What's Jared Diamond Talking About

Wasn't it the fact that W Europeans built up a navy through Meditteranean contact and that they had better tools and weapons? Isn't that the reason, say, Pizzaro basically defeated the Incan Empire with only 168 men? Yes, but he's saying those are proximate factors and those are easy to prove and understand. He wonders, and explains, what were the ultimate causes? Why wasn't it the case that Atahualpa led his Incan armies over the ocean in order to conquer the Western Europeans?

People say things such as genetics, intelligence and other things, but Diamond says it is mostly environment (local domesticable plants and animals, land area, land arableness, isolation, land barriers - mountains separating societies) and time to develop that led Western-called nations to be able to develop their societies to the point that they were more able to colonize, and more wanting to.

He is mostly convincing in explaining what he believes and in explaining why he doesn't quite believe the other explanations. So, in the end, was it all just luck? Well, I'm only on chapter three, but it seems so.

Hopefully I get to say some more today.