike most historians, Diamond chooses to tell stories using scientific evidence to support why some historical events may have occurred. He throws questions for readers to contemplate on, but also presents possible answers to help readers form their own opinions and thoughts. Diamond questions heavily on why Europeans conquered African Americans and American Indians and not the other way around. The apparent reasons that Diamond lists are that the Europeans had ships, political organization, writing, guns, steel swords, and horses. Of course, he also mentions that infectious disease killed about 95% of the New World’s Indian population.

Diamond further explains that most of our familiar epidemic diseases can sustain themselves only in large dense human populations concentrated into villages and cities, so many Native Americans living as hunters and gathers were never exposed to them and had not developed antibodies. He also goes on to explain that diseases like measles and TB evolved from diseases that domesticated animals got.

In Diamond’s talk about why human history unfold differently on different continents for the last 13,000 years, he discusses that the New World did not have as many animals that they could domesticate because in order to domesticate wild animals, there were many prerequisites like the animal has to have a diet that humans can supply, a rapid growth rate, etc. Also, Europe has the world's largest land mass and offered the wildest species.

Domesticated plants survival rates were stronger in Europe because their main axis is east/west. Plants (and animals) were able to easily adapt to other parts of Europe because they encountered the same day-length and climate. The New World, on the other hand, their main axis is north/south, so plants (or animals) domesticated in one area could not possibly survive in another due to differences in climate and such.

Domesticating plants and animals not only enabled Europe to increase their population size, but created food surpluses. With food surpluses, it provided more time for people to devote time to developing other things like farming, metallurgy, writing, swords and guns. Again, as already mentioned, it was probably farming and domesticating animals that lead to the acquired animal diseases. Therefore, the Europeans clearly had the advantage to defeat the resistance of the native people at the time. If they did not have the infectious diseases and such, perhaps the natives may have triumphed and continued to live their traditional ways.

Above all, Diamond approach in his talk about why human history unfold differently on different continents for the last 13,000 years analyzes the possible reasons as to why Europeans conquered African Americans and American Indians and not the other way around. He explains that the Europeans had ships, political organization, writing, guns, steel swords, horses, and perhaps the most deadly weapon, infectious diseases. He questions and probes different explanations leaving readers wondering. Diamond’s ideas and explanations are very thought provoking. Lastly, Diamond suggests that the events that unfolded are still in question “Why did history turn out that way, instead of the opposite way?” (Diamond 6)