Montesquieu against Jared Diamond

Guns, germs and steel? No. Ideas were the key of western domination of the Americas:

"Can it be said that this destruction, the greatest history has ever known, was only a simple effect of the ignorance of a principle of philosophy? It can, and I am going to prove it."

Montesquieu in The Motives That Ought to Encourage Us to the Sciences

(I recommend the whole paper.)

via aldaily.