Guns, Germs, and Steel 5

The following chapter of Guns, Germs, and Steel analyzes the reason's for Europe's long-standing dominance over the world. In other words, why Europe of all countries was able to quell, conquer, and in some cases exterminate other nations. The answer lies in livestock. Europeans have always been a pastoral people with many domesticated animals. As proven earlier in the book, domesticated life is a big factor in the wealth of a nation, but another, less obvious gift from livestock were germs. Europeans contracted many viruses from their livestock but were protected by their immune systems. On the other hand, other cultures' immune systems had not adapted to combat such germs. That is why Europeans had such an easy time invading the Americas and Africa; their germs eliminated most of the opposition before they even came face to face.