GUNS, GERMS AND STEEL - Cloverport Independent Schools

4 5^ • FURTHER READINGS
versity of Arizona Press, 1990), does the same for the decline of Petra, as
does Robert Adams, Heartland of Cities (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1981), for Mesopotamia.
A stimulating interpretation of the differences between the histories of
China, India, Islam, and Europe is provided by E. L. Jones, The European
Miracle, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987). Louise
Levathes, When China Ruled the Seas (New York: Simon and Schuster,
1994), describes the power struggle that led to the suspension of China's
treasure fleets. The further readings for Chapters 16 and 17 provide other
references for early Chinese history.
The impact of Central Asian nomadic pastoralists on Eurasia's complex
civilizations of settled farmers is discussed by Bennett Bronson, "The role
of barbarians in the fall of states," pp. 196-218 in Norman Yoffee and
George Cowgill, eds., The Collapse of Ancient States and Civilizations
(Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1988).
The possible relevance of chaos theory to history is discussed by
Michael Shermer in the paper "Exorcising Laplace's demon: Chaos and
antichaos, history and metahistory," History and Theory 34:59-83
(1995). Shermer's paper also provides a bibliography for the triumph of
the QWERTY keyboard, as does Everett Rogers, Diffusion of Innovations,
3rd ed. (New York: Free Press, 1983).
An eyewitness account of the traffic accident that nearly killed Hitler in
1930 will be found in the memoirs of Otto Wagener, a passenger in Hitler's
car. Those memoirs have been edited by Henry Turner, Jr., as a book,
Hitler: Memoirs of a Confidant (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978).
Turner goes on to speculate on what might have happened if Hitler had
died in 1930, in his chapter "Hitler's impact on history," in David Wetzel,
ed., German History: Ideas, Institutions, and Individuals (New York:
Praeger, 1996).
The many distinguished books by historians interested in problems of
long-term history include Sidney Hook, The Hero in History (Boston: Beacon
Press, 1943), Patrick Gardiner, ed., Theories of History (New York:
Free Press, 1959), Fernand Braudel, Civilization and Capitalism (New
York: Harper and Row, 1979), Fernand Braudel, On History (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1980), Peter Novick, That Noble Dream
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), and Henry Hobhouse,
Forces of Change (London: Sedgewick and Jackson, 1989).
Several writings by the biologist Ernst Mayr discuss the differences