Guns, Germs and Steel

Jared Diamond in Gun Germs and Steel writes to a more popular audience than Karl A. Wittfogel did in Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power but comes to the same conclusions. Environment makes societies. Jared says that the availability of crops and animals and the orientation of the continent (east west versus north south) led to development of some cultures faster than others. I didn't buy the environment idea when I read Wittfogel and I don't buy it in the infinitely more entertaining Diamond. There is more to the development of cultures than the accident of geography. People and peoples make choices and individuals do matter.