The Past Was Still A Golden Age,

Perhaps Our Greatest Distinction As A Species Is Our Capacity, Unique Among Animals, To Make Counter-evolutionary Choices.

Not Until The Beginning Of The 20th Century Did Europe's Urban Populations Finally Become Self-sustaining: Before Then, Constant Immigration Of Healthy Peasants From The Countryside Was Necessary To Make Up For The Constant Deaths Of City Dwellers From Crowd Diseases.

To Science We Owe Dramatic Changes In Our Smug Self-image. Astronomy Taught Us That Our Earth Is Not The Center Of The Universe, But Merely One Of Nine Planets Circling One Of Billions Of Stars. From Biology We Learned That Humans Were Not Specially Created By God But Evolved Along With Tens Of Millions Of Other Species.

Put Another Way, The Chimpanzees' Closest Relative Is Not The Gorilla But Humans.

In Short, Europe’s Colonization Of Africa Had Nothing To Do With Differences Between European And African Peoples Themselves, As White Racists Assume. Rather, It Was Due To Accidents Of Geography And Biogeography—in Particular, To The Continents’ Different Areas, Axes, And Suites Of Wild Plant And Animal Species. That Is, The Different Historical Trajectories Of Africa And Europe Stem Ultimately From Differences In Real Estate.