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[Music]
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Africa it's been called the birthplace
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of humanity the land where our ancestors
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took their first
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steps yet only recently revealed as the
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home of a vast tropical
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civilization cities and kingdoms once
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spread across the
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continent then vanished leaving barely a
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trace what happened to this great
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achievement Professor Jared Diamond has
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set out to explore the great patterns of
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human
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history it's a journey that has taken
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him from the jungles of New Guinea to
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the snowcapped people speaks of
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Peru his quest to understand why one
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people Europeans have conquered so much
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of the
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world Diamond argues that the roots of
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European Triumph stretch back thousands
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of years and rest on the power of
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geography geography gave Europeans the
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most productive crops and animals on the
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planet and these allowed them to develop
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guns
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Germs and
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Steel three great forces of Conquest
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that have shaped human
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history now diamond is setting out on
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the last stage of his quest to discover
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what happened when Guns Germs and Steel
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came to
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Africa and to ask what role these forces
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still
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play but Diamond's Journey will test
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much more than theories it will also
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test the man
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[Music]
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[Music]
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himself
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[Music]
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a class 19d South African Railways steam
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locomotive built Glasgow Scotland
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1932 it is a testament to technology and
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human achievement
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[Music]
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a tool built to carve a path across a
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continent a lasting symbol of the
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Triumph of European Guns Germs and
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Steel this engine and its Tracks Of
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Steel will carry Jared Diamond through
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the story of Africa
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it is a tale with its roots in ambition
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and greed the peoples of Europe reaching
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out beyond their native lands in a quest
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for Global
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[Applause]
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Conquest as Europeans expanded around
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the world they conquered other people
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they built railroads they developed Rich
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societies modeled on Europe they had
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done this successfully in North America
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and South America and Australia and then
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they arrived in Africa and it looked as
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if the same thing was starting all over
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again but Africa would be
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different a place of dangers and secrets
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hidden from these foreign
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Invaders the first European settlers
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arrived in southern Africa in the
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mid-1600s
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they landed here in the Cape of Good
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Hope at the southernmost tip of the
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continent they quickly established
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themselves in this new
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land laying out Farms planting wheat and
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barley ranching cattle and
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[Music]
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sheep this may sound strange but it's
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from ordinary agriculture like this that
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my theory of Guns Germs and Steel
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arose my quest began more than 30 years
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ago on a trip to Papa New
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Guinea when I began to try to understand
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why the people there live so differently
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from Europeans and
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Americans the beginnings of the answer I
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realized depended on farming ninians had
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only a few native crops that they could
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grow and no native farm
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animals while my ancestors even 10,000
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years ago had been blessed with an
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abundance of domestic plants and
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animals over the centuries this had
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given them a huge
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advantage that let them develop cities
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Nations and even colonies
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[Music]
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abroad but southern Africa is 5,000 m
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from Europe how is it possible for the
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settlers to import report European crops
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and animals to such a distant part of
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the
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world as much as skill it came down to
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Good Fortune geography had dealt the
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settlers an immensely lucky hand they
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had stumbled across one of the few parts
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of the Southern Hemisphere that feels
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just like Europe because the cape and
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Europe lie at a similar latitude or
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distance from the
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equator and this means that the
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temperature and climate of these widely
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separated regions are almost exactly the
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same the Europeans were able to
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establish prosperous farms and
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settlements properties now owned by
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their descendants people like hempest
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Dua so your family has been here for
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centuries on this land how do you feel
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about the land yourself then well I've
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always loved the land since childhood
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days and it comes agriculture's been in
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our family for so many generations tell
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me about the history of this Farm well
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the the land was occupied in 1683 uhuh I
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mean that was only a couple of years
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after the first settlers came to the
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cape uhhm but settlers like the dtoa
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knew that this was not an empty land
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even today their Farms turn up evidence
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of the cape's original inhabitants a
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people known as the koian
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oh this is interesting this is a this is
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from the Stone
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Age um prior to the occupation of this
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land in
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1683 by the settlers this land was most
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probably um occupied by kisan people mhm
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these were the tools they used to to
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scrape the Skins when they tan the Skins
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beautiful and it was you can see how how
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nicely it fits into your hand
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yeah with your the arrival of Europeans
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these native peoples were driven from
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their
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land but they also faced an invisible
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and even more devastating agent of
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Conquest a force Diamond has identified
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as one of the greatest in human history
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germs realizing the importance of
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farming led me to the next big
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surprising discovery of Guns Germs and
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Steel domesticated animals had given
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Europeans one advantage of which they
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were completely
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unaware by living in close proximity to
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their livestock they had become infected
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with viruses and germs of those animals
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which evolved into diseases of
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humans through exposure over centuries
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Europeans had developed some resistance
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to those diseases
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but as Europeans spread around the world
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they encountered peoples who didn't have
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that same
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resistance and who then fell victim to
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devastating outbreaks of
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infection especially of small
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parks in the Americas millions of native
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people died from this one
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disease and here in the cape it wrough
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the same havoc on the kison peoples
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through their farming and their germs
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Europeans had established a firm
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foothold in the southern tip of
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Africa now they look to
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[Music]
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expand
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in the 1830s there was a burst of the
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pioner spirits such as had been seen in
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the European expansion across North
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America and Australia this time it was
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Dutch settlers and these Pioneers moved
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into the interior like the Pioneers
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moving across North America and
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Australia over the course of the 1830s
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thousands of Dutch Farmers with their
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families and possessions loaded into
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wagons left the cape in search of new
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land to
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settle they call themselves The V
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trekers and these Pioneers all wielded
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another agent of European
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Conquest the gun this is a muzzle
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loading rifle typical of a weapon that
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every four treer would have had in his
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wagon the bus are particularly Adept at
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using this weapon
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they could reload it and fire from
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horseback these muzzle loading rifles
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are still much admired by the vort treer
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Descendants every single man that was in
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in good health had had at least two or
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three of these particular rifles in
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those days it must have been the
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person's life you
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know
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everything depended on that you
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know they hunted with him heun protected
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themselves with him it was part of him
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you know if you didn't handle a gun that
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day there was something wrong with you
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yeah
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yes guns and the steel from which they
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made were the last two of the great
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advantages that Europeans carried with
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them around the
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globe
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guns are the result of thousands of
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years of complex technological
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development which began outside Europe
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but Which Europeans
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perfected and that was all because of
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the head star that their farming had
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given them thousands of years
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previously you know the flint lock rifle
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it was you know I shouldn't really say
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this but it was nearly like as important
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as a cell phone is today yeah
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you can't go without your cell phone in
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those days you couldn't go without your
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flint lock
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rifle
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[Music]
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fire armed as they were the European
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settlers must have been confident they
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could overcome any obstacle as they
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pushed further into the African
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[Music]
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interior
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by February 17th 1838 the vort trekers
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had reached 800 mil Inland from the
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[Music]
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[Applause]
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cape but they were entering an alien and
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unexplored
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[Music]
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land
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[Music]
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suddenly out of the darkness swept a
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native African
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Army their victims barely had time to
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fire a single shot from their rifles
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before they were completely
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[Music]
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overwhelmed within hours nearly 300 vort
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trekers lay
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dead
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their enemy had struck without
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mercy killing men women and children
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alike who could have committed such a
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ruthless and calculated assault stopping
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the Europeans in their
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tracks
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in fact the vort trekers had trespassed
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across the border of a mighty African
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Kingdom inhabited by people very
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different from the Kian of the
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cape they had encountered the
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Zulus when they ran into the Zulus they
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ran into a group of people who are very
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different to anybody else they'd been up
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to up against up until that point in
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time this was an organized group of
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people the Zulus were the authors of a
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unique and highly developed African
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State their military skills had allowed
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them to overwhelm their native African
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neighbors they held more than 30,000
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square miles of
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land and had established a sophisticated
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economy and
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[Music]
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Society
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the ferocity of the Zulu defense of
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their land was something the vort
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trekers had simply not
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expected it was more than the wor could
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handle they they they were not prepared
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for the attack from the Zulus they were
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up against a king who could mobilize an
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army of 10 to 15,000 men without any
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problem at
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all that could take on almost anybody
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they were absolutely Fearless
00:16:28
[Music]
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the vort trekers were stunned and
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devastated had they and the power of
00:16:36
Guns Germs and Steel met their match in
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Africa the vort treker showed little
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interest in who the Zulus were or how
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they developed such a sophisticated
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State they wanted a
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showdown they gathered their scattered
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forces behind a great circle of wagons
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and Reed themselves for
00:17:05
[Music]
00:17:08
battle at dawn on the 16th of December
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1838 more than 10,000 Zulu stormed
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across the
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Horizon charging in to destroy the
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outnumbered
00:17:22
settlers but this time the Europeans
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were able to use their technology to
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maximum effect
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to increase the rate of fire from their
00:17:33
muzzle loading rifles some would shoot
00:17:35
While others would
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reload it was shoot hand the gun over
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take the next gun fire hand the gun
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over so every five or 6 seconds you
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could fire a
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shot see that that was the important
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thing
00:17:59
[Applause]
00:18:04
this time not a single Zulu could get
00:18:06
within 10 Paces of the
00:18:08
encampment it was a
00:18:14
massacre the for Checkers had probably
00:18:16
killed an estimated 3 to 3 and a half
00:18:19
thousand Zulus the buas themselves
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suffered only three
00:18:26
injuries the conflict became known as
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the Battle of blood
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River the Zulus had been broken Guns
00:18:36
Germs and Steel had
00:18:45
[Music]
00:18:56
prevailed the victor ious European
00:18:58
settlers pushed on Beyond Zulu
00:19:01
lands while new developments in their
00:19:04
technology let them increase the pace of
00:19:15
Conquest railroads were key with
00:19:19
railroads one could transport lots of
00:19:22
people and their supplies over vast
00:19:26
areas and so in Africa Europeans started
00:19:30
to build railroads move into the
00:19:32
interior and transport themselves and
00:19:35
their
00:19:39
supplies this was the era of the
00:19:41
Industrial
00:19:43
Revolution a revolution that introduced
00:19:45
one further weapon to the colonization
00:19:48
of
00:19:49
Africa a weapon that put the same
00:19:52
devastating Firepower seen at blood
00:19:54
River into the hands of just a single
00:19:57
man this
00:19:58
is a Maxim
00:20:01
gun what made this weapon such a great
00:20:03
weapon as opposed to the old single shot
00:20:05
weapons that had been used in years
00:20:07
before was this gun could fire
00:20:10
continuously for up to 500 rounds a
00:20:13
minute it had the equivalent Firepower
00:20:16
of probably 100 men in a company with
00:20:18
single shot
00:20:20
[Music]
00:20:22
weapons as they drove further into
00:20:25
Africa Europeans encountered new tribes
00:20:28
some just as hostile to Invasion as the
00:20:31
Zulus had
00:20:34
been but for peoples like the matab
00:20:37
there was simply no answer to the
00:20:39
world's first fully automatic
00:20:45
weapon the matab Billy conflict of
00:20:48
October
00:20:49
1893 lasted a matter of
00:20:52
[Music]
00:20:52
[Applause]
00:20:57
hours
00:21:07
the settlers mowed down those matab
00:21:09
Warriors until there were only a few of
00:21:11
them
00:21:14
left it was a real case of ancient
00:21:18
technology up against the latest and
00:21:20
greatest as far as European inventions
00:21:22
were
00:21:27
concerned
00:21:29
[Music]
00:21:35
it seemed like the birth of a new
00:21:38
age Europeans carving the path into the
00:21:41
interior of
00:21:42
[Music]
00:21:44
Africa conquering tribe after tribe
00:21:48
settling where they
00:21:52
pleased Guns Germs and Steel
00:21:56
triumphant EX except now those settlers
00:21:59
would find themselves facing an entirely
00:22:02
new
00:22:03
enemy one that had once been their
00:22:05
greatest
00:22:06
Ally
00:22:13
[Music]
00:22:20
[Music]
00:22:25
geography as they moved North Seth
00:22:28
cleared land for Farms confident they
00:22:31
could build a prosperous life in
00:22:33
[Music]
00:22:37
Africa but with little warning things
00:22:40
began to go
00:22:42
[Music]
00:22:44
arai the land became impossible to
00:22:48
plow move come on
00:22:52
go their crops refused to
00:22:56
grow on
00:22:59
their shoes fell apart in the
00:23:02
[Music]
00:23:08
mud come
00:23:09
[Music]
00:23:13
on and that was only the start come on
00:23:19
[Music]
00:23:22
man the second big problem that
00:23:25
Europeans encountered was their animals
00:23:31
died their horses and oxen had been a
00:23:34
big part of the European Advantage
00:23:36
elsewhere in the world oxen as draft
00:23:39
animals and horses as their military
00:23:42
animals but here the animals were
00:23:47
[Music]
00:23:48
dying for thousands of years these
00:23:51
domesticated animals and crops had
00:23:54
sustained European
00:23:55
civilization without them there would
00:23:57
would have been no Guns Germs and
00:24:02
Steel no history of conquest and
00:24:08
colonization and now the settlers
00:24:10
themselves began to fall ill with
00:24:12
terrible
00:24:15
fevers while all around them they could
00:24:18
see native Africans farming hering
00:24:23
cattle healthy and
00:24:26
alive
00:24:28
how was this
00:24:31
possible what were the secrets of this
00:24:33
strange new
00:24:44
land the ideas behind Guns Germs and
00:24:47
Steel all spring from an understanding
00:24:49
of
00:24:51
geography and geography explains why
00:24:53
Europeans were now
00:24:56
failing European crops had grown well in
00:24:59
the cape because the cape was a mirror
00:25:01
of the European World lying on a similar
00:25:06
latitude but as the settlers progressed
00:25:08
into the African interior they'd been
00:25:11
moving North closer and closer to the
00:25:14
Equator at about 23° South near the
00:25:18
river Limpopo they passed a major
00:25:21
geographical boundary known as the
00:25:23
Tropic of
00:25:26
Capricorn they were leaving behind their
00:25:29
familiar European climate and entering a
00:25:32
totally different
00:25:35
world they had entered the
00:25:40
tropics compared to the European or
00:25:43
temperate zones the tropics operate by
00:25:45
entirely different
00:25:48
rules instead of the four seasons of
00:25:51
Europe North America and the cape here
00:25:54
there are just
00:25:56
two the dry Seas
00:25:58
season and the
00:26:03
Rainy wheat and barley the crops that
00:26:06
had sustained European civilization for
00:26:08
centuries had not evolved to survive in
00:26:11
this tropical
00:26:19
climate yet the native Africans the
00:26:22
Zulus the matab all the tribes that the
00:26:25
settlers had encountered depended on
00:26:27
agriculture just as much as the
00:26:29
Europeans how were they succeeding as
00:26:32
the Europeans
00:26:37
[Music]
00:26:39
failed even today the continent of
00:26:42
Africa is composed of thousands of
00:26:44
different tribal
00:26:46
groupings each is subtly distinct from
00:26:49
the next in custom and
00:26:56
language
00:27:03
such diversity means that most Africans
00:27:05
have to master more than one
00:27:08
language and they acquire those skills
00:27:10
at a very young
00:27:16
[Music]
00:27:19
age I would like to find out how many
00:27:22
languages you speak who here speaks
00:27:24
knows how to speak
00:27:26
BBA
00:27:29
aha does anybody else know how to
00:27:32
understand or speak Loy you speak L yes
00:27:37
do you also speak Deber yes is there
00:27:40
another language that you speak
00:27:43
also L that's four languages that's good
00:27:47
most Americans speak only one
00:27:56
language
00:27:58
[Music]
00:27:59
after a little exposure to these
00:28:01
different languages you begin to realize
00:28:03
one
00:28:04
thing they all sound remarkably
00:28:08
similar I'm fascinated with languages
00:28:11
and wherever I've been going I'm asking
00:28:13
Africans what's your language and tell
00:28:16
me some words in your language so here's
00:28:18
what I found out for the word for sun in
00:28:20
the neang language son is zuba in the
00:28:23
BBA language it's AKA subba in chiwa
00:28:27
it's du zuba and in the sang language is
00:28:30
zuba again or the word for water in the
00:28:33
nean language it's manzi and in BBE it's
00:28:38
ameni and in chiwa it's manzi similar to
00:28:41
each other
00:28:45
again what do these linguistic
00:28:47
similarities tell
00:28:49
us that there is a common root for most
00:28:52
of the modern languages of tropical
00:28:55
Africa a single ancestral language
00:28:57
language spoken by a single group of
00:28:59
people from which the many languages of
00:29:02
today have
00:29:06
[Music]
00:29:10
descended linguistic analysis has
00:29:13
isolated a family of languages known as
00:29:16
Bantu which originated in tropical West
00:29:22
[Music]
00:29:23
Africa about 5,000 years ago the early
00:29:26
banto speakers began to spread into new
00:29:29
lands bringing their crops their animals
00:29:32
and their language with
00:29:36
them and over centuries Bantu culture
00:29:40
evolved diversifying into hundreds of
00:29:42
tribes expanding across the tropical
00:29:45
region of
00:29:50
[Music]
00:29:51
Africa but the truth of this panafrican
00:29:55
civilization was suppressed for many
00:30:00
years Dr Alex skurman is trying to
00:30:03
overturn the legacy of South Africa's
00:30:05
racist
00:30:07
past she has been Excavating an
00:30:10
archaeological site on the banks of the
00:30:12
Limpopo
00:30:17
River in the early part of the 20th
00:30:20
century um there were Rumors in the
00:30:23
white South African Community about this
00:30:25
place in their minds link to the Queen
00:30:27
of Sheba or some other early white
00:30:30
civilization in southern Africa trying
00:30:33
to show that the Phoenicians or the
00:30:34
seans basically anybody who was a bit
00:30:35
lighter skinned than Africans were here
00:30:38
first and they found the opposite that
00:30:41
Africans actually had an amazing great
00:30:43
history and that they had earlier States
00:30:46
um running before way before um any
00:30:49
white set foot in
00:30:51
Africa this site known as mum the place
00:30:56
of the jackal formed the heart of a
00:30:58
kingdom similar to the earliest
00:31:01
civilizations in
00:31:03
[Music]
00:31:24
Europe my good way was the cord was the
00:31:27
capital of a massive State um about
00:31:31
5,000 people living around this hill but
00:31:34
then you had several thousand other
00:31:36
people living in the valley we produced
00:31:38
the agricultural Surplus to feed the
00:31:40
city or
00:31:43
town they had cattle they had sheep they
00:31:47
grew sorum Millet they worked
00:31:52
iron it was a
00:31:55
massive amazing development that
00:31:58
occurred in southern
00:32:00
[Music]
00:32:04
Africa and this was not an isolated
00:32:07
state it Formed part of a much larger
00:32:10
economic Network that had spread across
00:32:12
southern Africa and
00:32:16
Beyond these are mu and good boy beads
00:32:19
they gorgeous blue ones these are glass
00:32:21
beads that came down the Indian Ocean
00:32:24
Coast um and through them we know that
00:32:27
mangu was part of the International
00:32:28
Trade Network I'm linking it all the way
00:32:31
to the
00:32:32
coast it's an incredible African
00:32:34
accomplishment to set up such a complex
00:32:37
Trade Network that links all the way
00:32:39
into Northern Botswana bring material
00:32:42
from there and taking it all way to the
00:32:44
Indian Ocean
00:32:47
[Music]
00:32:56
Coast so Africans had overcome the
00:32:59
problems of Agriculture that defeated
00:33:01
the European
00:33:04
settlers they had developed a unique
00:33:07
tropical system of agriculture that had
00:33:09
spread across the continent and become
00:33:12
the foundation of complex societies
00:33:14
trading as far a field as
00:33:18
[Music]
00:33:21
India but there was an even more
00:33:23
extraordinary story at the heart of this
00:33:25
flourishing tropical
00:33:28
[Music]
00:33:33
civilization as soon as they entered the
00:33:35
tropics Europeans and their imported
00:33:38
animals had fallen victim to terrible
00:33:43
[Music]
00:33:46
disease fevers racked their
00:33:50
population yet tropical Africans showed
00:33:53
fewer of the same effects many of them
00:33:56
even even survived that most lethal of
00:33:59
European weapons
00:34:03
smallpox the disease that had devastated
00:34:06
the native peoples of North and South
00:34:09
America and the koi sand of the African
00:34:15
Cape how was this
00:34:21
possible Diamond believes it all comes
00:34:24
back to
00:34:25
geography
00:34:27
many of the diseases that were killing
00:34:29
the settlers and their European
00:34:30
livestock were unique to the Tropical
00:34:35
World they had never encountered them
00:34:40
before it was a complete reversal of the
00:34:43
usual pattern of
00:34:45
Conquest in the new world the germs had
00:34:48
been a weapon on the side of Europeans
00:34:50
killing indigenous people here it was
00:34:53
indigenous germs to Which Europeans had
00:34:55
not a history of exposure
00:34:58
so here we have Guns Germs and Steel
00:35:00
again but the germs working in the
00:35:02
opposite
00:35:03
direction killing
00:35:09
Europeans the settlers and their
00:35:11
imported livestock had fallen victim to
00:35:14
a host of tropical infections and
00:35:24
diseases but African cattle over
00:35:26
thousands of years had developed
00:35:28
resistance to many of these tropical
00:35:32
germs and these cattle might also
00:35:35
explain why tropical Africans had not
00:35:38
succumbed to small pox on the same scale
00:35:40
as the koian people of the
00:35:43
cape the smallpox virus originally
00:35:46
crossed over from cattle to man
00:35:48
centuries ago and experts now believe it
00:35:51
may have first originated in tropical
00:35:55
Africa Africans were certainly familiar
00:35:58
with the
00:35:59
disease they had even developed methods
00:36:02
of vaccination that bestowed an immunity
00:36:04
for
00:36:08
life and there was
00:36:13
more native Africans had also developed
00:36:16
antibodies against one of the most
00:36:18
virulent diseases on
00:36:22
Earth
00:36:25
malaria
00:36:27
carried by The Humble
00:36:30
mosquito this was the disease that was
00:36:32
now overwhelming the European
00:36:37
[Music]
00:36:46
settlers but tropical Africans were
00:36:48
combating malaria with more than just
00:36:53
antibodies their entire civilization had
00:36:56
a evolved to help them avoid infection
00:36:59
in the first
00:37:01
place they tended to settle in high or
00:37:04
dry
00:37:05
locations away from the wet humid areas
00:37:08
where mosquitoes
00:37:09
[Music]
00:37:11
breed and by living in relatively small
00:37:14
communities spread out over vast areas
00:37:18
Africans could limit the level of
00:37:20
malaria
00:37:22
transmission it was an extraordinary
00:37:25
achievement
00:37:31
but the Europeans understood little of
00:37:34
the African's way of life they built
00:37:37
settlements by the rivers and lakes they
00:37:39
used for water in places Infested by
00:37:45
mosquitoes thousands
00:37:55
died
00:38:00
so it seemed that the tropics had
00:38:02
defeated European Guns Germs and
00:38:06
Steel and that Africans had emerged
00:38:11
triumphant they had evolved a complex
00:38:13
civilization well suited to the Tropical
00:38:17
World a civilization that had spread
00:38:20
throughout the continent in a vast
00:38:22
cultural
00:38:25
diaspora
00:38:27
was this the end of European Guns Germs
00:38:31
and Steel in
00:38:34
Africa what would the future hold for
00:38:36
this Mighty tropical
00:38:45
civilization the Europeans had failed to
00:38:48
settle Africa's
00:38:51
land this would become no North or South
00:38:55
America but Africa still had one great
00:38:59
draw for the colonizing
00:39:01
Powers vast reserves of Natural
00:39:04
Resources copper diamonds
00:39:09
gold European conquest and the story of
00:39:12
Guns Germs and Steel would now enter a
00:39:16
whole new
00:39:20
age in the late 1800s in what is now the
00:39:24
Democratic Republic of the Congo the
00:39:26
belgians drove millions of native
00:39:29
Africans from their
00:39:30
[Music]
00:39:32
Villages setting them to work Gathering
00:39:35
rubber mining copper and other
00:39:43
minerals burning their homes behind them
00:39:47
reducing their thousand-year-old
00:39:49
tropical civilization to dust and
00:39:53
Ashes few were as brutal as the Belgian
00:39:57
but across the continent millions of
00:39:59
Africans were compelled to abandon a way
00:40:01
of life perfectly adapted to the
00:40:05
tropics and to labor for
00:40:11
Europeans to fery Africa's natural
00:40:14
wealth back to Europe the colonizers
00:40:16
turned again to their
00:40:18
Technology Building ever greater
00:40:23
railroads after more than half a century
00:40:25
and the lab of tens of thousands tracks
00:40:28
of shining steel reached all the way
00:40:31
from the cape into the very heart of the
00:40:40
tropics constructed for Europeans to
00:40:43
extract Africa's
00:40:48
wealth built on the ruins of African
00:40:51
[Music]
00:40:55
civilization
00:40:56
[Music]
00:41:04
all this time I've been uncovering the
00:41:06
trail of Guns Germs and Steel across
00:41:10
Africa and even this train and the track
00:41:13
it rides on lie at the heart of my
00:41:16
[Music]
00:41:21
story these tracks are still in use
00:41:24
still fulfilling their original purpose
00:41:28
trains travel from the southern tip of
00:41:30
Africa into modern Congo and Zambia fing
00:41:33
back tons of copper and other
00:41:38
minerals but Africa today is no longer a
00:41:40
continent of
00:41:43
colonies its nations are free and
00:41:48
independent what places the FMI theory
00:41:51
of Guns Germs and Steel in modern
00:41:55
Africa
00:42:02
noola Northern Zambia the end of the
00:42:06
line for Jared
00:42:08
Diamond Civil War in the neighboring
00:42:10
Congo makes it too dangerous to travel
00:42:13
the last few miles of this
00:42:16
track but even here the reality of
00:42:19
modern Africa is
00:42:22
clear I'm now in the center of the
00:42:24
African tropics
00:42:26
and I'm in Zambia one of the poorest
00:42:29
countries in Africa and really in the
00:42:31
whole world the average annual income
00:42:34
here is a few
00:42:35
hundred and the lifespan average
00:42:38
lifespan of a Zambian is 35 years so I
00:42:41
myself have now lived nearly two average
00:42:44
Zambian
00:42:46
lifetimes what goes through my mind here
00:42:49
is what can history and geography and
00:42:51
Guns Germs of Steel tell us that would
00:42:54
help us understand the fight of Zambia
00:43:05
today in modern Zambia I see few signs
00:43:08
around me of the great native
00:43:10
civilizations that once flourished in
00:43:12
tropical
00:43:14
Africa what I see instead is a country
00:43:17
shaped by
00:43:19
colonization I see towns and cities that
00:43:21
grew up next to the mines and railroads
00:43:24
established by Europeans
00:43:27
and built on the European
00:43:31
model what about the great forces that
00:43:33
originally shape this continent and its
00:43:36
people the forces behind its conquest by
00:43:40
Europeans where are Guns Germs and seal
00:43:43
in modern
00:43:46
[Music]
00:43:47
Africa in Zambia malaria is
00:43:51
endemic it is the number one public
00:43:54
health problem and uh when you look at
00:43:56
the children particularly when you go to
00:43:58
a health facility up to 45% of the
00:44:02
children in the outpatient facility of
00:44:04
the hospital will actually be presenting
00:44:06
with
00:44:07
Mia germs one of Diamond's great forces
00:44:11
of History are still shaping the story
00:44:14
of modern
00:44:17
Zambia not just the recent scourge of
00:44:19
AIDS but also that ancient tropical
00:44:22
disease that defeated
00:44:25
Europeans
00:44:27
malaria malaria is now the number one
00:44:30
killer of African children under 5 years
00:44:33
old this Old Register we just show you
00:44:38
the picture of of the number of deaths
00:44:41
that could have occurred within the
00:44:43
hospital most of them are children below
00:44:47
5 years yeah uh one year 6 months 3
00:44:52
years 5 months 1 year
00:44:57
most of them are really below 5
00:45:03
years tropical Africans once lived in
00:45:06
settlements spread out over large areas
00:45:09
which minimized the spread of
00:45:11
malaria but now they're living in modern
00:45:14
high density cities and towns and the
00:45:17
rate of infection has increased
00:45:21
dramatically the burden of germs is one
00:45:24
of the greatest problems afflicting the
00:45:27
country undoubtedly malaria has a very
00:45:30
big economic burden on us as a country
00:45:33
because as you may be aware if so many
00:45:35
children will be suffering from malaria
00:45:36
if we just look at the children who are
00:45:38
in this world these mothers would be
00:45:40
working somewhere and being productive
00:45:42
so that's one direct way in which we
00:45:44
know productivity is being affected to a
00:45:46
large
00:45:47
extent it's been estimated by eminent
00:45:50
economists that the 1% negative growth
00:45:54
each year in Africa over the last half a
00:45:57
century can be attributed entirely to
00:46:00
malaria the immunities and antibodies
00:46:03
that Africans had developed over
00:46:05
thousands of years to protect them from
00:46:07
malaria no longer provide sufficient
00:46:10
protection the strains of the disease
00:46:13
are mutating and standard drugs are
00:46:16
becoming less effective in the high
00:46:18
malaria season up to seven children a
00:46:21
day die in this
00:46:24
Hospital you are used to this um I'm not
00:46:30
um what do this what does the scene make
00:46:33
you feel
00:46:34
about um your work in Zambia exactly to
00:46:39
be frank with you gered I wouldn't say
00:46:41
I'm used to this because I don't think
00:46:43
there's anyone who can be used to
00:46:46
sickness and eventually death especially
00:46:49
of people that you love so very much and
00:46:51
I a part of you it is it is something
00:46:54
that in fact I would say because of the
00:46:57
magnitude of the problem one would wish
00:47:00
to do everything they possibly could
00:47:06
[Music]
00:47:10
[Applause]
00:47:13
[Music]
00:47:17
do because of the fact that
00:47:24
um
00:47:32
there's a difference between
00:47:34
understanding something intellectually
00:47:36
in experienc
00:47:41
firsthand in my book germs was one of
00:47:45
the three main forces of history and
00:47:48
it's
00:47:49
impersonal
00:47:53
and um it's still different and it
00:47:56
hits me to be in a place
00:47:58
where germs are in
00:48:06
[Music]
00:48:11
action 30 years ago I set out on a
00:48:15
[Music]
00:48:18
journey a quest to understand the
00:48:20
origins of inequality in our
00:48:24
world
00:48:27
I discovered that this story stretched
00:48:29
back to the beginning of
00:48:31
civilization and rested on the geography
00:48:34
of our
00:48:37
planet when humans first started farming
00:48:40
one small area in the world was lucky
00:48:42
enough to have the best crops and
00:48:44
animals which gave one group of people a
00:48:47
unique advantage in
00:48:50
history Europeans perfected guns and
00:48:54
steel
00:48:56
evolved lethal diseases and
00:49:01
germs they then used these tools to
00:49:04
conquer
00:49:05
continents and to build extraordinary
00:49:10
wealth I conclude the geography and Guns
00:49:13
Germs and Steel have been the strongest
00:49:15
forces to shape the history of our
00:49:18
[Music]
00:49:21
world here in Zambia these forces are
00:49:24
still shaping the world today
00:49:29
tropical germs are overwhelming this
00:49:31
country and its people and driving them
00:49:33
into
00:49:38
poverty does that mean that Zambia will
00:49:41
always remain a victim of these great
00:49:43
forces of history and
00:49:45
[Music]
00:49:48
geography and that Africa is condemned
00:49:50
to a future as poor as its
00:49:54
present absolutely not and I would say
00:49:58
that the message is a hopeful one it's
00:50:01
not a deterministic fatalistic one that
00:50:03
says forget about Africa and
00:50:05
underdeveloped areas it says there were
00:50:07
specific reasons why different parts of
00:50:09
the world ended up as they did and with
00:50:13
understanding of those reasons we can
00:50:15
use that knowledge to help the places
00:50:17
that historically were at a
00:50:21
disadvantage Malaysia and Singapore are
00:50:24
among the richest and most dynamic
00:50:26
economies in the
00:50:28
world like Africa they are tropical
00:50:30
countries with the same problems of
00:50:33
geography and health the same endemic
00:50:36
malaria but both transformed themselves
00:50:39
by understanding their
00:50:42
environment 50 years ago these countries
00:50:45
realized the burden that geography and
00:50:48
germs could
00:50:51
be through concerted effort they managed
00:50:54
to almost entirely eradicate malaria
00:50:57
from their
00:50:59
land transforming their economies and
00:51:03
way of
00:51:03
[Music]
00:51:06
life the story of Malaysia and Singapore
00:51:10
shows what an understanding of geography
00:51:13
and history can
00:51:17
do explanations give you power they give
00:51:20
you the power to change they tell us
00:51:22
what happened in the past and why and we
00:51:24
can use that knowledge to make different
00:51:26
things happen in the
00:51:28
future the government of Zambia agrees
00:51:32
they have set up a nationwide project to
00:51:34
try to eliminate malaria from the
00:51:36
country just as in Malaysia and
00:51:39
Singapore new drugs even a possible
00:51:42
vaccine are giving them an increasing
00:51:45
chance of success the control of malaria
00:51:48
will mean an improvement in the welfare
00:51:51
of the people and an improvement in the
00:51:54
welfare of the people will mean
00:51:55
increased productivity and increased
00:51:58
productivity will mean that we will be a
00:52:01
wealthy Nation because that will mean
00:52:03
that then people will have
00:52:06
sufficient not only food but sufficient
00:52:09
time to be able to do things that make a
00:52:12
human being complete and whole and able
00:52:15
to live a fulfilled
00:52:16
[Music]
00:52:24
life
00:52:27
Jared Diamond's Quest has been to
00:52:30
understand the great forces of human
00:52:35
history but it is still the very
00:52:38
smallest of details the lives of
00:52:40
individual human beings that lie at the
00:52:43
heart of his work when we talk about
00:52:46
history we talk about development we
00:52:48
talk about competition between societies
00:52:50
and The Wealth of Nations it can sound
00:52:53
intellectual but here in Africa there
00:52:55
were human faces on
00:53:02
it and for Diamond even after 30 years
00:53:06
of thought and inquiry the questions
00:53:09
behind Guns Germs and Steel remain as
00:53:13
important as they ever
00:53:15
did why is our world divided between
00:53:18
rich and
00:53:20
poor and how perhaps can we change it
00:53:25
I feel that whatever I work on for the
00:53:27
rest of my life I can never work on
00:53:29
questions as fascinating as the
00:53:31
questions of Guns Germs and seal because
00:53:33
they're the biggest questions of human
00:53:35
[Music]
00:53:54
history
00:53:57
[Music]
00:54:03
[Music]
00:54:19
[Applause]
00:54:19
[Music]
