Yet another type of explanation lists the immediate factors that enabledEuropeans to kill or conquer other peoples-especially European guns, infec-tious diseases, steel tools, and manufactured products. Such an explanationis on the right track, as those factors demonstrably were directly responsiblefor European conquests. However, this hypothesis is incomplete, because itstill offers only a proximate (first-stage) explanation identifying immediatecauses. It invites a search for ultimate causes: why were Europeans, ratherthan Africans or Native Americans, the ones to end up with guns, the nasti-est germs, and steel? - P23
The history and prehistory of each continent must be similarly synthesized. Thebook’s subject matter is history, but the approach is that of science—in partic-ular, that of historical sciences such as evolutionary biology and geology. Theauthor must understand from firsthand experience a range of human societies,
from hunter-gatherer societies to modern space-age civilizations. - P26
Already, though, I hope to have convinced you, the reader, that history 2is not "just one damn fact after another," as a cynic put it. There really arebroad patterns to history, and the search for their explanation is as produc-tive as it is fascinating. - P31
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