What has driven the evolution of Homo sapien and the civilizations it created ? Our first response may be biology and ingenuity. But how much has been guided by the natural environment and the opportunities made available by resource recognition? Over a period of 10 weeks, we will explore the answer to this question, by reading and discussing a new work by Lewis Dartnell, entitled Origins. It builds upon, expands and updates a work by Jared Diamond, entitled Guns, Germs and Steel. We will learn or refresh our understanding of the geography of the earth's geologic, climate, plant and animal evolutions and ponder how the environment in which Homo sapien evolve, provided opportunities for exploitation and limits to development. We can consider how different we and our civilizations might have turned out, had Mother Nature provided a different stage upon which we strut, but we were stuck with the one she did provide and can only debate the extent to which our fate was sealed by that stage.
1. Geographical Determinism vs Geographical Opportunity
2. The Making of Us
3.Continental Drifters
4. Our Biological Bounty
5. The Geography of the Seas
6. What we Build With
7.Our Metallic World
8. Silk roads and Steppe Peoples
9 The Global wind Machine and the Age of Discovery
10. Energy
Lewis Datnell, Origins, 2019