re: #317 RealityBasedSteve

Those are both just excerpts, of course.

Jared Diamond in his book “Guns, Germs, and Steel” makes a case that most of it can be tied to environmental differences, number of animals hat can be domesticated, and East-West vs North-South continental alignment orientation.

I’ve got many (all?) of his books, he uses a broad brush sometimes, but makes some good arguments…

I enjoyed Guns, Germs and Steel. Diamond is not just a ‘science writer’, he’s a scientist.