During the Iran-Contra scandal in the 1980s I used to joke that if a pollster called and asked me where Nicaragua (home of the Contra rebels) was, I wouldn’t have an answer. It’s amazing that I could be so geographically ignorant (and this was just one example) and still view myself as an educated adult.[1]
For me, that has changed. Now that I am studying history, I am aware of the importance of geography. How can I understand Irish rebellions if I don’t know where the Pale and Ulster are? How much can I learn about the woolen industry in Languedoc if I don’t know where Languedoc is and whether it could raise its own sheep?
I am a convert. (That’s why I include two geography websites on the right-hand side of this blog.) Yet some of the most fundamental geographical insights come from outside the field of history. The chief outside influence, I venture to say, is evolutionary biologist Jared Diamond, whose remarkable book Guns, Germs, and Steel reestablished geography as a major force in shaping history.[2]
I don’t actually know how much Diamond’s immensely popular book has influenced historians; I have heard it mentioned in just one class. Diamond takes exactly the opposite tack of most historians as they probe broad world trends. Historians try to remove that dreaded sin, Eurocentrism, from their thinking and writing, treating every part of the world as equally as they can. But Diamond embraces the differences between Europe and other parts of the world. He tries to explain them, not deny them.
The title Guns, Germs, and Steel refers to factors that enabled Europeans to conquer other parts of the world. One of the emblematic images of the book (it’s on the cover) is the confrontation between the Spaniard Francisco Pizarro and Atahuallpa, emperor of the Incas in Peru in 1532. With a tiny band of 168 men, fewer than half on horses, Pizarro captured Atahuallpa, who had a force of 80,000 men. “Why did Pizarro capture Atahuallpa?” Diamond asks. And, “How did Pizarro come to be there to capture him, instead of Atahuallpa’s coming to Spain to capture King Charles I?” [3] Those questions launch 400 pages of geographical answers.
Diamond proposed that natural landscape conditions (i.e., geography) influenced the history of continents, regions, and countries in profound ways. To summarize some of his main points:
- Eurasia (the land mass containing Europe and Asia) prospered because it happened to have major animals that could be domesticated (sheep, cattle, horses), which the “New World” did not. (The New World had only llamas and alpacas.)
- In addition, Eurasia stretched across an east-west axis. People could move great distances while staying in the same climatic zone, which facilitated migration, trade, and diffusion of technology. In contrast, traveling far in the Western hemisphere entailed moving north and south, encountering constantly changing climate. This deterred communication and trade.
- Because Eurasians lived for thousands of years with domesticated animals, they developed immunities to their parasites. Those parasites wiped out populations in America when Europeans inadvertently brought them there.
- Africa had few navigable rivers, so trade of information and goods was sparse, reducing economic and cultural interaction.
- China has long, easy-to-navigate rivers, and the two major rivers were connected by canals early on. Since 221 B.C., China has almost always been under the control of a single dominant political power (in contrast to the political diversity and competition that has characterized most of Europe).
A caveat: Diamond’s insights are about broad world trends; they can’t explain the details—and he may not be fully correct about the broad trends, either. But it’s as provocative a book as I have ever read.
[1] Now, be honest. Do you know the two countries that border Nicaragua?
[2] Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (New York: Norton, 1997).
[3] Diamond, 74.
Research notes from two studies on Marginal Revolution: https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/03/evidence-for-the-continental-axis-hypothesis.html
A few comments from my article on the Columbian Exchange in the Cato Journal (Vol. 27, No. 1, Winter 2007): 92-93.
“The slow movement of potatoes to North America is an example of [Jared] Diamond’s proposition that agricultural innovations move East-West faster than North-South. Potatoes were first moved from South America to England and Ireland before being transplanted to New England in 1718 by Scotch-Irish settlers. Europe also gained from the Columbian Exchange. It is difficult to think of Ireland and Northern Europe today without potatoes, but they were not grown in Europe before Columbus’s voyage. There was no tomato sauce in Italy before tomatoes were introduced from America. There was no Swiss or Belgian chocolate before cocoa beans were sent from America.”
Earlier historical geographers contributed perspectives on the role of the environment in conditioning human actions. Among the most prominent is Ellsworth Huntington, a geographer at Yale in the early 20th century. Among his books are: World Power and Evolution (1919, The Pulse of Progress (1926), and famously, Mainsprings of Civilization (1945). Even earlier in the 20th century was Nathaniel Southgate Shaler’s Man and the Earth (1905). Any and all available for loan at your request.
It’s wonderful to learn how much previous writers contributed. The new “world history” (which I am currently taking a course in) would benefit a lot from some of these books.
Two perhaps minor points where Diamond may be off or mostly off.
1. Rivers. The length of rivers is less important than navigability, but still, long navigable rivers include the Nile, the Amazon, the Mississippi, the Ob, Yenisey, and Congo. I suspect the most important feature of the river factor is surrounding ecosystem, and neither navigability nor length, though civilization began in arid areas like that accompanying much of the Nile. Certainly the Mississippi and tributaries are grander, longer, more connective, and more navigable than anything in Europe or China. One has to wonder why over perhaps 30,000 years inhabitants of North America didn’t exceed the technological and organizational achievements of Europe. That leads to my second contention.
2. North America had animals that could be domesticated–sheep, horses, and camels come to mind, possibly bison. The first humans in North America almost certainly extinguished rather than domesticated these species. Why? Good question.
Finally, I forget if Diamond deals with the considerable urban congregations in Central and South America and possibly some cultures along the Mississippi and Ohio rivers other than to explain that they did not have cross fertilization by easy land routes and no domesticated animals other than llamas and alpacas and dogs.
Sometimes contemplating what Diamond doesn’t explain is more challenging and fruitful than considering what he does explain.
As a lover of geography since 4th grade I really enjoyed Guns, Germs, and Steel. When I was in graduate school in the 60s I learned smallpox was the reason Cortez was able to conquer the Aztecs. Recent archaeological work in Guatemala and Honduras in sites located with Lider technology and subsequent expeditions suggest the demise of some of these impressive civilizations by diseases brought by the Spaniards and spread by trade.