Why Did Human History Unfold Differently On Different Continents for the Last 13,000 Years?

http://edge.org/conversation/why-did-human-history-unfold-differently-on-different-continents-for-the-last-13000-years

This link is to an article that I am analyzing using the following questions:

Question 1: Identify Diamond's major themes and key points.

Question 2: What does he identify as the most important determinants to a society's success?

Question 3: How can these ideas be applied to today's global economy?

Answer 1: "Ships, political organization, and writing that brought Europeans to the New World; European germs that killed most Indians before they could reach the battlefield; and guns, steel swords, and horses that gave Europeans a big advantage on the battlefield." These were the common points that Diamond repeatedly used in his argument why history unfolded the way that it did. However, he went even further and explained that in Sub-Saharan Africa plants and animals were not domesticable. This was also the case in Australia. Something unique to Australia was that Tasmania, an island that was once attached to Australia, was not even at the same technological level as mainland Australia. Tasmania refused to use the same tools that they brought over from Australia before the land bridge was lost under water.

Answer 2: The most important determinants to a society's success depend on, "the availability of wild plant and animal species suitable for domestication, and the ease with which those species could spread without encountering unsuitable climates, contributed decisively to the varying rates of rise of agriculture and herding, which in turn contributed decisively to the rise of human population numbers, population densities, and food surpluses, which in turn contributed decisively to the development of epidemic infectious diseases, writing, technology, and political organization."

Answer 3: Today's global economy is not entirely pieced together yet. We have a large amount of countries that are very well developed and others that are not so developed. In order to bring the countries that are not as developed into the global economy they need to find a way to incorporate Diamond's key points into their culture. Now, other countries may help in that process and bring over technology that would help speed up the process. In due time, the goal would be to have a planet that is united economically so that we may work together to reach the full potential of the planet.