Hasta el momento, Jared Diamond ha demostrado cómo la geografía favoreció un grupo de personas - los europeos - dotándolos de agentes de conquista más avanzados que sus rivales de todo el mundo. Las armas, los gérmenes y el acero permitieron a los europeos para colonizar grandes extensiones del globo - pero lo que sucedió cuando la conquista llegó a África, la cuna de la humanidad?
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00:00Africa, this place in the world has been said to be the cradle of humanity, the land where our ancestors took their first steps.
00:15However, not long ago it was discovered that it had also been the home of a vast tropical civilization.
00:22But the cities and kingdoms that once proliferated on the continent suddenly vanished without a trace.
00:29What happened to those great achievements?
00:35Professor Jared Diamond has set out to investigate the extraordinary guidelines of human history.
00:43His search has led him from the jungles of New Guinea to the snowy peaks of Peru.
00:50His goal? To understand why a people, that of the Europeans, has conquered such a large part of the world.
01:00Diamond maintains that the origins of European triumph date back thousands of years and are rooted in the power that geography confers.
01:10Geography gave the Europeans the most productive crops and animals on the planet, which in turn allowed them to develop weapons, germs and steel.
01:22Three extraordinary forces of conquest that have shaped the history of humanity.
01:28Now Diamond is about to start the last stage of his search to discover what happened when the weapons, germs and steel arrived in Africa.
01:38And to ask himself what role these elements continue to play today.
01:44But the journey he is going to undertake will not only question simple theories, it will also put man to the test.
02:08WEAPONS, GERMS AND STEEL
02:10IN THE TROPIC
02:12IN THE TROPIC
02:35This steam locomotive of the D19 series of South African Railways,
02:40built in Glasgow, Scotland in 1932, is a testament to the technology and achievements of man.
02:49An instrument created to open a path through a continent.
02:55A lasting symbol of the triumph of weapons, germs and European steel.
03:11This engine and its steel tracks will lead Jared Diamond through the history of Africa.
03:20A history that has its roots in the ambition and greed of the European peoples,
03:25who transcended the limits of their lands in their attempt to conquer the planet.
03:31When Europeans expanded around the world, they conquered other peoples,
03:35built railways and created rich societies modeled on the image of Europe.
03:41They did it successfully in North America, South America and Australia.
03:45That is why when they arrived in Africa, it seemed that the process would be repeated once again.
03:52However, Africa would be different.
03:55It was a place of hidden dangers and secrets that those foreign invaders were unable to perceive.
04:02The first European settlers arrived in the south of Africa in the middle of the 17th century.
04:08They disembarked in Cape of Good Hope, located at the southernmost end of the continent,
04:13and quickly established themselves in Africa.
04:16They set up farms, planted wheat and barley, and began to raise cattle, sheep and sheep.
04:27It may seem strange to you, but basic agricultural practices like these
04:32are the basis of my theory regarding weapons, germs and steel.
04:36My research began more than 30 years ago on a trip to Papua, New Guinea.
04:40It was then that I began to try to understand why those people lived in such a different way
04:45than Europeans and North Americans do.
04:51I soon understood that that situation was the result, in the first instance, of the depopulation
04:55of the indigenous population of Papua New Guinea.
04:58It was then that I began to understand why those people lived in such a different way
05:03I soon understood that that situation was the result, in the first instance, of the depopulation of the indigenous population of Papua New Guinea.
05:08The inhabitants of New Guinea had a small number of indigenous products that they could cultivate,
05:13and they lacked native farm animals.
05:17On the other hand, 10,000 years ago, my ancestors were blessed with an abundance of plants and domestic animals.
05:23Over the centuries, this circumstance gave them a considerable advantage,
05:27which allowed them to create cities, nations and even colonies outside their borders.
05:34But the south of Africa is more than 8,000 kilometers from Europe.
05:38But the south of Africa is more than 8,000 kilometers from Europe.
05:45How could the settlers import crops and European animals to such a remote corner of the world?
05:54It was a matter of skill, but also of good luck.
05:58And geography helped them a lot, because they came across one of the few regions of the southern hemisphere that looked like Europe.
06:05Cape and Europe are located at similar latitudes, that is, almost at the same distance from the equator,
06:12which means that the temperature and climate of those two areas are almost identical, despite the distance that separates them.
06:20European settlers
06:26The Europeans were able to establish prosperous settlements and agricultural exploits,
06:32properties that now possess their descendants, people like Enpes Dutua.
06:38Your family has been in these places for centuries. What does the land mean to you, therefore?
06:45I've always loved the land, since I was a child, and our family has been engaged in agriculture for many generations.
06:53Tell me about the history of this farm.
06:56The land was occupied in 1683, just a couple of years after the first settlers arrived in the Cape.
07:05However, settlers like Dutua knew that those territories were not uninhabited.
07:10Even today, in their farms, there are still traces of the original settlers of the Cape, the Khoisan people.
07:17Oh, this piece is very interesting.
07:19Yes?
07:20This is from the Stone Age. Prior to the occupation of this land in 1683,
07:28it was most probably occupied by the Khoisan people.
07:34These were the tools they used to scrape the skins when they cut them.
07:40It's fantastic.
07:41See how easy it is to handle it and how well it adapts to the hand.
07:44Yes?
07:47When they arrived, the Europeans expelled these native peoples from their lands.
07:57But those people also had to face an even more devastating invisible conqueror,
08:02one of the most extraordinary forces in human history,
08:06at the behest of Diamond, the Germans.
08:14When I understood the importance of the farming of the lands,
08:17I discovered, to my surprise, the weapons, the Germans, and the steel.
08:22Domestic animals gave the Europeans a certain advantage that they were not at all aware of.
08:29Living near their cattle, they became infected with a series of viruses and germs of these animals
08:34that evolved to become diseases of humans.
08:41After centuries of exposure to these infectious agents,
08:44the Europeans managed to develop a certain resistance to these diseases.
08:50But when they deployed around the world,
08:52they found peoples who did not enjoy the same protection
08:57and who succumbed to lethal infectious outbreaks,
09:02mainly of smallpox.
09:06In the American continent, millions of natives died because of this disease.
09:13And here, in El Cabo, smallpox caused identical outbreaks among the Khoisan peoples.
09:18In the South of Africa
09:23Through their crops and their germs,
09:26the Europeans consolidated their presence in the far south of Africa
09:31and began to think about expanding their territories.
09:49In the 1830s,
09:52a new wave of colonial expansion began.
09:59At this time, it was Dutch settlers who emigrated to the African interior,
10:03following the pattern of what had occurred during the European colonization of North America and Australia.
10:12In the course of the 1830s,
10:15thousands of Dutch farmers gathered their families,
10:18loaded their possessions into wagons
10:21and left El Cabo in search of new lands to settle in.
10:26Those pioneers called themselves Boer Trekkers
10:30and held in their hands another key agent for European conquest,
10:34the firearms.
10:37This piece is a rifle that is loaded through the barrel,
10:40the typical weapon that any Boer Trekker would have in his wagon.
10:45The Boers liked it a lot,
10:48they could reload it and shoot while riding on horseback.
10:55The descendants of the Boer Trekkers
10:58continue to show great admiration for these rifles.
11:03Any healthy and strong man
11:07had at least two or three of these special rifles.
11:11In those days, it must have depended on the life of its owners.
11:18Everything depended on these weapons.
11:22They passed with them and also used them to protect themselves.
11:25They were part of the man,
11:27so it was very rare that someone did not wield a weapon.
11:30Yes.
11:31Yes.
11:35The weapons and the steel from which they are made
11:38are the last two great prerogatives
11:40that the Europeans carried with them all over the planet.
11:50The weapons are the result of thousands of years
11:52of complex technological developments
11:54that began outside of Europe,
11:56but that the inhabitants of the old continent perfected.
12:00And if they succeeded,
12:01it was thanks to the considerable initial advantage
12:04that agriculture conferred on them thousands of years earlier.
12:09Although I should not say something like that,
12:12the spark rifle was almost as important as the mobile phone is today.
12:17Now you can not go there without a mobile phone.
12:20So what was essential was that rifle.
12:23Fire.
12:31Probably because of the fact of going armed,
12:34the European settlers believed they could overcome any obstacle
12:37in their advance towards the interior of the African continent.
12:48On February 17, 1838,
12:51the Boer Trekkers were already 1,200 kilometers from El Cabo.
12:55But they were entering a strange and unexplored territory.
13:26Africa
13:39Suddenly an army of African natives emerged from the darkness
13:43and fell on the settlers.
13:45They barely had time to make a single shot with their rifles
13:49before being completely outmatched.
13:56Boer Trekkers
14:02A few hours later, almost 300 Boer Trekkers lay dead.
14:20Their enemies had attacked mercilessly,
14:23indistinctly killing men, women and children.
14:33Who could have perpetrated such an implacable and calculated assault,
14:37stopping the advance of the Europeans?
14:48The truth was that the Boer Trekkers
14:50had crossed the limits of a prosperous African kingdom
14:53whose inhabitants had nothing to do with the Khoisan of El Cabo.
15:04The Dutch had come across the Zulu.
15:11The Zulu was a very different people
15:14from all those they had known up until that point.
15:18Theirs was a very, very organized group.
15:25The Zulu were the creators of a unique and highly developed African state.
15:30Their military skill had allowed them to impose themselves on their native neighbors.
15:35Their territories covered an area of more than 48,000 square kilometers
15:40and had established a very sophisticated economy and society.
15:48The ferocity with which the Zulu defended their lands
15:52was something that the Boer Trekkers simply did not have.
15:57It was more than the Boers could handle.
16:00They were not prepared for the attack of the Zulu
16:04who could, all of a sudden, find a king
16:07who could easily mobilize an army of 10 or 15,000 intrepid men
16:12capable of defeating almost any rival.
16:18The Zulu surprised the Boer Trekkers with the low guard and crushed them.
16:23Did that defeat mean that the Europeans
16:26and the power conferred to them by weapons, germs and steel
16:30had found the orma of their shoe in Africa?
16:33The Boer Trekkers cared very little about who the Zulu were
16:37or how they had created such a sophisticated state.
16:42They wanted to confront them
16:44so they gathered their dispersed forces
16:46after a large circle formed by several carriages
16:49and prepared for battle.
16:57At dawn on December 16, 1838
17:01the colonists saw more than 10,000 Zulu
17:04charging at them to destroy them.
17:07But on that occasion, although the Africans outnumbered them
17:11the Europeans took full advantage of their technology.
17:15To increase the rate of fire of those rifles
17:18that were loaded by the cannon
17:20some shot while the others reloaded them.
17:26They shot, handed the rifle to another,
17:29took the next rifle, shot it and left it again
17:32to be loaded again.
17:34So every five or six seconds they could make a shot
17:38and that was the important thing.
17:42The Boer Trekkers
17:52On that occasion, not a single Zulu
17:55managed to get ten steps closer to the camp.
17:58The Boers massacred them.
18:03The Boer Trekkers had to kill about 3,000 or 3,500 Zulu.
18:08On the other hand, in their ranks there were only three injured.
18:15That conflict became known as the Battle of the Blood River.
18:22The Zulus were defeated.
18:24The weapons, the germs and the steel prevailed.
18:39After the victory, the European colonists
18:42continued to enter Zulu territory.
18:45The new advances in their technology
18:47allowed them to accelerate the conquest.
19:00The railroad was a key instrument for the process.
19:04Trains could transport large distances
19:07to many people along with their carriages.
19:10For that reason, the Europeans began to build railroads in Africa
19:14to move inland
19:17carrying all the necessary supplies.
19:24That was the era of the Industrial Revolution,
19:27a revolution that introduced a more powerful weapon
19:30for the colonization of Africa.
19:33An instrument that put in the hands of a single man
19:36the same devastating power that was seen in the Battle of the Blood River.
19:45This is a Maxim machine gun
19:48and what makes it such a lethal weapon
19:51is that unlike the rifles of a single shot
19:54that were used in previous eras,
19:57the Maxim could fire continuously up to 500 times per minute.
20:01It had a firepower equivalent
20:04to that of approximately 100 men of a company with single-shot weapons.
20:12In their advance inland,
20:14the Europeans found other tribes,
20:17some as hostile to the invasion as the Zulus.
20:21However, tribes like the Matabele
20:24simply did not have an answer
20:27for the first fully automatic weapon in the world.
20:34The Matabele conflict of October 1893
20:37only lasted a few hours.
20:51The settlers mowed down the Matabele warriors
20:54until there were only a few left.
21:01It was a real confrontation of ancient technology
21:04with the most innovative and extraordinary of European inventions.
21:21Apparently, a new era was about to see the light.
21:25The Europeans would make their way through the interior of Africa
21:29conquering one tribe after another
21:32and settling where they pleased.
21:39Weapons, germs and steel had triumphed.
21:44However, soon those settlers would have to leave
21:47and face a completely new enemy,
21:50one that was once their greatest ally,
21:53the geography.
22:11As they advanced north,
22:14the settlers deforested the land
22:17to turn it into farmland,
22:20hoping to enjoy a prosperous life in Africa.
22:27But suddenly things began to twist
22:30and came a time when it would be impossible to plow the land.
22:34The plants they planted refused to grow.
22:41And the mud destroyed their footwear.
22:54And here, in the middle of the desert,
22:57the settlers were forced to leave their homes
23:01and that was just the beginning.
23:11The second big problem the Europeans had to face
23:14was the death of their animals.
23:19Horses and oxen had been a very important part
23:22of the advantage the Europeans had in the rest of the world.
23:25The first helped them in their military raids
23:29and the second were excellent shooting animals.
23:32But then those creatures began to die.
23:37Domestic animals and crops
23:40held the European civilization for thousands of years.
23:45Without them, weapons, germs and steel
23:48would never have existed.
23:51Nor would the conquests and colonization processes.
23:55But then even the settlers began to get sick.
24:00They suffered terrible fevers
24:03while the African natives around them
24:06cultivated their lands and raised their cattle safe and sound.
24:10How was that possible?
24:15What secrets did those new strange lands hide?
24:25All the ideas that derive from the theory of weapons, germs and steel
24:28are the result of the understanding of geography.
24:31A factor that explains the failure of the Europeans in their new project.
24:34European crops had prospered in the Cape
24:37because they were in a similar latitude.
24:40The conditions in that region were a real challenge.
24:43There was a lot of rain,
24:46a lot of snow,
24:49a lot of drought,
24:52but the conditions in that region
24:55were a reflection of those in the European world.
24:58But as they advanced north
25:01and entered the African continent,
25:04the settlers were approaching Ecuador.
25:07About 23 degrees south of this parallel,
25:10near the Limpopo River,
25:13they crossed a geographic border known as the Capricorn Tropic.
25:17So they left behind that European climate
25:20to enter a totally different world,
25:23that of the tropics.
25:29The norms that prevail in the tropics
25:32are totally different from the conditions that predominate
25:35in the Old Continent or in other areas of temperate climate.
25:38There, instead of the four seasons of Europe,
25:41North America and the Cape,
25:44there are only two.
25:47The rain.
25:52Wheat and barley,
25:55crops that for centuries held the European civilization,
25:58had not evolved to survive in this tropical climate.
26:08However, the African natives,
26:11the Zulu, the Matabele,
26:14and the other tribes with which the settlers crossed,
26:17depended on both agriculture and the Europeans.
26:20How did they succeed where the settlers failed?
26:29Even today, the African continent
26:32is made up of thousands of different tribal groups,
26:35all of them slightly different from the rest
26:38in their customs and language.
26:45The vast diversity
26:48forces most Africans
26:51to master more than one language,
26:54a skill they acquire at a very early age.
27:14Aha!
27:17Does anybody else know how to understand or speak Lozi?
27:20You speak Lozi?
27:23Yes.
27:26Do you also speak Zemba?
27:29Yes.
27:32Is there another language that you speak also?
27:35Slovak.
27:38Slovak. That's four languages. That's good.
27:41I didn't need a long contact
27:44with those different languages
27:47to begin to realize something surprising.
27:50They all look very similar.
27:53I'm fascinated by these languages,
27:56and that's why wherever I go,
27:59I ask the Africans what language they speak,
28:02and I ask them to tell me some words in it.
28:05And this is what I've found out
28:08in the Nyanja language.
28:11In the Nyanja language,
28:14the sun is said to rise.
28:17In Zemba, it's said to rise.
28:20In Chiwa, it's said to rise,
28:23and in the Senga languages,
28:26it's said to rise again.
28:29In the Nyanja language,
28:32it's said to rise.
28:35The conclusion can be drawn
28:38from the similarities between these languages,
28:41that most of the modern languages
28:44of tropical Africa have a common root,
28:47a unique ancestral language spoken
28:50by a single group of people
28:53of which the modern languages come from.
29:00By carrying out a linguistic analysis,
29:03we can identify a family of languages
29:06known as Bantu,
29:09which has its origins in western tropical Africa.
29:12About 5,000 years ago,
29:15the first speakers of Bantu
29:18began to spread across new lands,
29:21carrying with them their crops,
29:24their animals and their language.
29:27Over the centuries,
29:30the Bantu language
29:33has been spoken by many tribes
29:36that have expanded
29:39throughout the tropical region of Africa.
29:42But the truth is
29:45that this Pan-African civilization
29:48has remained hidden for many years.
29:51Dr. Alex Esqueman
29:54is excavating
29:58this place known as Mapungube,
30:01the home of the jackal,
30:04which was the nucleus of a kingdom
30:07similar to that of the first European civilizations.
30:27Mapungube was the center,
30:30the capital of a massive state.
30:33Approximately 5,000 people
30:36lived on this hill
30:39and several thousand other people
30:42living in the valley.
30:45This last group produced
30:48the necessary agricultural surplus
30:51to feed the city.
30:54They grew sorghum and millet
30:57and worked iron.
31:00The progress that was made
31:03in South Africa was extraordinary
31:06and very surprising.
31:12In addition, it was not an isolated state.
31:15It was part of a much larger economic network
31:18that had spread throughout South Africa
31:21beyond its borders.
31:25These are Mapungube accounts.
31:28They have a beautiful blue color.
31:31They are made of glass
31:34and come from the coast of the Indian Ocean.
31:37Thanks to them, we know that Mapungube
31:40was part of an international trade network
31:43that communicated this settlement with the coast.
31:46The Africans of that period
31:49brought material from there
31:52and transported it to the coast of the Indian Ocean.
31:59Thus, the Africans managed to overcome
32:02the agricultural problems
32:05that defeated the European settlers.
32:08In addition, they had developed
32:11a unique tropical cultivation system
32:14that spread throughout the continent
32:17and traded with places as far away as India.
32:24But this flourishing tropical civilization
32:27had an even more extraordinary story to tell.
32:37As soon as they entered the tropical zone,
32:40the Europeans and their imported animals
32:43began to succumb to a terrible disease.
32:48Fevers wreaked havoc among their population.
32:52However, the African natives
32:55were barely affected by those symptoms.
32:58Many of them even managed to survive
33:01the most lethal of the European weapons,
33:04the smallpox,
33:07the disease that ravaged the native populations
33:10of North and South America
33:13and the Khoisan people of El Cabo.
33:18How was that possible?
33:24Diamond believes that everything
33:27is reduced to a mere geographical issue.
33:30Many of the diseases that killed the settlers
33:33and their European animals
33:36were endemic to the tropical world.
33:39That is why they had never come across them before.
33:42At that time, a complete reversal
33:45of the typical patterns of any conquest.
33:49In the New World, germs were a weapon
33:52favorable to the Europeans,
33:55since they killed many indigenous people.
33:58Here there were native germs
34:01to which the Europeans had not been exposed.
34:04The history of weapons, germs and steel was repeated,
34:07but this time the other way around,
34:10because the Europeans were the ones who died.
34:13The settlers and their animals were victims
34:16of countless diseases and tropical infections.
34:26The African cattle, on the other hand,
34:29had developed over thousands of years
34:32a resistance to many of these tropical germs.
34:35These animals could also explain
34:38why smallpox did not cause the same damage
34:41as the Africans who lived in the tropics
34:44and the Khoisan people of the Cape.
34:47Centuries ago, the smallpox virus
34:50jumped from cattle to man,
34:53and now experts believe
34:56that it could originate in tropical Africa.
34:59Without a doubt, Africans knew the disease
35:02and even created vaccination methods
35:05that made them immune to it for life.
35:12But there was much more.
35:16Native Africans had also developed antibodies
35:19against one of the most virulent diseases in the world.
35:26Malaria,
35:29of which the humble mosquito is the bearer,
35:32was the ailment that was ending
35:35with the European settlers.
35:41However,
35:44the inhabitants of tropical Africa
35:47fought malaria with something more than antibodies.
35:50All their civilization had evolved
35:53to help them avoid the infection in the first instance.
35:56They used to settle in high or dry spots,
35:59far from the wet areas
36:02and full of water in the mountains.
36:05And living in relatively small and dispersed communities
36:08in vast areas,
36:11they minimized the degree of transmission of the disease.
36:14Their was an extraordinary achievement.
36:21But the European settlers
36:24were not the only ones
36:27who were affected by malaria.
36:31But the Europeans did not understand
36:34the way of life of the Africans
36:37and built their settlements
36:40next to the rivers and lakes
36:43from which they extracted the water,
36:46that is, places infested with mosquitoes.
36:49Thousands died.
37:01It gave the impression
37:04that the tropics had defeated
37:07the German and European weapons and steel
37:10and that the victory on this occasion
37:13was for the Africans.
37:16They had developed a complex civilization
37:19according to the tropical world,
37:22a civilization that spread across the continent
37:25in a vast cultural diaspora.
37:30Was that the end of the weapons,
37:33the Germans and the European steel in Africa?
37:37What would the future bring
37:40to this powerful tropical civilization?
37:49The Europeans had failed
37:52in their attempt to colonize the African lands.
37:55The black continent would not be another North America or South America.
37:59However, it was still extremely attractive
38:02for the colonizing powers
38:05due to their vast reserves of natural resources.
38:08Copper, diamonds, gold.
38:12The European conquest and the history of weapons,
38:15germs and steel were about to pass
38:18to a totally new era.
38:24At the end of the 19th century,
38:27after the Democratic Republic of the Congo,
38:30the Belgians took millions of African natives
38:33from their villages and put them to work
38:36collecting rubber or extracting copper
38:39and other minerals from the mines.
38:47After evicting them,
38:50they even burned their houses,
38:53reducing to dust and ashes
38:57Few colonizers were as brutal as the Belgians.
39:00But throughout the continent,
39:03millions of Africans were pushed to abandon
39:06a way of life perfectly adapted to the tropics
39:09to become the workforce of the Europeans.
39:15To send the natural riches of Africa to Europe,
39:18the colonizers used technology
39:21and built even more extraordinary railways.
39:26More than half a century later,
39:29and thanks to the work of tens of thousands of people,
39:32the rails of shining steel crossed the continent
39:35from the Cape to the heart of the tropics.
39:45They were built by the Europeans
39:48to extract African riches
39:51from the ruins of African civilization.
39:56The railways of the African continent
39:59were built by the Africans
40:02to transport the riches of Africa.
40:07All this time I have been following the trail
40:10of weapons, germs and steel
40:13through the African continent.
40:16And even this train and the rails
40:19on which it slides are fundamental elements
40:22in my story.
40:25These railways still work
40:28and fulfill their original purpose.
40:31The trains carry tons of copper and other minerals
40:34from the modern countries of Zambia and the Congo
40:37to the far south of Africa.
40:41But this is no longer a continent of colonies.
40:47Its nations are free and independent.
40:51Therefore, where does my theory of weapons,
40:54germs and steel fit in modern Africa?
41:04Ndola, north of Zambia.
41:07This is where Jared Diamond's train journey ends.
41:11A civil war breaks out in the neighboring Congo
41:14that makes it very dangerous to travel the last kilometers
41:17of these railways.
41:20But even here you can see with total clarity
41:23the reality of contemporary Africa.
41:26I am now in the African tropics, in Zambia,
41:29one of the poorest countries on this continent
41:32and actually of the whole world.
41:35The average annual income here is several hundred dollars
41:38and the life expectancy of a Zambian
41:41is 35 years.
41:44So now I have almost lived two Zambian lifetimes.
41:49What goes through my mind here is
41:52what history, geography, weapons, germs and steel
41:55can tell us to help us understand
41:58the complicated situation Zambia is going through right now.
42:09In modern Zambia,
42:12I only see the great native civilizations
42:15that once flourished in tropical Africa.
42:18I only see a country modeled by colonization.
42:22I see cities and populations that emerged
42:25along the mines and railway stations
42:28established by the Europeans and built according to their guidelines.
42:32What were the great forces that shaped
42:35this continent and its people in their origins?
42:38What is left after the conquest carried out by the Europeans?
42:43What place do weapons, germs and steel
42:46occupy in modern Africa?
42:52In Zambia, malaria is endemic.
42:55It is the main public health problem in the country
42:58and it affects especially children.
43:01In fact, approximately 45% of children
43:05who go to the hospital are sick with malaria.
43:11Germs, one of the greatest forces in history,
43:14according to Diamond,
43:17still have a great impact on modern Zambia.
43:20And we are not only talking about the blow that AIDS has caused,
43:23but also about that ancient disease
43:26that defeated the Europeans, malaria.
43:30Malaria is the main cause of death
43:33in children under the age of 5.
43:36Reading this old record,
43:39you can get an idea
43:42of the number of deaths that occurred in the hospital.
43:46Most of the victims
43:49are children under the age of 5.
43:52One year and six months,
43:55three years, five months,
43:58one year,
44:01almost all of them were very small.
44:08There was a time when the inhabitants of tropical Africa
44:11lived in settlements scattered over extensive areas,
44:14which minimized the spread of malaria.
44:17But now they live in cities and towns
44:20with a high population density
44:23and the rate of infection has increased considerably.
44:26Germs are one of the biggest problems
44:29facing the country.
44:32Undoubtedly, malaria has a huge economic impact
44:35in our country, because as you may be aware,
44:38many children suffer from it.
44:41If, for example, the mothers of the little ones
44:44who entered this pavilion were working,
44:47instead of having to stay here,
44:50the country's productivity would increase significantly.
44:53It has been calculated that the negative growth
44:56of the 1% that has been recorded every year in Africa
44:59during the last half century
45:02can be attributed entirely to malaria.
45:05The immunity and antibodies
45:08that Africans developed for thousands of years
45:11to defend themselves from malaria
45:14no longer provide them with enough protection.
45:17The strains of the disease are mutating
45:20and are becoming more and more effective.
45:23In the seasons where the risk of contracting malaria is higher,
45:26up to seven children die a day in this hospital.
45:29You're used to this, but I'm not.
45:32What do you think of your work in Zambia
45:35when you see scenes like this?
45:41To be frank with you, Jared,
45:44I wouldn't say I'm used to this,
45:47because I don't think anyone can get used
45:50to illness and death,
45:53especially when the victims are people we love
45:56and who are part of us.
45:59It's a problem of such magnitude
46:02that we would like to do whatever we can to solve it.
46:18Because of the fact that...
46:35There's a difference between understanding something intellectually
46:38and experiencing it in the first person.
46:41In my book, germs are one of the three main forces
46:44of history, but I talk about them impersonally.
46:47This is different,
46:50and it affects me a lot to be in a place
46:53where germs are in action.
47:12Thirty years ago, I embarked on a journey,
47:15a search that sought to understand
47:18the origins of inequality in our world.
47:24I discovered that this story
47:27dates back to the dawn of civilization
47:30and that it was based on the geography of our planet.
47:35When humans began to domesticate crops,
47:38a small area of the world
47:41was lucky enough to have the best lands,
47:44products and animals,
47:47which gave a unique advantage to a certain group of people.
47:52The Europeans perfected weapons and steel,
47:56developed lethal germs and diseases,
47:59and then used these instruments
48:02to conquer continents
48:05and amass extraordinary wealth.
48:09My conclusion is that geography and weapons,
48:12germs and steel,
48:15have been the most powerful forces
48:18that have shaped the history of our world.
48:25Here in Zambia, these forces
48:28still condition existence.
48:31Tropical germs wreak havoc
48:34on this country and its people
48:37and condemn them to live in poverty.
48:41Does this mean that Zambia
48:44will always be a victim
48:47of the forces of history and geography
48:50and that the African continent
48:53is waiting for a future as poor as its present?
48:56Of course not.
49:00In my opinion, from all this,
49:03we can draw a hopeful conclusion
49:06totally opposed to the deterministic opinions
49:09of those who say, for example,
49:12that we should forget Africa and the underdeveloped areas.
49:15Based on the data we have,
49:18there are reasons that explain
49:21why different parts of the world ended up like this.
49:24And understanding these reasons,
49:27we can conclude that Africa
49:30is one of the richest and most dynamic economies in the world.
49:33Like the Africans,
49:36they are tropical countries
49:39with the same geographical and sanitary problems
49:42and the same endemic malaria.
49:45But they both transformed themselves
49:48by acquiring a great deal of knowledge of their environment.
49:51Fifty years ago, these countries understood
49:55and through a joint effort,
49:58they managed to eradicate malaria almost completely from their lands,
50:01thus transforming their economies and their way of life.
50:10The case of Malaysia and Singapore
50:13shows what can be achieved
50:16by understanding geography and history.
50:20Explanations give us the power to change,
50:23they tell us what happened in the past and why,
50:26and we can use that knowledge
50:29so that things are different in the future.
50:32The Zambian government agrees with this opinion
50:35and has established a national reach project
50:38to try to eradicate the country's malaria,
50:41as Malaysia and Singapore did.
50:44New drugs, even a possible vaccine,
50:47offer more and more possibilities of success.
50:50By controlling malaria,
50:53we could improve people's well-being,
50:56which would mean an increase in productivity
50:59and, in turn, we would become a rich nation
51:02because that way people would not only have enough food,
51:05but also enough time
51:08to do those things
51:11with which the human being feels complete and fulfilled
51:14that allows him to lead a satisfactory and full life.
51:28With her search,
51:31Jared Diamond has tried to understand
51:34the great forces of the history of humanity.
51:38But the basis of her work
51:41has always been the smallest detail,
51:44the life of individual human beings.
51:48When we talk about history,
51:51we talk about development, competition between societies
51:54and the wealth of nations.
51:57It can sound very intellectual,
52:00but here in Africa all that has a human face.
52:06And for Diamond,
52:09after 30 years of questions and questions,
52:12the issues that are hidden behind weapons,
52:15germs and steel,
52:18are still as important as ever.
52:21Why is our world divided into rich and poor?
52:24And how could we change that?
52:28Maybe what I have left of life
52:31works in many things,
52:34but none will be as fascinating as the research on weapons,
52:37the enigmas of the history of humanity.
53:37www.nasa.gov
53:40NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
53:42California Institute of Technology