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SESSION 3: PLENARY GEOGRAPHY AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OVER THE LONG RUN

Why Did Human History Unfold Differently on Different Continents for the Last 13,000 Years?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 August 2001

Jared Diamond
Jared Diamond
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles
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Abstract

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History's broadest pattern, and its biggest unsolved problem, are its very different course on different continents. Why did Aboriginal Australians remain stone-age hunter-gatherers, while agriculture and empires were arising among Native Americans, and while widespread literacy and metal tools were arising in Eurasia? Why were Europeans the ones to conquer Africans, Aboriginal Australians, and Native Americans, instead of vice versa? For lack of an accepted explanation, many people fall back on racist explanations. I shall show instead how the different fates of different peoples were stamped by differences in continental environments.

Type
EHA ABSTRACT
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 61 , Issue 2 , June 2001 , pp. 520 - 521
Copyright
© 2001 Cambridge University Press