Does east-west/north-south orientation also impact large islands development?
Upvote:4
The problem with the Thesis in Gun, Germs, and Steel is that we have one example of an E-W megacontinent (Eurasia) and one example of a N-S one (the Americas). Africa is a bit small, and vague on E-W vs N-S.
The Island comparison probably fails due to the small size of any island, so the different terrain zones are similar.
Upvote:4
In the GGS book, the NS orientation is appointed as only one of the reasons that Eurasia was more developed than America and Sub-Saharan Africa. It also considers narrow points and bottlenecks (e.g., panama) which hampers migration and technology spread; the fact that American corn was less efficient in calories-hour than Chinese rice or Eurasian wheat; diseases and immunology; existence of suitable domesticable animals for cargo and work; and some other factors.
So, considering only one factor is already a weak argument. Besides that, the NS orientation only hampers technological spread if the climate differences are large. We should ask if primitive solutions in agriculture, societal organization, health, transportation, communication, weather forecast, food storage, etc, that work in one area, still work in the other area.
Egypt/Sudan (river surrounded by desert for some thousand km): I guess if something works in Low Egypt it is still more or less valid in High Egypt, at least when close to the Nile. So this argument is not applicable in Egypt.
Africa: The coast of Magreb is much more amenable to agriculture and civilization than the Sahara. Then Sub-Saharan Africa is tropical (tropical diseases, heavy rain, heat, different fauna and flora), very different from Magreb. Going south you have deserts again, in namibia, and an almost temperate climate in South Africa tip. I guess that a primitive tribe or city-state from Tunisia would not easily thrive if teleported to Congo. So we can apply the argument to Africa, although not as strong as in America.
For an island, it would need a very large island for the argument to start to make sense. A primitive tribe from Aceh (north Summatra), if teleported to Eastern Java, would still be able to farm with similar techniques? Still have access to the same kind of pack animals? Similar natural resources? Similar diseases? I guess these are not extremely different climates.
Besides that, the argument is not so valid anymore after faster transportation, large scale commerce, education, large countries. It was not so valid even in colonial times. The book deals with the emergence of civilizations, not with comparing current developments.
If the NS-orientation argument is valid for Java/Sumatra, then North Sumatra should have been already less developed than Java 1000 years ago, well before the dutch and muslims!
Did the muslims or the Dutch helped Java in some way to overcome Sumatra? I guess, for example, that Java was more important in spice trade than Sumatra, since the most famous spice islands are east of Java. Besides that, the dutch capital was in Java, this should help development.
More post
- 📝 Why was "Caesar" borrowed for the imperial title in German rather than "Augustus"?
- 📝 Why did Nazi soldiers do Hitler's bidding?
- 📝 At which point did election in a large country become feasible?
- 📝 Is it known if Yeltsin was planning to give up power peacefully if he lost the 1996 election?
- 📝 What were the consequences of the bankruptcies of the Spanish Empire?
- 📝 Were death rates greater than birth rates in premodern urban populations?
- 📝 Does Tanjore Brihadeeswarar Temple contain more stones than Giza pyramid?
- 📝 When the United States Congress passes an amendment, how are its votes counted?
- 📝 Why did US federal tax revenue jump in 1815?
- 📝 What profession(s) would have used this folding 'ruler'?
- 📝 Are there pyramids at Sternenfels?
- 📝 Did the Prussian king Friedrich Wilhelm IV. (1795 - 1861) ever write: "Das Volk ist mir zum Kotzen" = "The people makes me sick"?
- 📝 When did households become electrified?
- 📝 Why are Mary I, Mary II and Anne not as famous as Elizabeth I, Victoria and Elizabeth II?
- 📝 Who would attend a coronation in medieval France?
- 📝 How did Thomas Jefferson's time in France influence his views of women?
- 📝 What activity would convey the Burma railway & Hanoi Hilton POW project?
- 📝 Why did the population of Descartes, France increase by so much in the 1960's?
- 📝 Were surname upgrades a well known practice in the Spanish Empire?
- 📝 Were grapes luxurious food in Ancient Rome?
- 📝 In WW2, which midget submarine program was the most successful?
- 📝 What are tanks for?
- 📝 Understanding my 96 year old father's US Army discharge papers
- 📝 Were any Kings/Queens who were monarchs as children good rulers?
- 📝 What determined which companies went to which post-Soviet republics after the fall of the Soviet Union as everything was centralized in Moscow?
- 📝 Was a technological advantage more effective in European warfare than in China's history?
- 📝 Why did the Chinese Nationalist party members go to the island of Taiwan and not to any other island?
- 📝 Where did the Greeks look for descendants of the Byzantine dynasties?
- 📝 Who revoked their signatures from the union agreement at the Council of Florence?
- 📝 Is this cairn/mound-like structure in Germany real or imagined?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 Does east-west/north-south orientation also impact large islands development?
- 📝 What impact does colonial legacy have on current US presence in the South China Sea dispute?
- 📝 In Chicago, IL, why do most north/south streets change names east of Ashland on the north vs south side?
- 📝 Why were the West African islands uninhabited?
- 📝 Why does Latin America have a higher number of surviving Native Americans than North America?
- 📝 Why did native Americans and Europeans mix in South America but not in North America?
- 📝 How and why was the boundary between West and East Berlin decided to be where it was?
- 📝 Where does Lincoln say the South wants us to believe as they believe?
- 📝 What East German laws and regulations were extended to the West after unification?
- 📝 Why does Europe have so few skyscrapers compared to East Asia?
- 📝 What was the legal status of an East German once he had reached West Germany?
- 📝 How did the existence of the Alps impact the development of Switzerland?
- 📝 How did people and goods move between East Pakistan and West Pakistan?
- 📝 What was the staple food of the natives of South East Asia before rice?
- 📝 Why is Russian far east less populated than Chinese north east regions?
- 📝 Why are the historical large cities in the southern US not the large cities in the South today?
- 📝 How large were the East India Company armed forces?
- 📝 Why were there more Muslims in East Bengal than in West Bengal
- 📝 Why did South Korea (and the UN) accept an armistice line that put Seoul in artillery range of North Korea?
- 📝 Did the North give the South its debt after Civil War ended?
- 📝 Did the division between East and West Germany coincide with cultural boundaries?
- 📝 Did the HEIC operate in the West Indies as well as the East Indies?
- 📝 Why did Spartacus turn South at Mutina instead of continuing North towards Thrace?
- 📝 What were the effects of US foreign policy in the South East Asian region in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s on states with capitalist economies?
- 📝 What was the impact of utilitarianism upon the development of psychiatric care in 18th-19th century England?
- 📝 What was the reason that Poland wanted a part of Germany north of Stettin/Szczecin and west of the Oder?
- 📝 Did Egyptian civilization start from North to South or vice versa?
- 📝 What does this 1960 West German political cartoon mean?
- 📝 Given that there were there larger, more organised civilisations in South America compared to NA, why did they not colonise North America themselves?
- 📝 Why have North and South Korea stopped marching together at the Olympics?