All Quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Marie Remarque

I never saw the movie Saving Private Ryan, but everyone who saw it tells me that it was very realistic and showed the true horror of battle. No John Wayne heroics.  No comic book killings or minimal gore. Well, All Quiet on the Western Front, following the experiences of one German soldier in World War I, is just like that movie: no sentimentality, heroics, stirring music, or idealism. Just reality. Or at least it seems like reality. Happy, funny, blasé and sad.

If you think the First World War is some distant and very dusty event, read this book. When you follow this typical German soldier in that conflict and live through him the good, the bad and the ugly you will understand how horrible a war it was. This book lets you feel his very human emotions as he shifts from the front with all of its foxholes, whizzing bullets, tanks, bombs, mustard gas, and death to the rear where he sees his mother, overeats, visits a brothel, harasses fellow soldiers, and gets harassed himself.

But that is not all. This is probably the story of all infantry soldiers in any war. The only difference is the means of killing—whether it is a spear, an arrow, a musket, a rifle, or an M16. There are instances of terror followed by days of boredom and times of excitement and happiness.

I don’t want to tell you too much about the book because it would spoil your enjoyment. The experience is this: you are accompanying a young German soldier in all his experiences on the Western Front in 1919. I liked him and didn’t want to leave him. And I won’t spoil the surprise for you when you find out where the title of the book comes from. Also reading this, it is easy to understand why the Nazi’s banned this book. There is nothing glorious in this war.

This book is written in the first person by Paul Baumer, a 19 year old volunteer who was told that he was one of the Iron Youth of Germany. The most important thing in his life, more than anything else, is his friendship with his comrades. He loves them. His friends are farmers, shoemakers, etc. All of them were schoolmates and they joined up together after hearing a rousing speech about defending the fatherland. But the guy who made that speech never went up to the front himself.

Get the book. It is short and it will never leave you

Guns Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond

Guns, Germs and Steel, The fates of Societies, by Jared Diamond

I should settle down in a month or two but for now I see so much of the world from the viewpoint of this book. My eyes have been opened and a great mystery has been solved. This book has given me a new perspective on the development of civilizations.

Guns, Germs and Steel tries to answer the question why the people in some parts of the world developed “advanced” civilizations while others never left the Stone Age. How did it happen that the cultures of China, India, Europe, Greece, Egypt, and Iraq, for example, had complex political institutions thousands of years ago when at the same time those in Africa, North America, and Oceania were nothing more than primitive hunter gatherer societies? The Chinese developed gunpowder, the Europeans steam engines and the printing press, but the Africans and native Australians came up with spears and bone tools.

Many people would conclude, not unreasonably, that race is the only distinguishing factor. What other explanation could there be? Everything is the same but the color of the peoples’ skin, right? In fact, most evidence to date indicates that Homo Sapiens began in Africa—the people on that continent even had a head start over the Europeans and Asians. They lagged miserably because they were intellectually inferior to their northern neighbors.

Right? Wrong.

An alternative and more credible explanation lies in a few simple observations. First, Eurasia (the combination of those two continents) is by far the largest contiguous landmass on earth. Second, Eurasia lies on an east west axis rather than on a north south axis as does Africa and the Americas. Note also that the Americas are joined by a relatively narrow strip of land, Central America. Finally, the biodiversity of Eurasia , in both animals and plants, far exceeds that of any other continent. A corollary of this is that there is a greater likelihood that some of the flora and fauna in Eurasia would prove useful to the humans living there.

Before explaining why the simple observations above proved crucial to the advance of some societies over others, consider the earliest appearance of man, about 13,000 years ago in Africa. These people were all hunter gatherers. They traveled periodically to where berries or nuts were plentiful or where game was to be found.

Hunter Gathers
Women in the hunter gatherer societies had children about every four years. How do we know that? Because the children had to be old enough to walk with the family or clan to the next foraging and hunting area. It would be difficult to carry the children along with all the family’s other possessions to the next settlement. This kept the population down.

In these hunter gather societies, clearly there was no ability to store or preserve food for any period of time because no settlement was permanent. Provisions had to be obtained daily and only a small amount could be carried from place to place.

There was minimal organization in these groups: by necessity, everyone was required to collect food just to survive. These societies could not afford the luxury of a division of labor—other than perhaps that the men would hunt and the women would gather.

Writing was not useful or practical. The recording of information required the development of material to write on and an implement to write with. Also, hunter gatherer societies would have to carry any writings and the tools for writing with them as they moved from one settlement to another. This would only detract from the main goal of the group: to obtain food. All information was shared orally and it is much lighter that way.

Domestication
With the domestication of plants and animals (farming), on the other hand, the equation changes as families and clans stay in one place. Women could have children more frequently, because the offspring would not need to walk to the next settlement. Thus the population would increase thereby providing more labor to work on the crops and raise the animals.

Food, especially crops, could be stored because the clan stays in one location. It no longer is required to carry the food from one place to another. This would enable the people to better survive droughts and other periodic adverse conditions.

Farming leads to the division of labor, including a warrior class. Warriors would protect the farmers from outside attacks and allow for the encroachment on the land of others, particularly the land of nearby hunter gatherers. A society of hunter gatherers would not be able to sustain a prolonged struggle with that of farmers/warriors. The warriors could just fight and not be concerned with the need to obtain food while the hunter gatherers always have that primary need. Instead of fighting, they might decide to just move on.

Writing in a farming society is more feasible and useful. The division of labor would allow for not only warriors for protection and expansion but also for other specialties including a “coordinator”, shall we say, between the farmers and warriors. That is a leader. The leader would gradually need to record transactions in food and other basics between the farmers, warriors and others. Thus writing is both possible and needed as a society becomes more domesticated and less hunter gatherering.

It is easy to see that the domestication of plants and animals leads to a more populated and therefore more complex society. With the increase in population, it is more likely that a few people will become inspired to develop more tools, innovative methods of processing and preserving food, etc. In sum, the greater the domestication of food sources, the more complex and advanced the society becomes.

Transition
The changeover from a hunter gatherer society to that of a farming culture, with all of its apparent benefits, is not easy. The hunter gather must first have the crops and animals that are best suited for domestication. For example, the plants must grow relatively quickly, be nourishing, provide an adequate yield, be resistant to disease, etc. The animals must also grow quickly and be nourishing. They must be herbivores. They cannot be excessively dangerous or difficult to control or herd.

Although there are thousands of varieties of plants and animals, very very few—about seven plants and seven animals—meet the criteria needed for domestication as noted above. And they must meet all of the criteria. If a plant grows quickly and is nourishing but provides a small yield, it is not worth the effort to cultivate. If an animal is an herbivore and nourishing but is extremely dangerous and cannot be herded, like a bear, then it is not suitable either.

For example, barley and sheep meet all of the criteria needed for domestication of a plant or animal.

The location with the most plants and animals that met these requirements was the Fertile Crescent, Mesopotamia. Modern day Iraq. Here was wild rice, barley, and wheat. Here also were wild horses, cows, sheep, pigs and goats. Other continents, the Americas, Oceania and Africa, did not have nearly this great variety of suitable flora and fauna. These were present in abundance in the Fertile Crescent and only sprinkled sparsely everywhere else.

But even in Mesopotamia the people did not immediately become farmers. When a hunter gatherer wakes up in the morning, he must decide the best way to use his time. Should he go out seeking an animal to kill or a berry to pick so he and his family can eat today? Or should he spend that time clearing land and planting seeds so that he will have food in four months? The answer, of course, that the transition to farming was very gradual. People must eat today to survive today.

Eurasia’s East West Orientation-its benefits
The sun rises at around the same time in Europe as it does in China. The seasons in England are very parallel to those in Japan. That is because both Asia and Europe are roughly on the same latitude. Why is this relevant? Because a plant in Mesopotamia is hard wired for certain cycles of the sun and seasons. That plant or a close relative can flourish in Germany or in India since the solar and seasonal cycles are not completely dissimilar. Therefore, domestication can spread easily from the Fertile Crescent to both the East and the West. And it did.

But the sun does not rise and set in Morocco in northern Africa at the same time that it does in South Africa. It does not rise and set in the United States as it does in Uruguay. And a plant with hardwiring for Moroccan solar cycles cannot easily flourish in the South African cycle.  Thus domestication cannot easily spread from North to South. And it did not.

North and South America present a unique impediment. Not only is their orientation north and south which prevents the easy transfer of cultivation, but they are also separated by a narrow strip which acts as a choke point for plants and animals to be introduced to the other continent.

Conclusion
Can you now see why I am so energized? Is race really a differentiator between Europeans and, say, Native American? Or between a Japanese man and an African? No.

Let’s say that13, 000 years ago—about 11,000 BC—one could transplant an African to Europe and vice versa. Would the descendents of that black African be examining the rotation of the Earth around the sun and writing symphonies, while simultaneously that white European’s grandchildren were sharpening their spears and searching for berries?

Who knows, but probably. What made the difference was not race. It was that that black African now lived in East/West orientated Eurasia which was contiguous with Mesopotamia with all of its suitable crops and domesticated animals. The white European now lives in Nigeria which has none of those advantages.

Knowing human nature, unfortunately, that black Eurasian would probably be looking down his condescending nose at those inferior uncivilized whites

Isn’t that stirring? Shouldn’t that take the air out of those white supremacists?