It invites a search for ultimate causes: why were Europeans, rather than Africans or Native Americans, the ones to end up with guns, the nastiest germs, and steel?
Jared DiamondRhino-mounted Bantu shock troops could have overthrown the Roman Empire. It never happened.
Jared DiamondAll human societies go through fads in which they temporarily either adopt practices of little use or else abandon practices of considerable use.
Jared DiamondThe past was still a Golden Age, of ignorance, while the present is an Iron Age of willful bliss.
Jared Diamond