![]() In 11,000 BC, all societies everywhere were bands of preliterate hunter-gatherers with stone tools. History’s broadest pattern is its different unfolding on different continents over the last 13,000 years. My focus is on trends over whole continents since the last Ice Age his, on much smaller areas for shorter times. ![]() Without disputing the value of McNeill’s approach, I believe that our differences arise from the different historical scales that we consider. McNeill identifies two contrasting approaches to history: the traditional emphasis on autonomous cultural developments that he favors, versus my book’s emphasis on environmental factors. After warmly praising my book Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies as “artful, informative, and delightful”, the distinguished historian William H. ![]()
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