Among the
many claims that Diamond makes in is the argument that the development of
agriculture occurred first in Eurasia because those continents lie on an east-west axis instead
of a north-south one. He directly addresses this issue in Chapter Ten. Looking at a world map or
a globe, it is easy to see what Diamond means by this:
The
Americas span a much greater distance north-south (9,000 miles) than east-west: only 3,000 miles
at the widest . . .That is, the major axis of the Americas is north-south. The same is true,
though to a less extreme degree, for Africa. In contrast, the major axis of Eurasia is
east-west.
Diamond argues that this had major
consequences for the spread and development of agriculture. Because Eurasia has a longer
east-west axis than north-south, much of its expanse lies within similar latitudes that
therefore have similar climates. Therefore they had similar wild flora and fauna (Diamond cites
the example of flax, which grows wild from...
No comments:
Post a Comment