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Message: <blockquote data-quote="billd91" data-source="post: 1618606" data-attributes="member: 3400">You should take a look at Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. It makes a very strong statement about the effects of geography on human society, technology, and international relations. In essense, geography determines a whole heck of a lot including explaining why American cultures domesticated so few animal species, why so few livestock species were available to domesticate in the first place, why they were so susceptible to disease, and why so few domesticated crops came from the Americas (compared to Eurasia) and were wide-spread. His arguments are pretty compelling.One major reason disease ravaged the Americas when Eurasians came over is because so many diseases evolved in contact between humans and their livestock that the lack of significant livestock left the Americans relatively under-protected from disease.As far as European diseases ravaging Asia or Asian diseases ravaging Europe, there are undoubtedly some both ways. But because they are a single land mass, the distinction is largely useless. If a disease evolved in one area, the other was certain to get it in a matter of a few centuries, just as they were likely to share crop and livestock breeds.</blockquote>