CB: But the European ideology of conquest based on their Greco-Roman heritage and values of conquest ( U know Alexander was Great at what ? Conqueriing, no ? Same with Caesar, Julius and Augustus both) was the historical cause of the way the Europeans responded to the population loss due to disease of the Indigenous peoples, i.e. by conquering the sickened peoples. It's not "human nature" to just conquer people because they are conquerable. It's European -Greco-Roman values or ideology or culture to do so.
Somebody: However, Diamond does deal with non-European examples of conquest compelled by the same materialist determinants (like disease immunity, agriculture, and technology). For example, the farming/herding Bantu-speaking people of Africa did not carry with them a Greco-Roman cultural ancestry, but they nonetheless overwhelmed the hunter-gathering Khoisan, until the latter were restricted to the Southern end of the continent. The same forces at work in the American example, the fact that the Bantu made use of iron and were farmers, allowed them to displace Khoisan Africans. He deals with some other examples of well: of Chinese displacing Austronesians and of Polynesians taking over from Melanesians.
^^^^ CB; Yes, important point for me to address. Thanks. That there are other conquering ideologies in history does not mean that the European conquests of the last 500 years are not caused by their ideology. The state arose in Mesopotamia in , what, 3,500 bc and conquest with it. That, obviously was not based in a European ideology. I think there's an argument that the Greeks got their conquering ideology in response to centuries of conquerors invading from the immediate east, which approaches geographical Mesopotamia the place of origin of conquest. Since the title refers to guns , germs and steel, and the other conquerors didn't have guns or steel , it would suggest that the main issue for him is to explain the European conquest. He's theoretically cloudy. He doesn't know how to parse his facts theoretically as I am doing here.
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Still, I don't want to dismiss the importance of the Greco-Roman heritage in the European conquest of the Americas. You don't have Cortez and Pizarro without Alexander and Julius Caesar. But I think it's difficult to claim that they introduced conquest as such to mankind.
^^^ CB: Definitely, not. Sorry if that's seems what I was saying. See above. Conquest ( and the state) was introduced in Mesopotamia in 3,500 BC ( I should look that up for precision) . Another read is Archaeologist Henry Wright on the Origin of the State. The Incas and Aztecs had empires in the Western Hemisphere. The Europeans Bourgeoisie were the first to conquer globally, but even that is a bit of hype, since there are parts of the world that the didn't conquer.
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I suspect after archaeology and anthropology have had their final word, it will be apparent that the first conquests of Homo sapiens were of our archaic kin the Neanderthals and other primitive Homo, who they both displaced and intermixed with (if the latest genetic evidence is accurate
^^^^^ CB: I agree with u in a way except I don't think it was "conquest" in that they didn't have states, private property, land as territory, or take slaves. All is primitive communism at that early stage ( although I have a speculative hypothesis that the Neanderthals may have been rugged individuals relative to humans, with Neanderthals' bigger brains) "Conquest" is within the species (stupidly). The Neanderthals and Homo were different species than humans. So, this is actual Darwinian fitness of humans over other species that go extinct.
The latest evidence suggests that Neanderthals are not the same species as humans (though closer to humans than the others in the homo genus that u refer to) Also, different species can't intermix as the definition of two individuals being the same species is ability to produce viable , fertile offspring from their sexual intercourse. A Neanderthal female and human male or vica versa couldn't have produced viable , fertile offspring by their sexual intercourse, because they were different species. Anyway, I agree that there was competition between them because they were _close_ species and occupied the same ecological niche; and that humans won the competition, but not by "conquering" the other species (like in Lord of the Rings or something , lol), but by having greater fitness, a better "score" on the differential fertility and differential mortality scale.
Tally ho !