CHAPTER 8CAPABILITY 3: KNOWLEDGE SHARING

Copyright © 2009 by Steven J. Spear. Click here for terms of use.

Jared Diamond asks a provocative question in Guns, Germs, and Steel: “Why did Eurasians conquer, displace, or decimate Native Americans, Australians, and Africans, instead of the reverse?” The obvious answer is that the Eurasians had firearms, durable tools and weapons, and immunity to a host of terrible diseases. But this begs the question as to why. What led to those advantages? Positive outcomes depended on the ability of some peoples to compound knowledge more quickly and comprehensively than others. In Diamond’s explanation, it was geography and, more to the point, the differential advantages that geography offered in accelerating a ...

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