Re: guns, germs, steel

["Charles Brown" <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>>> "Ricardo Duchesne" <RDUCHESN@xxxxxxxx> 04/10/00 03:42PM
I still think his argument is, by implication, a direct challege
to dependency theory, eventhough he never refers to this word; and he
certainly does not say that a process of "underdevelopment" occurs
in Africa after 1500. He is very emphatic that the "ULTIMATE" causes
of Europe's technological and political superiority lie in its
ecological/geographical conditions.

> And this has always been the part of Diamond's argument that I have
> had the most doubts about. East Africa seems to me at least to have
> been part of the Eurasian ekumene--why else would the largest city on
> the east African coast, the House of Peace, have a name from a
> language whose heartland is two thousand miles north?

Because, he would say, that region is not Africa, that is, Black
Africa.

__________

CB: What does being BLACK Africa have to do with "ecological/geographical conditions" ? Sounds like Diamond has an inconsistent and racist theory.

CB