This book took me a long time to read, but I think it was worth it. I really liked this book and I think it helped me to think about things from a new perspective. It's weird to try to approach something like European colonization of other continents without any moral judgments. But when you step back as far as this book does, all the way back to viewing all of human history from the very beginning of the species, it seems ok. Societies that have denser populations, more technology, and more bureaucracy have conquered or absorbed other societies several or many times before the Europeans did so beginning with Columbus. People from Taiwan spread out to populate and displace other populations in much of Southeast Asia and the Pacific. Farmers from Cameroon spread and displaced other people southwards in Africa. And the reasons that these societies had the characteristics that allowed them to conquer and displace others is due to geography and environment, ultimately. It makes you think, what will people be thinking about us in 10,000 years?
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