Examentrainers

So early cannibalism was all about vegetables?

ROBIN McKIE

75

less advanced nature’ of

not produce crop surpluses

reviews

their opponents.

available for redistribution or

GUNS, GERMS AND STEEL:

5

Yet genetics provide little

storage, they could not support

A SHORT HISTORY OF

evidence for this implicit

130

and feed non-hunting craft

5

EVERYBODY FOR THE LAST

racism. There are few meaning-

specialists, armies, bureaucrats

13,000 YEARS by Jared Diamond

80

ful differences between the

and chiefs.’

Jonathan Cape £18.99, pp48O

innate abilities of the world’s

10

Thus the Morioris were

peoples, though the notion of

doomed. And on a larger,

1

On 19 November 1835, a

racial superiority remains se-

135

equally unforgiving scale, so

boat carrying Maori

ductive. As Jared Diamond says:

were civilisations that evolved

10

tribesmen - the vanguard of an

85

‘Until we have some convincing,

away from farming’s birthplace,

invasion force of almost 1,000

detailed, agreed-upon expla-

the nurturing ground of the

warriors - landed on the

nation for the broad pattern

Middle East’s Fertile Crescent.

Chatham Islands, a remote

of history, most people will

140

Of course, agriculture did devel-

archipelago, 500 miles east of

continue to suspect that the

op elsewhere (China, the An-

15

New Zealand. The local Moriori

90

racist biological explanation

des, West Africa and New Gui-

people were now slaves, they

nea, for example), but these re-

were told.

gions lacked the rich variety of

2

The invaders were outnumbered

145

Middle Eastern crops: wheat,

two to one. But the Morioris

barley, lentils, peas, and flax.

20

were a peaceful, simple

11

Similarly, Eurasian peoples

people who decided to sub-

inherited many more domes-

mit, and to proffer friend-

ticable wild mammalian herbi-

ship and half their resour-

150

vores - dogs, sheep, goats, pigs,

ces. The newcomers took no

cows and horses - than did the

25

notice, and abruptly set

rest of the world. As a result,

upon the Morioris with guns,

land that once supported only

clubs and axes. Hundreds

dozens of hunter-gatherers, now

were slaughtered, many being

155

fed thousands. Stores needed

cooked and eaten. The rest

bureaucrats, and fields required

30

were enslaved, only to be

armies for protection. Wheels

executed at the whim of

were invented and horses were

their conquerors.

yoked to chariots - though we

‘Not one escaped,’ recalled

160

‘gained’ more than mere

one Maori.

martial advantage from domes-

35

‘Some ran away, those we

tic animals, says Diamond. We

killed, others we killed -

also acquired measles, tuber-

but what of that? It was in

culosis, smallpox and malaria

accordance with our custom.’

165

microbes which were once

3

This grim ‘custom’ is not new,

is correct after all.’

pathogens of cattle, pigs and

40

of course. The bloody acquisi-

6

Hence Guns, Germs and Steel,

chickens.

tion of food and territory has

a book of extraordinary vision

12

These were ‘Europe’s sinister

been repeated like a malignant

and confidence which seeks,

gift to other continents - the

mantra for millennia. Maori

95

with considerable success, to

170

germs evolving from

eradicated Moriori, Spaniard

demonstrate how environ-

Eurasians’ long intimacy with

45

subjugated Inca, and Bantus

mental factors created our

domestic animals.’ It was a

became African overlords. In

modern world of affluent

deadly combination, as we can

the process, we have created an

Americans and impoverished

see from the fate of the Incas.

absurdly lopsided world in

100

Ethiopians, the fate of the

13

175

Guns, Germs and Steel is

which West European cultures

Chatham Islands being

history scrubbed clean of its

50

now dominate the planet’s

particularly illustrative.

idiosyncratic participants:

resources. But why? How did

7

As Diamond says: ‘Moriori

Alexander the Great, Lenin,

this global inequality come

and Maori history constitutes a

Buddha and the rest, an

about? Why did Maori van-

105

brief, small-scale natural exper-

180

omission for which Diamond

quish Moriori, and not the

iment that tests how

makes no apology. Instead, he

55

other way round? Why did the

environments affect human

has tried to create a discipline

Incas not invade and colo-

societies’.

based on science, rather than

nise Spain?

8

For a start, the Morioris and

humanities, and has backed his

4

Most historians respond in

110

Maoris were both recent

185

bid with an impressive know-

terms that stress - either

descendants of the same sea-

ledge of molecular biology,

60

specifically or tacitly -

faring people. Neither had time

evolutionary theory, plant

some kind of innate supe-

to diverge biologically, showing

physiology and sociology. The

riority: Assyrians’ vigour

that the seeds of the Morioris’

result is a prodigious, con-

or Romans’ tactical bril-

115

destruction did not reside in

190

vincing work, conceived on a

liance. Such explanations

their genes, but elsewhere. And

grand scale, and thoroughly

65

only beg further, more uncom-

Diamond knows where.

executed, perhaps a little too

fortable questions, of course.

9

‘Those ancestral Maoris who

thoroughly. Certainly, the book

Why did Romans and Assyrians,

first colonised the Chathams

is thick with detail, a history

and for that matter British

120

may have been farmers, but

195

that is still ‘one damn fact after

colonialists and Nazi expan-

Maori tropical crops could not

another’ - though in this case,

70

sionists, possess this socal-

grow in the Chathams’ cold

they are damn interesting facts.

led ‘vitality’ and ‘brilliance’?

climate, and the colonists had

Subsequent responses invariably

no alternative except to revert

‘The Observer Review’,

descend into claims about the

125

to being hunter-gatherers. Since

April 13, 1997

‘primitive evolutionarily

as hunter-gatherers, they did