In , reframes Yali's question as:
Why did wealth and power become distributed as they now are, rather than in some other
way? For instance, why weren't Native Americans, Africans, and Aboriginal Australians the ones
who decimated, subjugated, or exterminated Europeans and Asians?
Diamond says the question asks about inequality in the modern world. He continues to
condense it further, finally asking, "Why did human development proceed at such different
rates on different continents?"
Yali's original question to Diamond was
asked in 1972 in New Guinea. Diamond describes this conversation:
All those things must have been on Yali's mind when, with yet another penetrating
glance of his flashing eyes, he asked me, Why is it that you white people developed so much
cargo and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people had little cargo of our own?
The question came up while Yali and Diamond were discussing the
rapid pace of political developments at a...
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