The synthesis of various human societies

This is a very interesting book and reading it, proved very enjoyable and enlightening experience, it put things in perspective and gave a clearer understanding of anthropology from one angle. This book tries to explain why the West diverged to become the hegemonic power of the world. As the whole human race seems to have started at the same place some time ago. It is written that humanity for most of its existence were hunter-gathers, until about 10,000 years ago after the last ice age. He believes it is nothing to do with the race being linked to intelligence or any other racial superiority theory as he knows that some Papa New Guineans who of the recent past lived in what could be described as the stone age, but who are very inventive, inquisitive, intelligent and quick to learn as required of modern age thinking. This book is also very controversial as some see Prof Jared Diamond work as being too simple and superficial, calling it pseudohistory, and relies heavily on the heavily what seems to be the Mercator map, which makes Africa relatively small in comparison to its real size and other continents bigger. He also has been criticized for being too deterministic and downplaying the role that actual people's culture, religion, social dynamics, etc play in their development. In his book, he claims that societies were determined by their geography, which provided access to domesticated animals, plants which provided food, dressing, transport, disease and muscle power and eventually germs, steel and guns.

Prof Jared Diamond

Prof Diamond had postulated that the domestication of animals and plants, had more effect on us than we had initially realized. That this modified or affected our behaviour and made changes that caused us to adapt to one another. He had stated that looking at the worlds major food cereals (wheat and barley) and major domesticated mammals (cows, sheep, goats and pigs), they originated from one area, the fertile crescent and it was able to spread to other areas because they were on the same latitude, to Europe, North Africa and to Asia, and eventually to the Americas. Because that Eurasia has the biggest landmass across, this allowed for ideas, seeds, animals, etc to spread across the nearly the same latitudes, where they were exposed to relatively the same temperature and similar climate conditions. That we inadvertently had selected the features in the seeds we needed and hence enhanced these features, by such selection. After the domestication of plants, people were able to live in hamlets due to the excess food and hence lead to the domestication of animals, which allowed man to live in villages, this leads to other discoveries like the wheel for example and made towns possible, this required organisations and institutions. Large people living together, due to the excess food, led to further improved and specialization, occupations, laws, empires, and so on and forth. His idea is that the larger the number of people that think on a particular problem, the faster they would come to a solution. Hence, people living in small bands as they did in the rain forest will not be able to solve a solution, than people living in towns and cities. The usage of animals in food production and other technologies, allow us to free others, from food production, these were able to use their incentives in other fields, like metallurgy, food processing, writing, transportation with animals leading to the invention of the wheel, and storage, etc. With time and energy took away from finding our daily substance, we could develop in other areas. The animals brought their own diseases and he states most diseases that we suffer from, are from our interaction with our animals. From flu to malaria, they all had animal equivalents. A sad story is that this built up immunity in the old world and because those in the Americas did not have a wild variety of domesticated animals, that they had not built an immunity, so up to 95% of their population was wiped out by a variety of European diseases they had no immunity to when these two worlds met. The only major disease they were able to give back in the Columbian exchange is Syphilis, while the old world decimated them with Smallpox, Influenza, tuberculosis, Typhus, Measles, Malaria, Yellow Fever, Diphtheria, Whooping Cough, etc which were all zoonotic. Although, the technically superior Spanish, with their steel swords, guns, cannons, horses were able to take over the major empires of the Aztecs, Mayas and Incas with relatively little effort and relatively few numbers, which we're using only bronze and stone weapons, by Hernán Cortés and Francisco Pizarro. This story did great injustice of the millions that died from diseases, in which villages and towns were annihilated, leaving empty or ghost towns for the Europeans to settle in. Prof Diamond has insinuated that Africa, would have been suffered a similar fate i.e. invaded, conquered and decimated if it were not for our diseases Malaria, and Yellow Fever which killed people in their thousands. In addition Trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness) that "protected" us and hence we did not suffer a similar fate of the native Americans and the aborigine Australians, the Europeans were not able to come until they had found a cure and to some of their diseases, which wipe out civilizations. They decimated the Australians aborigine and expelled them from the coast and all habitual land to infertile lands, leaving them to roam the desert. Also, Malaria and Yellow Fever, when transferred to the new world via African slaves, preventing further exploration of the new world, case in point it prevented construction of the Panama Canal, the death rate of more than 500 per day at one time, and the Americans had been trying since 1880. Numerous times they tried and were successful until they drained the area and made it mosquito-free.  

Writing is seen as a significant form of development as it, stores conveys, instructs, or transfers information in the most concise, portable, reproducible format. The knowledge of writing was previously restricted to the ruling class, scribes, priest and bureaucrats in any society with institutions, than mass literacy, especially before the invention of printing. The writing was there to ensure and continue the enslavement of a particular group of people. The rulers not wanting to facilitate the transmission of dissent or help in the hatching of plots, made sure it was complex and difficult and not accessible to the common masses. There have been only 3 distinct regions of the originators of writing were, Sumerian, Chinese and Mexican. All others have just picked it up by processes of blueprint copying or idea diffusion, So all subsequent writings were based on these three, to Egyptian hieroglyphics, Arabic, Greek and Roman alphabets, to our present-day English, French, German, Turkish, African writings, etc. spread by trade, religion and conquest. The spread of writing can be seen with the spread of any other technology or with inventions. Prof Diamond noticed that inventions although we might wish it so, were not one-off affairs nor due solely to the inspiration of a single inventor however brilliant he or she might be. But, they were also "standing on the shoulder of giants" and did need inspiration or illumination from a previous source. From writing, Gutenberg's printing press, the wheel, cars, internal combustion engine, telegraph, vaccination, indoor plumbing, the steam engine, electricity, the nuclear age, flying aeroplanes, rockets, space exploration, etc. Were based on imperfect or ineffective predecessors that did not see the light of day, by unknown or missed persons whose work was tinkered upon or changed to make it more effective and then exposed to a critical mass. Here the progress of human invention had always been gradual cumulatively, than in sudden giant steps. And the system that encourages such inventions and rewards new creative thinking and does not stamp out progress, and is open to new ideas will develop faster. What he was saying is that they needed no particular person but the environment was set up that these inventions would meet a specific need and the individuals would be adequately rewarded.

Why the West is on top now, is not as simple as people might believe. There are a variety of factors and issues. It might not be as simple as a resource as having bananas dropping on your head, and have excessive or abundant food, should free the hunter-gather time, so that they could indulge in other activities. Also, the type of government might affect it as well, as there was a time that the autocratic Chinese were the most developed nation on earth, giving to the West invention such as gunpowder, windmill, canal systems and water-lock system, hydraulics, the compass, paper, porcelain, wheelbarrow, etc. Then the centre of power moved to the Islamic world from the 8th and 13th century AD, and with its house of wisdom, it was from there that the West, relinquished the writings of the Greek philosophers which seem lost to antiquity, mathematics, astronomy, philosophy, medicine, etc. Although he constantly asks the question of why did not the Aztec, Incas, Aborigine Australians or Chinese invade Europe or carry the Europeans in slaves ships as they did for the Africans in the Atlantic. He described how China became Chinese, and the effect of China on the South China seas, the effect it had on Japan, both South and North Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, Philippines etc. Why Africa is black, due to the Bantu migration and remained black and Australia was black and became white and Papua New Guinea was black and still is black. The Khoisan (the clickers) and Pygmies were displaced to the desert and the thick jungles by the Bantus. Madagascar was South Asian and is still mixed. He was able to see from DNA evidence and language specialist how people migrated thousand years ago.

The book tries to explain the theories, and the epilogue was interestingly explicit, he went into detail. Domestication of plants and building settlements leads to the domestication of animals. This led to villages, towns, cities and then empires. Explaining that domestication of large animals was difficult in Africa because for an animal to be domesticated it has to meet certain criteria, it has to be gentle, be able to reproduce in captivity, be able to reproduce twice a year of two or more, must be a herd animal and social animal, must be a herbivore, etc. Hence, a lot of the African animals like Zebra, who are known to be aggressive and short-tempered did not meet these criteria. Nor do other animals Hippopotamus, elephant, rhinoceros, large apes, etc who are massive and strong, they could be tamed but not domesticated.  Lions, Leopards, Cheetahs, etc who are carnivores, cannot fit into the criteria. The presence of domesticated animals led to the development of the wheel for transportation and that lead to further other innovations. The wheel was absent in the Americans and Sub-Sharan African due to the absence of domestic animals. On reflection, he noticed that at times it may be favourable that a Continent is not unified, during the 15th century China was the richer than the whole of Europe. It was a single untied nation, they had sent three state-sponsored fleets to the Eastern shores of Africa then. But due to internal politics and a fight between the royalty and eunuchs they stopped and closed itself internally until it was rediscovered by the British and the edict was made at the top and affected all of China. The Japanese too closed itself by the Shogun only to reopened by the Americans in the 19th Century. In the 15th century an Italian Columbus was able to go to Portugal, England and France, but due to their disunity and the fact that there were in competition with each other he finally went to the Queen of Spain who sponsored him with 3 small ships. Columbus was wrong in his calculations as he thought the globe was smaller, and he was trying to find a quicker way to China/India, not via the Turks, subsequently Spain was able to become the richest nation in the world, and it started the age of discovery pushing other nations to seek their riches aboard. Geography and luck do mark our development more than we do realize.