I've just read this book and enjoyed it a lot. Jared Diamond has written an investigation into the history of the world based on scientific explanations of causation. He asks why it is that Europeans conquered the Americas rather than Aztecs or Incas conquering Europe. You might say it was obvious: they didn't have the technology - but why was that? He starts by analysing the development of farming. He concludes that if you take Europe and Asia as one block - Eurasia - there were far more species of plants and animals that were capable of being domesticated than in other regions. This made us farmers earlier than on other continents. Close association with livestock means you get their infectious diseases. Eurasians developed more infectious diseases which they took with them on their conquests. Geography has its part to play. Eurasia is orientated east-west rather than north-south as in Africa or the Americas. This means that the climate is similar along the latitude and plants adapt easily in new countries. Agriculture means higher populations so they are more possible inventors so technology proceeds more rapidly. One issue in Physics is that it has a very "dead white men" European feel to its history and practice. This book goes some way to explaining that past - though it doesn't mean that the future has to resemble the past now that we understand. A final coda is about why Europe overtook China is terms of technological advance around the time of Galileo. I won't spoil it - you'll have to read the book. It's easy to read but a little over long in that he keeps repeating himself. That said, it means you can dip in as chapters become quite self-contained. He is very persuasive. Is it too good to be true? I don't think so, but I'd like to hear academic criticism of his findings.
