TWC Notes

_______________________________________________________________________
Yalis Question Why do White Men have so much cargo, and New Guineans
have so little?
-Deals with the issue of inequality
Political, Technological and Economical development (stem from
development from 11,000BC to 1,500AD)

Thesis History followed different courses for different peoples because of

differences among peoples environments, not because of differences among
people themselves.
_______________________________________________________________________
Chapter 1 Up To The Starting Line

-Africa had an enormous time advantage

-Humans, once they came to a continent, spread and adapted quickly to
conditions Time of settlement by itself cannot predict outcomes.
_______________________________________________________________________
Chapter 2 A Natural Experiment In History

!
-The context of Polynesia between 1,200 BC and 500 AD.
!

Polynesians had the following:

Animals (pig, dog, chicken)
Plants (taros, yams, sweet potatoes, breadfruit, bananas, coconuts)
This allowed for hunting and gathering.

-Surpluses allowed for development of varied tools for agriculture, warfare,

art and erected ceremonial buildings and forts.

6 Sets of environmental variables in the Polynesian islands:

1. Climate (tropical to subtropical to temperate to Sub Antartic)
2. Geology (Varied minerals in soil allowed for different levels of
agriculture e.g. Volcanic islands have rich soils but vary to height)
3. Marine Resources (Reefs and shallow waters vs Rocky coasts varied
effort for capturing seafood)
4. Area (Vary from 100 acres (Anuta) to 103,000 square miles (New
Zealand))
5. Fragmentation (fragmentation by steep walled valleys and ridges)
6. Isolation (Islands may be isolated and lose regular contact with other
islands)

!
-Allowed for intensive poultry farming and agriculture of tropical plants.
!

Population size plays a big part in economic growth (surplus contribution)

-The larger the size and the higher the density, the more complex and
specialised technology and organisation. (building of irrigation systems and
fish ponds in Hawaii)
-Farmers are then devoted to intensive food production, creating surplus and
enabling support of non-producers, including chiefs, priests, bureaucrats and
warriors.

Jason Lim Kian Hui

TWC GGS notes

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Social complexity also increased, where people of chiefly descent were

divided into 8 hierarchically ranked lineages.
-Decisions were reached by discussion and consensus among the chiefs.
_______________________________________________________________________
Chapter 3: Collision At Cajamarca (Spaniards vs Inkas)

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Pizarro captured Atahuallpa, King of the Inkas, on November 16, 1532.
!
Factors for Pizarros success:
!

1. Superiority of equipment - Spanish had guns, armor, steel swards, horses

vs Inkas stone, bronze and wooden weapons and no mounted troops.
2. Mastery of equipment - Spanish mastered the use of the gun and horse
riding to their advantage.
3. Civil War in America - The Inkas were in the midst of a civil war.
4. Epidemic of Smallpox - The germs helped kill a disunited Inka army.
5. Maritime Technology - Spanish could travel to America and not the
reverse.
6. Writing - Information about Columbus voyages and Cortezs conquest of
the Aztec was readily available.
_______________________________________________________________________
PART 2: THE RISE AND SPREAD OF FOOD PRODUCTION
_______________________________________________________________________
Chapter 4: Farmer Power

!
The acquisition of food production is a pre-requisite to guns, germs and steel.
!
Only a few plants and animals are worth hunting and gathering. Most are
useless.

Domestic animals
-Provide protein (Meat)
-Provide a source of milk and milk products.
-Provide for ready fertiliser for fields
-Pulling plows and enable tougher lands to be cultivated.

Surplus -> Increased amount of calories -> increased population (decreasing

birth interval)
-Developed sedentary(inactive) societies with storage of food and chiefdoms.

Crops and livestock yielded fibers for clothing, blankets, nets and rope.
Animals provided bones for artefacts and leather.
Large domestic animals are also ridden (horse, donkey, yak, reindeer, camel)

Germs:
Natural selection occurred, where people developed immunity and resistance
to diseases such as smallpox, measles and influenza.
- Played a huge role in European conquest of native Americans, Australians,
South Africans and Pacific islanders.

!
_______________________________________________________________________
!
Jason Lim Kian Hui

TWC GGS notes

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Chapter 5: Historys Have and Have-Nots

Food production is mostly initiated by importing crops and livestock

domesticated somewhere else. -> Demand for it?

Genetic analysis shows that domestication within the last 10,000 years is a
case of independent domestication. (From different regions, Southwest Asia
(Fertile Crescent) , China, Mesoamerica, the Andes of South America and the
Eastern United States)

Question - Local people adopted crops from neighbours or invaders took

over an area that has not been settled? The answer is rather ambiguous.
_______________________________________________________________________
Chapter 6: To Farm or Not to Farm

Farmers vs Hunter-Gatherers
-Farmers are not necessarily better off than hunter-gatherers. The first farmers
were often smaller, less well-nourished, had more diseases, and died younger
than the hunter-gatherers they replaced.

Initially, people did both farming and hunting/gathering. This led to the
decisions on how to allocate the finite sources of time and effort.

However, over the last 10,000 years, there has been a shift toward food
production. Why?
1. Decline in the availability of wild food.
2. Increase in availability of domesticable wild plants.
3. Development of technologies used for collecting, processing and storing
food.
4. Two-way link between population increase and food production increase.
(Direct correlation)
5. Denser population of food producers. (allow to displace or kill huntergatherers)

-> As a result, hunter-gatherers eventually were either displaced by farmers

or adopted farming. The rest of the remaining hunter-gatherers lived in areas
that did not favour food production.
_______________________________________________________________________
Chapter 7: How to Make an Almond

Genetic modification - The natural process of gathering would have elected

characteristics that later would enhance domestication. (choosing the right
traits)
-What was gathered would then at first accidentallyand later deliberately
get planted.

Fertile Crescent:
1st stage(10000 years ago): Those that could be easily grown by being sown
in the ground grew quickly and so could be harvested in a few months after
planting, were easily stored, self-pollinating and needed few mutations to
adapt to domestication. (e.g. wheat, barley, peas)

Jason Lim Kian Hui

TWC GGS notes

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2nd stage(4000 BC): Fruits and nuts that take at least three years to bear and
as much as ten to full production. People must have been settled before
planting these. (e.g. olives, figs, dates, pomegranates, grapes)

!
3rd stage: Fruit trees that required grafting and only came in classical times.
!

-This pattern is similar in other areas - First would be fast-growing, high

carbohydrate cereals or grains(grass family), and then pulses which added
protein(legume family).
_______________________________________________________________________
Chapter 8: Apples or Indians?

!
Advantages of the Fertile Crescent:
!

1. Mediterranean Climate - Natural selection of plants allow them to survive

a long dry season and resume growing rapidly when rain returns. These is
an ideal type of plant for storage.
2. Many of the Fertile Crescent crops were already abundant and highly
productive - In contrast with corn, in the New World, where it required
drastic changes for it to be productive.
3. A high percentage of the Fertile Crescent crops are self-fertilising - In
contrast to the fact that most plants are cross-pollinating, hence any
positive changes are easily lost in the cross-fertilising process.

Against other areas with Mediterranean climates, the Fertile Crescent is

better because

1. Size - Largest Mediterranean zone, with the largest diversity of wild plants
and animals.
2. Variation in climate - Variation favours evolution especially of a high
percentage of annuals.
3. Wide range of altitude and topography - Allow for staggered harvest
seasons.
4. Four species of big mammals (Goats, sheep, pigs and cattle) - All
domesticated in the Fertile Crescent.
5. Less competition from hunter-gatherers - geography and low variety of
wild game, which did not favour hunter-gatherers.

The Eight Founder crops

- 3 Cereals for carbohydrates
- 4 Pulses with 20-25% protein
- Flax as a sources of fiber for cloth and oil
e.g. early Jordan farmers farmed barley and emmer wheat.

- 4 Domestic Animals as their main protein sources, and they also provided

milk, wool, plowing and transportation.

> Able to meet humanitys basic economic needs for carbohydrates,

protein, fat, clothing, traction and transportation.
In contrast - Mesoamerica only had the turkey and the dog, and corn was
difficult to grow and had little crop yield.

Jason Lim Kian Hui

TWC GGS notes

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Cultural impact - Cultures vary greatly in their openness to innovation. Hence,

some cultures did not were not open to adopting food production.

So back to the question: Apples? North Americans did not cultivate apples
because they were delayed in developing food production; the entire suite of
plants and animals available to them was only of modest potential until the
arrival of the Mexican crops.
_______________________________________________________________________
Chapter 9: Zebras, Unhappy Marriages, and The Anna Karenina Principle

Anna Karenina - Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is
unhappy in its own way - success means avoiding the many separate
possible causes of failure.

Many big mammals were crucial for meat, milk products, fertiliser, land
transport, plow traction, wool and germs that killed previously unexposed
people.
- Some of these big mammals were never domesticated (such as the zebra,
elephant)
Small mammals have been useful for meat, eggs and feathers too. (birds
notably)

Only 14 species of big mammals were domesticated: (The ancient 14)

9 in limited geographical areas
-Arabian camel, Bactrian camel, Llama, Donkey, Reindeer, Water Buffalo, Yak,
Banteng and Gaur
5 spread around the world
-Cow, Sheep, Goat, Pig and Horse

Natural selection has allowed these big mammals to be optimised for work in
the human environment in the following ways:
1. Change of size: cows, pigs and sleep got smaller, while guinea pigs got
bigger.
2. Increasing amounts of wool and decreasing amounts of hair in sheep and
llama.
3. Increasing milk production in cows
4. Several have smaller brains and less developed sense organs than their
wild cousins, reflecting less need.
Eurasia had the most candidates for big mammals to be domesticated at 72,
sub-saharan Africa had 51, the Americas had 24, and Australia had 1.

Factors where cultural obstacles to domestication were revoked:

1. Rapid acceptance of Eurasian domesticates by non-Eurasians as soon as
they were introduced.
2. Universal human penchant for pets.
3. Rapid domestication of the ancient fourteen.
4. Repeated independent domestication of some.
5. Limited success in modern efforts at further domestication.

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Jason Lim Kian Hui

TWC GGS notes

Page 5

Qualities of a domesticable large mammal:

1. Diet - Efficiency of conversion of food to consumer biomass of about 10%.

2. Growth Rate - They must mature quickly.
3. Ease of captive breeding - Some animals are very difficult to breed in
captivity.
4. Pleasant disposition - Zebras become very dangerous as they grow older.
5. Slow to panic - Nervous animals are hard to keep in an enclosure.
6. Social structure - Animals live in herds, have a well developed dominance
hierarchy, and have overlapping ranges. Territorial animals cannot be
penned together.
_______________________________________________________________________
Chapter 10: Spacious Skies and Tilted Axes

Diffusion along the east-west axis had greater effect than diffusion along the
north-south axis.

An east-west axis means that adjoining areas are in similar latitudes and so
have similar seasons and climates. (Equatorial plane)
-Fertile Crescent crops grow well in temperate zones, and thus able to move
rapidly in both east and west directions.
-However, spread is inhibited by geographic and climatic difficulties. (e.g.
Tropical conditions south of the Sahara prevented Fertile Crescent crops from
reaching the Mediterranean climate of South Africa.

Technology had similar difficulty and ease in diffusion - Southwest Asian

technology of the wheel spread within a few hundred years throughout much
of Eurasia. Alphabetical writing took about 1000 years.
_______________________________________________________________________
Part 3: From Food To Guns, Germs and Steel
_______________________________________________________________________
Chapter 11: Lethal Gift of Livestock - Germs

Farmers tend to have nastier germs, better weapons and armour, and more
powerful technology and live under centralised governments with literate
elites better able to wage wars of conquest.

Germs
- Killing the victim is an unintended byproduct of of such strategies of
reproduction of the microbe.
- Our bodies attempt to survive by killing the microbe by methods such as
fever and the immune system.
- We gradually develop specific antibodies for the particular microbe
infecting us, which means that we are less likely to be reinfected.
- Natural Selection (takes generations to develop resistance)
- e.g. Greatest single epidemic in history - Influenza epidemic at the end of
WWI, which killed 21 million people.

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Jason Lim Kian Hui

TWC GGS notes

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Epidemic diseases are:

1. Spread quickly
2. Acute illness - either death or recovery in a short period of time.
3. Those who recover develop antibodies.
4. It is restricted to humans.

Large population groups are more likely to develop resistance.

-Small population groups such as hunter-gatherers would die out quickly with
no survivors, hence there will be no immunity.
Sedentary farmers lived near their own sewage. It is a short path from sewage
to drinking water to another person. Also, some populations use their own
faeces and urine as fertilisers in their fields. Irrigation and fish farming
environments for water borne parasites.
- Hence, more immunity to the water borne parasites and diseases.
- Cities are even more densely packed with worse sanitation.

The stages of evolution of a specialised human disease from its animal

precursor are as follows:
1. Diseases we occasionally get from animals but dont spread to each other.
2. Diseases that do get transmitted directly between people and cause
epidemics, but quickly die out for any of several reasons. - they are cured
by medicine, everyone has already been infected and either has died or is
immune.
3. Diseases that are established in humans and have not yet died out and
may or may not still be major killers. (e.g. AIDS)
4. Major, long-established epidemic diseases, confined to humans. The
transformation often means that the microbe finds a new vector to transfer
itself more conveniently from victim to victim.

Germs were not only an advantage for Europeans. Although the New World
did not have native epidemic diseases, tropical Africa, Asia, Indonesia and
New Guinea had, such as Malaria, cholera, yellow fever. Malaria and yellow
fever were transported to tropical America, impeding colonisation there.

_______________________________________________________________________
Chapter 12: Blueprints and Borrowed Letters - Writing

Writing went together with weapons, microbes and centralised government

as a modern agent of conquest. Written accounts of earlier expeditions
motivated later ones by describing wealth and fertile lands.
-Some people (Incas) managed to administer an empire without writing.

3 Basic Strategies determining the size of the speech unit denoted by one
written sign.
1. Alphabets - one sign = one sound (like English and German)
2. Logograms - one sign = one word (like Kanji and Mandarin)
3. Syllabaries - one sign = one syllable (like Kana)

Languages usually use a combination of these three strategies. (e.g. English:

The use of words and logograms in punctuations ,.?%!^&@#%)

!
!

Jason Lim Kian Hui

TWC GGS notes

Page 7

It is extremely difficult for writing to be invented.

1. Sumerian in Mesopotamia before 3000BC
2. Mexicans (Mesoamerica) before 600BC
3. Egyptian before 3000BC
4. Chinese before 1300BC

Sumerian in Mesopotamia
- Before writing was developed, people used clay tokens with simple shapes
for accounting purposes.
- Just before 3000BC, they developed, within the accounting format, signs and
technology that rapidly led to writing.
- They used flat clay tablets as a writing surface.

Mexicans (Mesoamerica)
- The best understood was Mayan (292AD)
- They used logograms and phonetic signs.

Writing and other technology and ideas spread by either direct copying,
called blueprint copying, where an existing system is modified for use, or
by idea diffusion, where the basic idea of it is imported but people invent
their own details.
- Blueprint copying almost always needs adaptation, as the language would
not often have the same sounds used in the old. Unused letters might be
dropped or used for a different sound.

The best documented instance of idea diffusion is Sequoyahs syllabary for

Cherokee from 1820s. He received writing materials and the idea of a writing
system, the idea of using separate marks and even the form of some of the
marks, however, since he could neither read nor write English, he did not
acquire the details and principles from the existing script.

However, early scripts were incomplete, ambiguous, complex, or all three.

Another limitation was that the early scripts were confined to professional
scribes in the employ of kings and temples, hence the poor people had no
access to such writing.
- Modern writing and language also came from socially stratified societies
with complex centralised political institutions.

Lastly, it must be noted that food production was a necessary condition.

Without food production, there would not be surplus which led to societies
with complex political organisation that helped to develop writing.

_______________________________________________________________________
Chapter 13: Necessitys Mother - Technology

Technology of weapons and transportation are the direct means by which

certain peoples have expanded their realms and conquered others.

Many assume that Eurasians are superior in inventiveness and intelligence

but there is no such difference in neurobiology to explain this.

Jason Lim Kian Hui

TWC GGS notes

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Necessity is the mother of invention seems true, but many inventions were
developed by people out of curiosity or the love of tinkering. Hence,
Invention is often the mother of necessity.

Most inventions initially work rather poorly or are too large, heavy, or
expensive to be of much use. It often takes years of tinkering for them to be
productive.
- e.g. The Steam Engine. James Watt improved on the model proposed by
Thomas Newcomen in 1769, to make the use of the steam engine more
efficient.

1. Technology develops cumulatively.

2. Technology finds most of its uses after it is invented rather than being
invented to meet a need.

Natural materials were the raw substances available to ancient people

stone, wood, bone, skins, fiber, clay, sand, limestone and minerals in great
variety.
- People gradually learned to work certain types of stone, wood, and bone
into tools; to convert clay into pottery; to work mixtures of sand and
limestone into glass; and to work pure soft metals(copper, gold). They later
learned to extract metals from ores and finally, to work hard metals(bronze,
iron).

Once a use for a new technology is found, society must be persuaded to

adopt it. Many factors have been put forward as promoting acceptance of or
resistance to technological innovation.
- Those that learned to embrace and take advantage of technology
eventually conquered other states and regions by sheer technological
prowess.

Most innovations are borrowed. The relative importance of local invention and
borrowing will depend on the ease of inventing the particular technology and
proximity of other societies.

Geographical location determines how readily a society can adopt

technology from others. Most accessible are those embedded in major
continents and not on the fringes.
- Geography is important for idea and innovation diffusion.
- Hence, this led to the autocatalytic process of technology innovation,
where importance of diffusion potentially exceeds the importance of the
original invention.

New technologies and materials generate other new technologies by

recombination.

1st Jump of Human Technology (between 100,000 and 50,000 years ago)
- Genetic changes allow for modern speech and modern brain function
- Led to development of bone and stone tools for hunting/gathering.
2nd Jump of Human Technology (13,000 years ago)
- The adoption of settled lifestyles
- Led to food production and accumulation of non-portable possessions.
Jason Lim Kian Hui
TWC GGS notes

Page 9

Technology develops fastest in large productive regions with large human

populations, many potential inventors and many competing societies. Finally,
societies vary greatly in innovativeness for the following reasons.
1. Time of onset of food production
2. Barriers to diffusion
3. Human population sizes

e.g. Eurasia and North Africa occupy the largest landmass with the largest
number of competitive societies and are where food production first began.
East-west axis diffusion allowed for many inventions to be spread relatively
quickly to regions of similar latitudes and climates.

Differences became exaggerated because technology catalyses itself. The

initial advantage of Eurasia was huge by 1492 by reason of geography - not
intellect.

_______________________________________________________________________
Chapter 14: From Egalitarianism to Kleptocracy - Governments and
Religion

!
Societies can be viewed as band, tribe, chiefdom, state.
!

Band
- It is the smallest society.
- Today, autonomous bands only exist in the remotest parts of New Guinea or
Amazonia.
- Egalitarian - Group decisions
- There is no formalised class structure, no formalised or hereditary
leadership, and no formal monopoly of decisions.
- Leadership is acquired through qualities such as personality strength,
intelligence or fighting skills.

Tribe
- Have fixed settlements, although some are herders and do move seasonally.
- Tribal organisation began to emerge about 13,000 years ago in the Fertile
Crescent.
- Requires either food production or very productive hunting/gathering.

Chiefdom
- Arose around 5500BC in the Fertile Crescent and around 1000 BC in
Mesoamerica and the Andes.
- At best, the government does good by providing expensive services
impossible to accomplish on an individual basis. At worst, it becomes a
kleptocracy, transferring wealth from commoners to upper classes.
- Kleptocrats have to get public support while still enjoying a better lifestyle
than commoners. How? The following methods.
1. Disarm the populace and arm the elite.
2. Make masses happy by redistributing much of the tribute in popular ways.
3. Use the monopoly of force to promote happiness by maintaining public
order and curbing violence.
4. Construct an ideology or religion justifying kleptocracy.

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Benefits of Institutionalised religion

1. A chiefdom has an ideology to stress the chiefs authority - The chief will
either be both the political leader and priest or support a separate group
of priest who provide ideological justification for the chief. -> Gives power
to the chief.
2. It solves the problem of how unrelated people can live together without
killing one another by providing a bond not based on kinship.
3. It gives the people a motive for self-sacrifice on the behalf of others. ->
Allow for soldiers who are willing to die in war for their chiefdom.

States
- Arose in Mesopotamia around 3700BC, in Mesoamerica around 300BC, in
the Andes, China and Southeast Asia around 1BC, and in West Africa around
1000AD.
- Many early states had literate elites and masses.
- Early states had a hereditary leader with a title equivalent to a king, who
had monopoly over information, decision making and power.
- Today, crucial information is available to a few, who control its flow and
decisions. Central control and economic redistribution(taxes) are more
extensive. Economic specialisation is more extreme. Hence, when state
government collapses the effects on society is catastrophic.

States against Chiefdoms:

1. They are organised on political and territorial lines, not kinship.
2. They are regularly multiethnic and multilingual.
3. Bureaucrats are professionals selected on ability and training.
4. In later states, Leadership is not hereditary, and many abandon the entire
system for formal hereditary classes.

- States triumph over simpler entities because they have the advantage in
-

weapons, technology and numbers.

There is a willingness programmed into citizens of modern states by
schools, churches and governments. Fanaticism in war was mostly driven by
religious values (Islam and Christianity).
There is a need for an economic system
- population growth allowed for increased complexity, which leads to
intensified food production, which leads to population growth. Complex
centralised societies are uniquely able to organise public works, long
distance trade and activities of economic specialisations.

Four reasons why all existing large societies are complex centralised
organisations:
1. The problem of conflict between unrelated strangers.
- large societies must have centralised authority to monopolise force and
resolve conflict, or they blow up (like in tribes and chiefdoms).
2. Communal decision making becomes logistically impossible
3. Large societies must have a redistributive economy so that goods can get
to those with a deficit, who are usually unknown to the people with the
excess. (redistribution to reduce inequality)
4. Great population density
- Requires a complex structure to support dense populations with greater
needs.
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Societies with effective conflict resolution, sound decision making, and

harmonious economic redistribution can develop better technology,
concentrate military power, seize larger and more productive territories, and
crush autonomous smaller societies.

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