"Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared Diamond

Mr.Diamond is a biologist by training and avid bird researcher. It is not surprising that the viewpoint he presents in this book rejects all theories that the moral, religious or social factors were decisive in establishing white man's hegemony over the world, and firmly establishes that geography and ecology were the crucial elements in civilization's rise to power, and if the black Africans were located in Europe or Asia, they would have developed just as advanced civilization and would rule the world. This might be a little of a stumbling stone to many white people who, even subconsciously, feel a little tickle of satisfaction when thinking about the superiority of the white race, but it is cold hard scientific fact, the whites just got lucky to be at the right place at the right time.

The basic tenet of Mr.Diamond's theory is that the advance of civilization was determined by the availability of domesticable crops and large mammals. The Eurasian continent had the largest number of crops that could be domesticated and the largest number of large mammals that could be domesticated. The Americas, Africa and Australia had way less suitable crops, and the large mammal species were extinct very early on, before the humans living there could figure out the advantages and procedures of domestication. This early domestication of crops and mammals allowed for abandonment of the nomadic hunter/gatherer life style. People started to group together, organize villages and cities. The population density increased, since farming could support much more people per squared mile than the very random success hunting/gathering. With large population, densely populated settlements, the precursors for complex social organizations were in place. The complex social organization allowed for specialization of the people in the settlement. Some could become only warriors, other would become scribes and learned man, there would be a chieftain and a set hierarchy. This alone provided for the spare time and resources to develop sciences, literature and advanced technologies. It is that simple. There is no racial, moral or religious reason. Everything is up to what crops are around, how good they are in providing nutrition and domestication and how many large mammals that could be domesticated were around. Bad news for racists of any kind.

Mr.Diamond further explains that most human diseases originated from animal diseases that jump onto humans at a certain point of their evolution. Humans who domesticated large animals early had been exposed to more animal diseases earlier, and after the plagues and epidemics passed, the remaining humans were left with natural resistance to the deadly diseases. Since 13 of the only 14 domestic mammals that were ever domesticated came from Eurasia, the people living in Europe and Asia were the ones most exposed to the deadly diseases and developed immunity to them early on. This proved to be crucial later on when the Europeans colonized the Americas and Australia, as the natives there had absolutely no immunity to the diseases that the Europeans were carrying and their populations were decimated.

The characteristics of Eurasia also had huge impact on developing advanced civilizations as it is narrow in height and wide in width, which allows for larger areas that share the same longitude and thus have similar climate and conditions. The civilization started in the Fertile Crescent, today's Tiger and Euphrates rivers, Lebanon, Israel and Sinai peninsula. When the soil was exhausted there, the population had plentiful of similar space to settle and spread, since the Fertile Crescent was in the middle of Eurasia, and from there spread to Europe to the west and to Persia, India and China to the east.

None of the domestic animals now so popular in Europe and North America are native to the lands. They have all come from the Fertile Crescent, just like most of the crops that Europeans have used for centuries like wheat and rye. The situation of the world today, the haves and the have-nots has primarily been decided by the geography of the originating peoples, but the hand nature dealt them, by pure chance, and not by any kind of imagined racial, genetic or religious differences.