My last post, “Land Grants or Land Grabs,” revealed that most federal land that started land-grant universities had been taken from Indians. I received some constructive pushback. (See the comments.) But that feedback reminded me of a question, Why did the Europeans invade the New World in the first place and conquer Native Americans, rather than Native Americans invading Europe and conquering Europeans?
The phrasing of this question will alert some readers to the subject of this post, the powerful 1997 book by Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel.[1]
Diamond’s book travels through time (back to the origins of humans) and space (all continents except Antarctica) to answer that question—to determine why some societies became so powerful, with such technology, that they could cross an ocean and conquer millions of people. The European/Native American conflict is the most obvious example, but history has many examples of more powerful groups overcoming less powerful groups.
One of Diamond’s goals is to get away from claims of European genetic superiority. Diamond himself summarizes his book this way: “History followed different courses for different peoples because of differences among people’s environment, not because of biological differences among peoples themselves.” [2]
Those environmental differences go back thousands, even tens of thousands, of years. So here is a brief summary of some of the forces that Diamond says led to the make-up of the world today.
The Axis Problem
To begin, the east-west axis of Eurasia (which he considers as just one continent) spurred trade and movement. “Eurasia provides the world’s widest band of land at the same latitude,” he explains.[3] The fact that a person (or group) could travel across the continent at the same latitude, and thus the same climate, meant that people could easily pick up new habits, new crops, new technology, and others’ culture.
Not so in the New World., which has a north-south axis. That is, the widest span east-west is 3,000 miles, but 9,000 miles north and south. To spread crops, clothing, and technology throughout the Americas, one must cross many latitudes. That means many different climates as one goes north or south.
Evidence of the problems of this spread is that in the New World certain wild crops were initially domesticated in several different places, at several different times. In contrast, in Eurasia once a wild plant was domesticated, the knowledge was easily picked up and tried by travelers across the Eurasian expanse. But in the New World such efficient transfer was limited. Domesticating the same plant de novo lengthened the process of moving toward agriculture.
The east-west axis also meant that inventions like writing in one part of Eurasia (such as Sumer) could be transferred and adapted in other parts of the continent. Diamond says that writing, a very difficult human challenge, was invented in only two places for sure, Sumer and southern Mexico, and two that are not as sure—China and Egypt. But the writing that was invented in Mexico did not spread throughout the continent, as writing did in Eurasia.
Another problem for the New World was that it had very few large animals that could be domesticated. In contrast to the sheep, cattle, pigs, oxen, and horses that were prevalent in Eurasia, the New World had only turkeys, guinea pigs, llamas, alpacas, and dogs. There simply wasn’t much to work with. (Once Native Americans obtained horses and guns, they became formidable adversaries.)
The Arrival of Farming
Agriculture—herding, at least, but especially crop cultivation—may have been the most important event in human history. It was also a long process—hunter-gatherers had to become farmers. (The biblical story of Cain and Abel figuratively illustrates the triumph of crop cultivation over herding.)
Farming developed piecemeal. For example, hunter-gathering families developed flint blades, baskets to carry grains, grain roasting, and storage pits—all for wild crops. These tools were “prerequisites to the planting of cereals as crops,” he says. [4]
Once food production occurred, life changed dramatically. Population rose, as the calories per cultivated acre were much greater than those that hunter-gatherers could obtain. Hunter-gatherers adopted agriculture or were wiped out by the more populous and stronger farming societies. The few places where hunter-gatherers still live in modern times are areas unsuited to agriculture.
Farming spawned specialization of labor, which vastly increased the society’s productivity. And the increase of population opened the door to larger, amalgamated societies. Diamond presents a procession of ways people lived, starting with small bands, then tribes, then chiefdoms, and, finally, the state— ever larger groups.
But large groups (beyond the family or small band) led to conflict among members. At the smallest size, a band would have solidarity and only kill those outside the band, if they happened to challenge someone in the band. But with multiple families and multiple clans, that changed.
Bands, Tribes, Chiefdoms, and States
“With the rise of chiefdoms around 7,500 years ago, “ writes Diamond, “people had to learn, for the first time in history, how to encounter strangers regularly without attempting to kill them.” This led the chief to “exercise a monopoly on the right to use force.” [4]
After the chiefdom came the state, with its pharaoh, king, or emperor, and army, bureaucracy, and laws. This centralization enabled economic interaction, greater specialization, and more productivity, including more efficient warfare. Thus, guns and steel (for swords).
Now, I’ve shared the big themes, except for germs. As we know, the Old World, but not the new, had thousands of years of contact with domesticated animals—cattle, sheep, goats, etc. Europeans’ proximity to farm animals meant that they gradually became immune to devastating animal-based diseases, such as smallpox, measles, and others.
Without intending to, Europeans brought their diseases to the New World. The impact was almost immediate. Millions of Indians were wiped out by the disease, many of them well before Jamestown or Plymouth was settled. Many more Native Americans were killed by disease than by armaments.
In sum, Jared Diamond gives reasons to understand why Europeans overcame Native Americans. That impact remains tragic, but we can begin to understand it.
The image above shows Francisco García de Holguín capturing Cuauhtémoc, the last Aztec emperor (1519-1521). This 18th-century painting on copper is in the public domain and available on Wikipedia.
Notes (Comments follow the notes)
[1] Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1997).
[2] Diamond, 25.
[3] Diamond, 187.
[34 Diamond, 111.
[5] Diamond, 273.
History is the business of connecting dots after an event–predicting the past perhaps. Diamond connects certain dots in an interesting narrative while others have created different paths through the myriad dots. I suggest that while these narratives often create interesting and provocative new pictures of the past, we would do better to think of the dots more like Chinese checkers–one moves and many more move as a consequence. The move of any one cannot predict the moves of others. The move of one is like the butterfly in the common example of chaos theory where that African butterfly sets in motion events that lead to a hurricane a year later.
Very unsatisfying because it makes our beloved and necessary story telling impossible or maybe somewhat like a Borges fiction.
The difference in genes between cultures, of course, is one of the pieces that determine proclivities and abilities, but they are as far from predictive as the butterfly’s disturbance of a few air molecules.
Suppose the Persians had conquered the Greeks and the rest of Europe: would that have changed European genetics and creativity? Was it European genes or their ability to provide good pasture and adapt the stirrup to large horses and metal suited knights that allowed them to conquer new lands?
Side note: didn’t North America’s first inhabitants encounter horses, camels, elephants, and caribou that have been domesticated elsewhere? It seems the economic efficiencies of big mammal hunting trumped the long term economic investment in domestication.
In the next 10 to 50 years genetic engineering will allow us to endow humans with superior intellectual powers and other traits. Then genes might very well determine winners and losers.
“One of Diamond’s goals is to get away from claims of European genetic superiority.”
So, to be sure, Diamond’s book is a one-sided attempt to get people to reach a particular view, rather than following the data. In fact, the first thing he does is to remove crucial data–that genetics may play a part in Europeans tendencies that make them prone to create (resulting in technical superiority), to wander, to explore, and to conquer–from the equation.
But genetics are undeniably there. If not, then why were Amerindians were more susceptible to those specific diseases? It can only be their genetic inheritance. The ability to fight off certain diseases became encoded in Europeans because of their proximity to domesticated animals that spanned many millennia. But Amerindians lacked the genetic defenses passed on by Europeans.
If there is one genetic cause, cannot there be others? For clearly, at least one genetic difference–defense against diseases–existed. Given the very different cultural environments, is it not likely that other genetic changes occurred while the two hemispheres remained apart?
It seems to me that Diamond’s book is just one more egalitarian attempt to provide a smokescreen against serious investigations into humanity that might upset the political zeitgeist.
Earlier this week, the Amazon guy delivered a copy of “The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution” by Gregory Cochran and Harry Harpending. Haven’t read it yet, but looking forward to it.
1. You apparently posit differing genetic inheritance as proof that “Europeans” may be more “prone to create, to wander, to explore, and to conquer” than other groups.
2. I strongly disagree, because I find that all peoples are “prone to create, to wander, to explore, and to conquer.” In fact, this seems inherent in human nature, in all societies. However, not all societies have the same opportunities, at the same time.
3. Take the invention of writing. Writing was NOT invented by Europeans. Historians tell us that it was invented in Sumer 5,000 years ago – by a group, by an individual? – Regardless, Diamond’s point is that the invention could spread easily because of geography. And, indeed, writing did spread and develop, with extraordinary speed and results. But why attribute this enormous advance to any group’s “genetics”? ALL groups did NOT invent writing – ONE group did, and the other groups saw the advantage, and developed and built on it. “War and Peace” was among the ultimate results, but no “Russian” invented writing. Moreover, even if the “Russians” had invented writing, would Russian “genetics” get the credit for Tolstoy?
4. Moreover, Diamond doesn’t argue that all individuals have equal abilities. Rather, he argues, some societies have greater access to new inventions and ideas. This is actually incontrovertible.
5. In addition, maybe I’m confused, but I don’t think our genes are 100% responsible for our immune responses – isn’t previous exposure more powerful? Do you think that the 1918 Influenza was most dangerous to young people because they differed genetically from old people? European diseases were new to the Amerindians.
Interesting. But it seems to me Diamond puts too much weight on geography and doesn’t understand the importance of institutions. Why did modern economic growth emerge in Central and Western Europe instead of China, Southeast Asia, India, or South America? All of these had substantial agriculture, domesticated animals, and writing (or at least sophisticated record keeping in the form of quipus for S. Americans). I don’t think “much harder to travel north-south” explains it. After all, geography can’t explain timing — why did economic growth emerge in Europe when it did and not earlier?
The development of concepts of private property rights, capital (not capital goods), and economic innovation & entrepreneurship strike me as the explanation — the things Douglass North, Mises, Mokyr, and McCloskey emphasize. The explanation is first of all a revolution in ideas and culture that then shapes formal institutions and fosters growth.
Geography likely is a factor, but geography explanations aren’t necessary to explain differences across peoples and cultures. Ideas are sufficient.
Charles, of course you are right that institutions are essential. Private property rights, capital, innovation, and entrepreneurship enabled Europe to grow. But Diamond is looking back farther to find out what conditions made these institutions possible. China, for example, “had it all” well before the Europeans did. But Diamond suggests (without developing the point) that the “long east-west rivers” in China allowed political control early on. That undoubtedly quashed creative change. In contrast, Europe was fragmented and composed of competitive entities, a landscape that laid the foundation for institutions such as private property rights.
Super helpful, thank you, Jane. I will share the post.