Re: guns, germs, steel

["Charles Brown" <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>>> Brad De Long <delong@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> 04/10/00 02:27PM >>>
>I don't know, West Africa was "more advanced" than Europe during the
>European Middle Ages, the 500 years before 1500. The ecology didn't
>change in the interim.
>
>I tend to think of Europe's leap forward over the rest of the world
>(not just Africa) in the last 500 years, as an expression of a sort
>of law of evolutionary potential ( "the last shall be first"). The
>idea is that the area that is most backward in one period has the
>most potential to leap forward in the next period because when you
>at the bottom of the heap you are more open to change, whereas when
>you are on top you cling to the status quo.
>
>CB


Interesting idea....

Ken Pomeranz's _The Great Divergence_ develops it to some
degree--that the very *success* of India and China at mobilizing
resources gave them large populations, and that Europe's earlier lack
of success at mobilizing resources gave at an extra edge of free
resources that helped propel it forward in the early modern period...

_________

CB: Yes, that's the sort of thing. By the way, the law of evolutionary potential is not my idea. It's from _Evolution and Culture_ by Elman Service and Marshall Sahlins, circa 1960.

It is a variation of why BACKWARD Russia was the first socialist rev.

CB