Reading lets you understand why there are differences in the progress of various civilizations. You may often hear about a book called “Guns, Germs, and Steel” by Diamond, which is typically overlooked. The book aims to answer a big question: why is there such a significant difference in the progress of civilization between different continents? To put it bluntly, why did people from Eurasia conquer America and Africa, and not the other way around? Did the natives of Africa and America conquer Eurasia? Why?
Jared Diamond puts forward many explanations, one of which is the different directions of the continental axis. If you spread out the world map, you will notice that the distribution of civilizations in Eurasia is east-west and spread out at similar latitudes. As a result, the length of day and night, seasonal changes, temperature, rainfall, and vegetation-type biomes of various civilizations are similar.
This leads to a situation where domesticated animals and plants can be spread along the east-west axis or latitude and quickly spread to another civilization. This leads to the diffusion and exchange of civilizations. Communication is a prerequisite for the prosperity of civilization.
However, the Americas and the African continent lacked luck due to their terrain. Their early civilization was distributed north-south along the meridian. The climate in different parts of the longitude is different, making it difficult to make significant achievements in one place.
For example, if a certain animal or plant is domesticated, it may not survive in other places due to differences in light, water, soil, etc. As a result, the spread and exchange of civilization are blocked, and the development of civilization is slow. This trend evolved into modern times, leading to the inevitable result of the Eurasian conquest of America and Africa.
In conclusion, you seem to think that this is a bit of geographical determinism, of course, it is controversial, but you don’t think this point of view is a fact that he jumped to a high place in time and space to look down on the world, and it does have a super explanatory power. It’s an astonishing insight. In addition, some may think that this is a form of geographical determinism, which is controversial. However, this viewpoint does have explanatory power and provides an astonishing insight into the progression of civilization.