Original subtitles

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Africa

it's been called the birthplace of

humanity

the land where our ancestors took their

first steps

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yet only recently revealed as the home

of a vast tropical civilization cities

and kingdoms once spread across the

continent

then vanished leaving barely a trace

what happened to this great achievement

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professor Jared Diamond has set out to

explore the great patterns of human

history

it's a journey that has taken him from

the jungles of New Guinea to the

snow-capped peaks of Peru his quest to

understand why one people Europeans have

conquered so much of the world Diamond

argues that the roots of European

triumphs stretch back thousands of years

and rest on the power of geography

geography gave Europeans the most

productive crops and animals on the

planet and these allowed them to develop

Guns Germs and Steel three great forces

of conquest that have shaped human

history now

diamond is setting out on the last stage

of his quest to discover what happened

when Guns Germs and Steel came to Africa

and to ask what role these forces still

play but diamonds journey will test much

more than theories it will also test the

man himself

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a class 19d south african railway steam

locomotive built Glasgow Scotland 1932

it is a testament to technology and

human achievement a tool built the car

of a path across a continent a lasting

symbol of the triumph of European Guns

Germs and Steel

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this engine and its tracks of Steel will

carry jared diamond through the story of

Africa

it is a tail with its roots in ambition

and greed the peoples of Europe reaching

out beyond their native lands in a quest

for global conquest

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as Europeans expanded around the world

they conquered other people they built

railroads they developed rich societies

modeled on Europe they had done this

successfully in North America and South

America and Australia and then they

arrived in Africa it looked as if the

same thing was starting all over again

but Africa would be different a place of

dangers and secrets hidden from these

foreign invaders the first European

settlers arrived in southern Africa in

the mid 1600s they landed here in the

Cape of Good Hope at the southernmost

tip of the continent

they quickly established themselves in

this new land laying out farms planting

wheat and barley ranching cattle and

sheep

this may sound strange but it's from

ordinary agriculture like this that my

theory of Guns Germs and Steel arose

my quest began more than 30 years ago on

Krypto Papa New Guinea

when I began to try to understand why

the people there lived so differently

from Europeans and Americans the

beginnings of the answer I realized

depended on farming New Guineans had

only a few native crops that they could

grow and no native farm animals while my

ancestors even ten thousand years ago

had been blessed with an abundance of

domestic plants and animals over the

centuries this had given them a huge

advantage that let them develop cities

nations and even colonies abroad

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but Southern Africa is 5,000 miles from

Europe how is it possible for the

settlers to import European crops and

animals to such a distant part of the

world

as much as skill it came down to good

fortune

geography had dealt the settlers and

immensely lucky hand they had stumbled

across one of the few parts of the

southern hemisphere that feels just like

Europe because the Cape and Europe lie

at a similar latitude or distance from

the equator and this means that the

temperature and climate of these widely

separated regions are almost exactly the

same the Europeans were able to

establish prosperous farms and

settlements properties now owned by

their descendants

people like hemp s Dutoit so your family

has been here for centuries on this land

how do you feel about the land yourself

there I've always loved the land since

childhood days and it comes agriculture

has been in our family for so many

generations tell me about the history of

this farm of the land was occupied in

1683 I mean it was only a couple of

years after the first settlers came to

the cable but settlers like the Dutoit

knew that this was not an empty land

even today their farms turn up evidence

of the capes original inhabitants a

people known as the Khoisan this is

interesting this is from the Stone Age

well prior to the occupation of this

land in 1683 by the settlers this land

was most probably occupied by quite some

people these were the tools they used to

to scrape the skins when they tan the

skin you can see how nicely it fits into

your hand yeah with the arrival of

Europeans these native peoples were

driven from their land

but they also faced an invisible and

even more devastating agent of conquest

a force diamond has identified as one of

the greatest in human history

germs realizing the importance of

farming led me to the next big

surprising discovery of Guns Germs and

Steel domesticated animals had given

Europeans one advantage of which they

were completely unaware by living in

close proximity to their livestock they

had become infected with viruses and

germs of those animals which evolved

into diseases of humans through exposure

over centuries Europeans had developed

some resistance to those diseases but as

Europeans spread around the world they

encountered peoples who didn't have that

same resistance and who then fell victim

to devastating outbreaks of infection

especially of smallpox

in America's millions of native people

died from this one disease

and here in the Cape it wrought the same

havoc on the Kois on people's

through their farming and their germs

Europeans had established a firm

foothold in the southern tip of Africa

now they look to expand

in the 1830s there was a burst of the

pioneer spirit such as had been seen in

the european expansion across north

america and australia this time it was

Dutch settlers and these pioneers moved

into the interior like the Pioneers

moving across North America and Osprey

over the course of the 1830s thousands

of Dutch farmers with their families and

possessions loaded into wagons left the

Cape in search of new land to settle

they called themselves the war trekkers

these pioneers all wielded another agent

of European conquest the gun this is a

muzzleloading rifle typical of a weapon

that every four tricker would have had

in his wagon the words particularly

adapted using this weapon they could

reload it and fire from horseback these

muzzleloading rifles are still much

admired by the Voortrekker descendants

every single man that was in good health

and had at least two or three of these

particular offals in those days it must

have been the person's life you know

everything depended on that dinner they

hunted with him he had predicted

themselves with him it was part of him

you know if you didn't handle a gun that

day they were something wrong with you

guns in the steel from which they are

made

were the last two of the great

advantages that Europeans carried with

them around the globe guns are the

result of thousands of years of complex

technological developments which began

outside Europe but which Europeans

perfected and that was all because of

the head start that their farming had

given them thousands of years previously

now the flintlock rifle it was you know

I shouldn't really say this but there

was an ad lock as important as a cell

phone is today you can't go that your

cell phone in those like you couldn't go

that your flintlock rifle fire

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armed as they were the European settlers

must have been confident they could

overcome any obstacle as they pushed

further into the African interior

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by February 17th 1838 the Voortrekker x'

had reached 800 miles inland from the

Cape

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but they were entering an alien and

unexplored land

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suddenly out of the darkness swept a

native African army

their victims barely had time to fire a

single shot from their rifles before

they were completely overwhelmed

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within hours nearly 300 war trekkers lay

dead

their enemy had struck without mercy

killing men women and children alike who

could have committed such a ruthless and

calculated assault stopping the

Europeans in their tracks

in fact the Voortrekker x' had

trespassed across the border of a mighty

african kingdom inhabited by people very

different from the Khoisan of the Cape

they had encountered the Zulus when they

ran into the Zulus they ran into a group

of people who have very different

anybody else they'd been up to up

against up until that point in time this

was an organized a group of people the

Zulus were the authors of a unique and

highly developed African state their

military skills had allowed them to

overwhelm their native African neighbors

they held more than 30,000 square miles

of land and had established a

sophisticated economy and society

the ferocity of the zulu defense of

their land was something the Voortrekker

x' had simply not expected

it was more than the words could handle

they they were not prepared for the

attack from the Zulus they were up

against a king who could mobilize an

army of ten to fifteen thousand men

without any problem talk that could take

on almost anybody they were absolutely

fearless

the Voortrekker x' were stunned and

devastated had they and the power of

Guns Germs and Steel met their match in

Africa

the Voortrekker showed little interest

in who the Zulus were or how they

developed such a sophisticated state

they wanted to show down

they gathered their scattered forces

behind a great circle of wagons and

readied themselves for battle at dawn in

the 16th of December 1838 more than

10,000 Zulus stormed across the horizon

charging in to destroy the outnumbered

settlers

but this time the Europeans were able to

use their technology to maximum effect

to increase the rate of fire from their

muzzleloading rifles some would shoot

while others would reload that was shoot

hand the gun over take the next gunfire

and the gun over so every five or six

seconds you could fire a shot see that

that was the importance

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this time not a single Zulu could get

within ten paces of the encampment it

was a massacre

the four checkers have probably killed

an estimated fee to three and a half

thousand Zoomers the Brewers themselves

suffered only three injuries

the conflict became known as the Battle

of Blood River the Zulus

had been broken Guns Germs and Steel had

prevailed

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the victorious European settlers pushed

on beyond Zulu lands while new

developments in their technology let

them increase the case of conquest

railroads were key with railroads one

could transport lots of people and the

supplies over vast areas and so in

Africa Europeans started to build

railroads move into the interior and

transport themselves and their supplies

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this was the era of the Industrial

Revolution a revolution that introduced

one further weapon to the colonisation

of Africa a weapon that put the same

devastating firepower seen at Blood

River into the hands of just a single

man this is a maxim what made this

weapon such a great weapon as opposed to

the old single-shot weapons that had

been used in years before because this

gun could fire continuously for up to

500 rounds a minute it had the

equivalent firepower of probably a

hundred men in a company with

single-shot weapons

as they drove further into Africa

Europeans encountered new tribes some

just as hostile to invasion as the Zulus

and in but for peoples like the Matabele

II there was simply no answer to the

world's first fully automatic weapon

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Matta bewdley conflict of October 1893

lasted a matter of hours

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the settlers mode Darla's Mehta GUI

warriors until there were only a few of

them if it was a real case of ancient

technology up against the latest and

greatest as far as European inventions

were concerned it seems like the birth

of a new age

Europeans carving the path into the

interior of Africa

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conquering tribe after tried settling

where they pleased

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Guns Germs and Steel triumphant

except Nan those settlers would find

themselves facing an entirely new enemy

one that had once been their greatest

ally geography

as they move north settlers cleared land

for farms confident they could build a

prosperous life in Africa

but with little warning things began to

go awry

the land became impossible to plow

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their crops refuse to grow

but their shoes fell apart in the mud

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come on and that was only the start come

on

the second big problem that Europeans

encountered was the animals died

the horses and oxen had been a big part

of the European advantage elsewhere in

the world

Oksana's draft animals and horses as the

military animals but here the animals

were dying

for thousands of years these

domesticated animals and crops had

sustained European civilization without

them there would have been no Guns Germs

and Steel

no history of conquest and colonization

and now the settlers themselves began to

fall ill with terrible fevers

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while all around them they could see

native Africans farming herding cattle

healthy and alive

how was this possible

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what were the secrets of this strange

new land

the ideas behind Guns Germs and Steel

all spring from an understanding of

geography and geography explains why

Europeans were now failing European

crops had grown well in the Cape because

the Cape was a mirror of the European

world lying on a similar latitude but as

the settlers progressed into the African

interior they'd been moving north closer

and closer to the equator at about 23

degrees south near the river Limpopo

they passed a major geographical

boundary known as the Tropic of

Capricorn

they were leaving behind their familiar

European climate and entering a totally

different world they had entered the

tropics compared to the European or

temperate zones the tropics operate by

entirely different rules instead of the

four seasons of Europe North America and

the Cape here there are just two the dry

season and the rainy

wheat and barley the crops that had

sustained European civilization for

centuries had not evolved to survive in

this tropical climate

yet the native Africans the Zulus the

Matabele e all the tribes that the

settlers had encountered dependent on

agriculture just as much as the

Europeans

how were they succeeding as the

Europeans failed even today the

continent of Africa is composed of

thousands of different tribal groupings

each is subtly distinct from the next in

custom and language such diversity means

that most Africans have to master more

than one language and they acquire those

skills at a very young age I would like

to find out how many languages you speak

who here speaks knows how to speak them

aha

does anybody else know how to understand

or speak lousy you speak Lowe's yes do

you also speak Tambor is there another

language that you speak awesome though

that that's four languages that's good

most Americans speak only one language

after a little exposure to these

different languages you begin to realize

one thing they all sound remarkably

similar I'm fascinated with languages

and we were I've been going I'm asking

Africans

what's your language and tell me some

words in the language so here's what I

found out for the word for Sun in the

Nyanja language Sun is uber in the

Denver language it's aku super in

chi-wah it's a do Zumba and in the same

line which is Zuba again while the word

for water in the Nyanja language it's

man Z and then it's a men chi and in Chi

Y its mod Z similar to each other again

what do these linguistic similarities

tell us that there is a common root for

most of the modern languages of tropical

Africa a single ancestral language

spoken by a single group of people from

which the many languages of today have

to send them

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linguistic analysis has isolated a

family of languages known as Bantu which

originated in tropical West Africa about

five thousand years ago the early Bantu

speakers began to spread into new lands

bringing their crops their animals and

their language with them and over

centuries Bantu culture evolved

diversifying into hundreds of tribes

expanding across the tropical region of

Africa but the truth of this pan-african

civilization was suppressed for many

years

dr. alex Kerman is trying to overturn

the legacy of South Africa's racist past

she has been excavating an

archaeological site on the banks of the

Limpopo River

in the early part of the 20th century

and there were rumors in the white South

African community about this place in

their minds linked to the Queen of Sheba

or some other early white civilization

in southern Africa trying to show that

the Phoenicians or the sarbanes

basically anybody was a bit lighter

skinned and Africans we're here first

and they found the opposite that

Africans actually had an amazing great

history and that they had earlier States

running before way before any white set

foot in Africa this site known as map on

Buble the place of the jackal formed the

heart of a kingdom similar to the

earliest civilizations in Europe

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my kangaroo is the core it was the

capital of a massive state and about

five thousand people living around this

hill but then you had several thousand

other people living in the valley we

produced agricultural surplus to feed

the city or town

they have cattle they had sheep they

grew sorghum millet they worked iron it

was a massive amazing development that

occurred in southern Africa

and this was not an isolated State it

formed part of a much larger economic

network that had spread across southern

Africa and beyond

these are nothing of wear beads they

gorgeous blue ones these are glass beads

that came down the Indian Ocean coast

and through them we know that my finger

was part of international trade network

I'm linking it all the way to the coast

it's an incredible African

accomplishment to set up such a complex

trade network that links all the way

into northern Botswana bring material

from there and taking it all the way to

the Indian Ocean coast

so Africans had overcome the problems of

Agriculture that defeated the European

settlers they developed a unique

tropical system of Agriculture that has

spread across the continent and become

the foundation of complex societies

trading as far afield as India

but there was an even more extraordinary

story at the heart of this flourishing

tropical civilization

as soon as they entered the tropics

Europeans and their imported animals had

fallen victim to terrible disease

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fevers wracked their population yet

tropical Africans showed fewer of the

same effects many of them even survived

that most lethal of European weapons

smallpox

the disease that had devastated the

native peoples of North and South

America and the Kois an of the African

Cape

how was this possible Diamond believes

it all comes back to geography many of

the diseases that were killing the

settlers and their European livestock

were unique to the tropical world they

had never encountered them before it was

a complete reversal of the usual pattern

of conquest in the new world the germs

had been a weapon on the side of

Europeans killing indigenous people here

it was indigenous germs to which

Europeans had not a history of exposure

so here we have Guns Germs and Steel

again but the germs working in the

opposite direction

killing Europeans the settlers and their

imported livestock had fallen victim to

a host of tropical infections and

diseases

but African cattle over thousands of

years had developed resistance to many

of these tropical germs and these cattle

might also explain why topical Africans

had not succumbed to smallpox on the

same scale as the Kois and people of the

Cape the smallpox virus originally

crossed over from cattle to man

centuries ago and experts now believe it

may have first originated in tropical

Africa Africans were certainly familiar

with the disease they had even developed

methods of vaccination that bestowed an

immunity for life and there was more

native Africans had also developed

antibodies against one of the most

virulent diseases on earth malaria

carried by the humble mosquito this was

the disease that was now overwhelming

the European settlers

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but tropical Africans were combating

malaria with more than just antibodies

your entire civilization had evolved to

help them avoid infection in the first

place

they tended to settle in high or dry

locations away from the wet humid areas

where mosquitoes breed

and by living in relatively small

communities spread out over vast areas

Africans could limit the level of

malaria transmission it was an

extraordinary achievement

but the Europeans understood little of

the Africans way of life they built

settlements by the rivers and lakes they

used for water in places infested by

mosquitoes thousands died

so it seemed that the tropics had

defeated European Guns Germs and Steel

and that Africans had emerged triumphant

they evolved a complex civilization

well-suited to the tropical world

a civilization that had spread

throughout the continent in a vast

cultural diaspora

was this the end of European Guns Germs

and Steel in Africa what would the

future hold for this mighty the tropical

civilization the Europeans had failed to

settle Africa's land this would become

no North or South America but Africa

still had one great draw for the

colonizing powers

vast reserves of natural resources

popper diamonds gold

European conquest and the story of Guns

Germs and Steel would now enter a whole

new age in the late 1800s what is now

the Democratic Republic of the Congo

the Belgians drove millions of native

Africans from their villages setting

them to work gathering rubber mining

copper and other minerals

burning their homes behind them reducing

their thousand-year-old tropical

civilization to dust and ashes

few were as brutal as the Belgians but

across the continent millions of

Africans were compelled to abandon a way

of life perfectly adapted to the tropics

and to labor for Europeans to ferry

Africa's natural wealth back to Europe

the colonizers turned again to their

technology building ever greater

railroads after more than half a century

and the labor of tens of thousands the

tracks of shining steel reached all the

way from the Cape into the very heart of

the tropics

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constructed for europeans to extract

africa's wealth

built on the ruins of African

civilization

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all this time I'd been uncovering the

trail of Guns Germs and Steel across

Africa and even this train and the track

that rides on lie at the heart of my

story

these tracks are still in use still

fulfilling their original purpose trains

travel from the southern tip of Africa

into modern Congo and Zambia fairing

back tons of copper and other minerals

but Africa today is no longer a

continent of colonies

it's Nations of free and independent

what places the f my theory of carnal

germs and steel in modern Africa

and Ola northern Zambia the end of the

line for Jared Diamond Civil War in the

neighboring Congo makes it too dangerous

to travel the last few miles of this

track but even here the reality of

modern Africa is clear I'm now in the

centre of the African tropics and I'm in

Zambia one of the poorest countries in

Africa and really in the whole world

the average annual income here is a few

hundred dollars and the lifespan average

lifespan of as a munis 35 years so I

myself have now lived nearly to average

Zambian life's times what goes through

my mind here is what can history and

geography and Guns Germs of steel tell

us that would help us understand the

plight of Zambia today

in modern Zambia I see few signs around

me of the great native civilizations

that once flourished in tropical Africa

what I see instead is a country shaped

by colonization

I see towns and cities that grew up next

to the mines and rare roads established

by Europeans and built on the European

model

what about the great forces that

originally shaped this continent and its

people the forces behind its conquest by

Europeans we are a Guns Germs and Steel

in modern Africa this is the number one

public health problem and when you look

at the children particularly when you go

to a health facility up to 45 percent of

the children in the outpatient facility

of the hospital will actually be

presenting with malaria germs one of

diamonds great forces of history are

still shaping the story of modern Zambia

not just the recent scourge of AIDS but

also that ancient tropical disease that

defeated Europeans malaria malaria is

now the number one killer of African

children under five years old he's old

register you just show you the picture

of of the number of deaths that could

have occurred within the hospital most

of them are children below five years

one year six months three years five

months one year most of them are really

below five years

tropical Africans once lived in

settlements spread out over large areas

which minimized the spread of malaria

but now they're living in modern

high-density cities and towns and the

rate of infection has increased

dramatically the burden of germs is one

of the greatest problems afflicting the

country as a country because as you may

be aware if so many children will be

suffering from malaria if we just look

at the children who are in this ward

these mothers would be working somewhere

and being productive so that's one

direct way in which we know productivity

is being affected to a large extent it's

been estimated by eminent economists

that the 1% negative growth each year in

Africa over the last half a century can

be attributed entirely to malaria the

immunities and antibodies that Africans

had developed over thousands of years to

protect them from malaria no longer

provides sufficient protection the

strains of the disease are mutating and

standard drugs are becoming less

effective in the high malaria season up

to 7 children a day died in this

hospital you are used to this

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what is this what is this even make you

feel

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I wouldn't say I'm used to this because

I don't think there's anyone who can be

used to sickness and eventually death

especially with people that you love so

very much and I apart of you it is it is

something that in fact I would say

because of the magnitude of the problem

one would wish to do everything they

possibly could do

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because of the fact that town there's a

difference between understanding

something intellectually an experienced

catch firsthand in my book

germs was one of the three main forces

of history and it's impersonal and it's

still different and it hits me to be in

a place where germs are in action

thirty years ago I set out on a journey

a quest to understand the origins of

inequality in our world

I discovered that this story stretched

back to the beginning of civilization

and rested on the geography of our

planet

when humans first started farming one

small area in the world was lucky enough

to have the best crops and animals which

gave one group of people a unique

advantage in history

Europeans perfected guns and steel

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evolved lethal diseases and germs

they then use these tools to conquer

continents and to build extraordinary

wealth

I conclude the geography and Guns Germs

and Steel have been the strongest forces

to shape the history of our world

here in Zambia these forces are still

shaping the world today

tropical germs are overwhelming this

country and its people and driving them

into poverty

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does that mean that Zambia will always

remain a victim of these great forces of

history and geography

and that Africa is condemned to a future

as poor as its present

absolutely not and I would say that the

message is a hopeful one it's not a

deterministic fatalistic one that says

forget about Africa and underdeveloped

areas it says there are specific reasons

why different parts of the world ended

up as they did and with understanding of

those reasons we can use that knowledge

to help the places that historically

were at a disadvantage

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Malaysia and Singapore are among the

richest and most dynamic economies in

the world like Africa they are tropical

countries with the same problems of

geography and health the same endemic

malaria but both transformed themselves

by understanding their environment

fifty years ago these countries realized

the burden that geography and germs

could be

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through concerted effort they managed to

almost entirely eradicate malaria from

their land

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transforming their economies and way of

life

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the story of Malaysia and Singapore

shows what an understanding of geography

and history can do

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explanations give you power they give

you the power to change they tell us

what happened in the past and why and we

can use that knowledge to make different

things happen in the future the

government of Zambia agrees they have

set up a nationwide project to try to

eliminate malaria from the country just

as in Malaysia and Singapore new drugs

even a possible vaccine are giving them

an increasing chance of success the

control malaria will mean an improvement

in the welfare of the people and an

improvement in the warfare of the people

would mean increased productivity and

increased productivity would mean that

we will be a wealthy nation because that

will mean that then people will have

sufficient not only food but sufficient

time to be able to do things that make a

human being complete and whole and able

to live a fulfilled life

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jared diamond's quest has been to

understand the great forces of human

history

but it is still the very smallest of

details the lives of individual human

beings that lie at the heart of his work

when we talk about history we talk about

development we talk about competition

between societies and the wealth of

nations it can sound intellectual but

here in Africa they were human faces on

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and for Diamond even after 30 years of

thought and enquiry the questions behind

Guns Germs and Steel remain as important

as they ever did

why is our world divided between rich

and poor and how perhaps can we change

it I feel that whatever I work on for

the rest of my life I can never work on

questions as fascinating as the

questions of Guns Germs and Steel

because they're the biggest questions of

human history

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you

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you