Volume 70, June 2015, Pages 274–285
The Biogeographic Roots of World Inequality: Animals, Disease, and Human Settlement Patterns in Africa and the Americas Before 1492
Highlights
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- This article challenges Diamond’s account of the biogeographical roots of world inequality.
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- It explores contrasting patterns of human settlement in Africa and the Americas.
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- It develops alternative hypotheses concerning the role of animals and human diseases.
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- It shows the scope for a multi-disciplinary research agenda on the Africa–America comparison.
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- It argues for the importance of reciprocal regional comparisons.
Summary
Building
on recent insights from archeology, genetics, and linguistics I
challenge Jared Diamond’s grand narrative of the biogeographic roots of
world inequality. I argue that this narrative pays insufficient
attention to contrasting patterns of human settlement in Africa and the
Americas. I develop alternative hypotheses concerning the role of
domesticated animals in shaping human disease environments and processes
of state formation prior to the Columbian exchange. My overarching
objective is to enhance the debate on the deep roots of world inequality
by tackling Eurocentric conceptions of world development and exploring
the potential of new comparative and multi-disciplinary research
perspectives.
Key words
- world inequality;
- biogeography;
- animals;
- disease;
- Africa;
- America
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