対訳付テキス� �.pdf

In 1972, the author walked along a beach in New Guinea with a man named Yali, who asked why white men had so much "cargo" (material goods) and New Guineans had so little. This question is about the roots of inequality around the world, and the author has spent 25 years trying to answer it. The immediate explanations, such as Europeans developing guns, germs, and steel before others, don't fully answer the question. The author believes the answer lies in geography, with some parts of the world having a more suitable environment for prosperity.

The transition to farming around 10,000 years ago was a decisive turning point in human history, allowing for the development of large, advanced civilizations. Farming made it possible to feed more people with less land, leading to larger and denser populations, which are necessary for centralized governments, military power, and the evolution of infectious diseases. However, not all ancient societies chose to farm, and the author suggests that this is because they didn't have a choice, as agriculture needs to be an efficient way of producing food, which requires productive plants and animals.

These productive species were distributed unequally around the world, with the Eurasian continent having the most productive and nutritious plant species, such as rice, wheat, and barley, as well as the best animals for farming. The unequal distribution of these species may have contributed to the unequal development of societies around the world.