After reading Diamond's article, I noticed a few repeating themes. First of all, Diamond believes that the reason why populations in Eurasia were able to conquer pretty much all other populations on the rest of the world's continents was due to the environment and orientation of Eurasia. It has an east/west axis, meaning that its environment is virtually the same across large distances. This allowed both humans and animals to travel long distances without encountering a new environment to which they were not adapted. Thus, knowledge, different plant species and a variety of animals suitable for domestication were available to the populations in Eurasia. In contrast, Africa and the Americas have a north/south axis, meaning that the environment changes as one travels in either direction and thus the populations living there did not have the luxury of being exposed to multiple animal and plant species. They had to make the best of what they had in their particular environment.
A second theme that ties into the first is the availability of animals that were able to be domesticated. When Europeans arrived in the Americas, they brought horses with them. Native Americans had only llamas and alpacas, both not quite suitable for riding. The ability to domesticate animals was crucial to the development of society because it allowed humans to be more productive in farming and also to travel longer distances. Other than domesticated animals, Europeans also had access to a wide variety of plant species which allowed them to thrive and form small cities that eventually grew into large ones. Native Americans only had the plants that could thrive in the environment in which they were found, and that was not a large area.
Finally, the last seemingly important theme that Diamond presented was the amount of isolation a population experienced. Eurasian populations were able to contact and communicate with other distant Eurasian populations and thus gain knowledge from them. Australia and Tasmania experienced extreme isolation and were thus even lower in development than the Native Americans discovered in the New World. This degree of isolation kept the Australian and Tasmanian populations from advancing in technologies that populations on other continents had experienced long ago.
Taking these major themes into consideration, one can come to the conclusion that all of them are important determinants to a society's success. If you take out one major theme, then others would not come to fruition. For example, if you take away domesticated animals, then farming/herding populations would not develop and thus cities would not come to existence. Traveling long distances would also not be possible so contact with distant populations and gaining their knowledge would not occur so technological advancement would not happen. Diamond expresses that it is the environment in which humans find themselves that determines their rate of development rather than biological differences among the populations.
In today's society, most populations are not farmers and environment no longer determines developmental success as it once did. Sure, there are still underdeveloped countries and their environment definitely contributes to their situation, but modern technology and means of travel have allowed information and knowledge to spread all over the world, even to remote places. Australia isn't in the Stone Age anymore despite its isolation. South American populations are no longer devastated by European diseases. The ability to communicate with populations on other continents and learn their ways of survival has been crucial in the development of society as a whole. Without those key factors that defined development in the past, civilization would not be where it is today.
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