Do you agree with these scholars?

Question

Most scholars argue that geography had a dominant influence on early world civilizations.

Answer 1

UCLA anthropologist & geographer Jared Diamond wrote a whole book about this, "Guns, Germs, and Steel," that was on the bestseller lists for at least two years.

Thirty years ago a New Guinea friend of his asked why Western Europeans colonized New Guinea, rather than the other way around. Diamond thought about that for thirty years, then wrote a book.

To summarize 600 or 1000 pages, Diamond says small differences 13,000 years ago can grow into big differences in modern times. In geographic terms:

- Climates along parallels (east-west latitude lines) are more consistent than climates along meridians (north-south longitude lines).

- Eurasia, the world's largest continental landmass, has an east-west orientation, while Africa and the Americas are oriented north and south. This gives Eurasia an advantage.

- Eurasia has relatively clear east-west lines of communication; Africa is split between north & south by the Sahara, and the Americas are divided north & south by deserts (the Sonora & Mojave), an isthmus, and mountain ranges (Sierra Madre, Rockies, Andes). This gives Eurasia an advantage.

- Agriculture, the domestication of large animals, and writing began earlier and on a larger scale in the Eurasian "cradles of civilization" -- Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, the North China Plain, and the Nile Valley (which is closely connected to Asia Minor) -- than elsewhere, including Mesoamerica and sub-Saharan Africa.

- This last is due in large part to favorable geographic differences -- the availability of suitable large domesticable animals and seed crops, favorable conditions for migrating these advances toward the east and west.

Getting back to New Guinea, Diamond reasoned that its high mountains split it north and south; the southern side was culturally connected with northern Australia; but Australia itself was rent by a great desert. Due to these barriers, New Guinea didn't have much of a chance vis-a-vis Western Europe.

So yeah, I'd agree that geography had a dominant influence.

Answer 2

Yup. The Babylonain King Nebuchanezzer II besieged Tyre for 13 years and was unable to take it. Tyre delayed Alexander the Great by a Whopping 7 months.
And that was because it was an island.

The fact that Egypt faced so few invasions(many of them succeeding) in it's first few thousand years was because the country was nearly surrounded by desert.

Answer 3

of course that is true.
most settlements were in areas that were, at their time, easily accessible to drinkable water, with good soil to plant crops in. Mesopotamia was in a river valley between the Euphrates and Tigris Rives....good water, fertile land...that's the geographical key to a thriving early civilization.