I'll be brief. This chapter is essentially just telling the story of how the Incan emperor Atahuallpa, at the zenith of his glory and power, came to be captured in Atahuallpa's own capital city Cajamarca and consequently killed by the Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizzaro.
It's a fascinating story, but is more of an appetizer meant to whet the reader's appetite for the real substance that is to come later in the book. The author implores us to consider the reasons for the Spanish superiority in terms of technology, written language and so forth that allowed them to make the long journey to the Incan empire, then capture and kill the one man the Incans revered as a god. Why was it not the case that the Incans developed sea-faring ships, metallurgy and sailed to Spain to capture King Charles I of Spain?
Indeed, answering the question above is the entire point of this book, thus making this chapter seem a bit redundant, nonetheless, this chapter still makes for engaging reading.
Monday, December 25, 2006
Guns, Germs and Steel: ch 2: A Natural Experiment of History
In order to prove his premise that societies develop in their own unique way based on the pre-existing conditions of the environment, the author provides the example of the Polynesian islands located to the East of Australia and New Zealand. These islands are small, numerous and extremely varied in terms of "climate, geological type, marine resources, area, terrain fragmentation and isolation". These, the author claims, are major determinants of the degree of human development on each island.
All Polynesians trace their ancestry to a small band of colonists who made their way to the region from continental Eurasia. This implies that the Polynesian islands were colonised around the same time, hence there wasn't any particular island that had a head start in terms duration of human occupation.
Islands that had climate and soil suitable for agriculture were able to sustain high population density, which in turn led to complex social hierarchies and specialist craftsmen such as soldiers, builders, bureaucrats and chiefs who did not participate in food production. These claims are proven by historical records and journals whether from indigenous historians, artifacts or logs of European explorers who came and recorded their experiences.
The clearest examples of the kind of variation in the complexity of human society that established itself in Polynesia were the Hawaiian islands, the southern part of New Zealand's Southern Island as well as the subantarctic region where Chatham Island is located.
From the Polynesian islands, we can conclude that the factors mentioned above:
are probably responsible for the even greater variation that we observe in the world at large.
I think this chapter is absolutely fascinating. I think there isn't a person who wouldn't agree that environmental conditions play a large part in determining the development of the human race. Its so simple and yet such a powerful explanation I'm compelled to question why we never thought of it sooner. I guess it says something about human ignorance or arrogance that the idea that Europeans were more 'evolved' was given so much credit in colonial times even though an equally if not more plausible explanation was staring you quite literally in the face in the form of the surrounding environment.
All Polynesians trace their ancestry to a small band of colonists who made their way to the region from continental Eurasia. This implies that the Polynesian islands were colonised around the same time, hence there wasn't any particular island that had a head start in terms duration of human occupation.
Islands that had climate and soil suitable for agriculture were able to sustain high population density, which in turn led to complex social hierarchies and specialist craftsmen such as soldiers, builders, bureaucrats and chiefs who did not participate in food production. These claims are proven by historical records and journals whether from indigenous historians, artifacts or logs of European explorers who came and recorded their experiences.
The clearest examples of the kind of variation in the complexity of human society that established itself in Polynesia were the Hawaiian islands, the southern part of New Zealand's Southern Island as well as the subantarctic region where Chatham Island is located.
From the Polynesian islands, we can conclude that the factors mentioned above:
- climate
- geological type
- marine resources
- area
- terrain fragmentation
- isolation
are probably responsible for the even greater variation that we observe in the world at large.
I think this chapter is absolutely fascinating. I think there isn't a person who wouldn't agree that environmental conditions play a large part in determining the development of the human race. Its so simple and yet such a powerful explanation I'm compelled to question why we never thought of it sooner. I guess it says something about human ignorance or arrogance that the idea that Europeans were more 'evolved' was given so much credit in colonial times even though an equally if not more plausible explanation was staring you quite literally in the face in the form of the surrounding environment.
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