History as well as life itself is complicated -- neither life nor history is an enterprise for those who seek simplicity and consistency.

All human societies go through fads in which they temporarily either adopt practices of little use or else abandon practices of considerable use.

In short, Europe’s colonization of Africa had nothing to do with differences between European and African peoples themselves, as white racists assume. Rather, it was due to accidents of geography and biogeography—in particular, to the continents’ different areas, axes, and suites of wild plant and animal species. That is, the different historical trajectories of Africa and Europe stem ultimately from differences in real estate.

Rhino-mounted Bantu shock troops could have overthrown the Roman Empire. It never happened.

I decided that now is the time to start doing the things that really interest me and I find important. It was in the 10 years of the MacArthur grant that I began working on my first book... and I began putting more work into environmental history.

History followed different courses for different peoples because of differences among peoples' environments, not because of biological differences among peoples themselves

Thousands of years ago, humans domesticated every possible large wild mammal species fulfilling all those criteria and worth domesticating, with the result that there have been no valuable additions of domestic animals in recent times, despite the efforts of modern science.