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LitCharts | October 12 2024
In the 1700s, governments sent expeditions around the globe to measure the transit of Venus passing between the sun and the Earth, so that they could calculate Earth’s distance from the sun. The Royal Society sent Charles Green to Tahiti, on a boat captained by Naval Officer Captain James Cook. In those days, many sailors died of scurvy. Cook encouraged his sailors to eat fruits and vegetables when the boat docked, and none of his sailors died. During that expedition, Cook also claimed Australia and several South Pacific Islands for British occupation. Within a century, Australia and New Zealand were colonized by Europeans. The Aborigines “never recovered.”
Truganini, the last native Tasmanian.
Captain James Cook also claimed Tasmania, which had been isolated for 10,000 years. European settlers killed and imprisoned the natives and converted the survivors to Christianity. Meanwhile, dead Tasmanians’ corpses were used for scientific research and put on display in museums. Harari wonders if Cook’s expedition was a “scientific expedition protected by military forces, or a military expedition with a few scientists tagging along.” He thinks science and empire are two sides of the same coin.
During the Roman Empire, Western Europe was a “distant backwater” that nobody thought much of. By 1750, Western Europeans colonized many parts of the world. Even then, Asia dominated 80 percent of the global economy. By 1950, Western Europe and the United States accounted for over half the global economy. Harari thinks a “new global order” emerged from these shifts. He argues that even people who don’t like Europeans are European in their dress, tastes, and thinking. Harari argues that many people credit scientists—and the technologies they developed, like railroads and machine guns—for the rise of European culture.
A European world map from 1459.The map is filled with details, even when depicting areas that were completely unfamiliar to Europeans, such as southern Africa.
The Salviati World Map, 1525. While the 1459 world map is full of continents, islands and detailed explanations, the Salviati map is mostly empty. The eye wanders south along the American coastline, until it peters into emptiness. Anyone looking at the map and possessing even minimal curiosity is tempted to ask, ‘What’s beyond this point?’ The map gives no answers. It invites the observer to set sail and find out.
Scholars from many places made scientific contributions, but Harari thinks that the European imperial elites collated those insights. Harari thinks that European imperialists wanted to “explore” the world and learn things they didn’t know. In 1831, the Royal Navy sent the H.M.S. Beagle to chart South America’s coasts for military purposes. They took along Darwin, who discovered the theory of evolution on that trip. Harari thinks about a story in which a Native American tribesman gives astronauts a message to take to the moon. When the astronauts translate the message, they realize it reads “Don’t believe a single word these people tell you. They have come to steal your lands.”
Zheng He’s flagship next to that of Columbus
Before Columbus’s voyage to the Americas, cartographers used to draw full and detailed maps of the Earth, according to their knowledge. After Christopher Columbus arrived in the Americas, Europeans began drawing maps with blank spaces in them, and traveling to places to fill them in. Harari thinks that other historical voyagers (like Chinese Admiral Zheng He, who explored the Indian Oceans at length), were different because he didn’t try to conquer the countries he visited. Harari notes that the Romans never tried to conquer India, the Persians never tried to conquer Spain, and the Chinese didn’t attempt to conquer Africa. The difference with Europeans is that they were driven by the desire to explore the world, and also to conquer it.
Harari thinks about Hernàn Cortés, who conquered Aztec Mexico in the 1500s. Spanish colonists had already committed genocide in most of the Caribbean, but the Aztecs didn’t know about this. When Cortés arrived, the first Aztecs he met thought that Cortés was a peaceful visitor and they led him to Emperor Montezuma, whom Cortés took hostage. Cortés began controlling the Aztec empire through Montezuma. After several months, the Aztec elite rebelled against Cortés’s rule, but Cortés convinced many other indigenous people to side with him. They thought Cortés would liberate them from Aztec rule, but they soon found themselves controlled by Spain, in a far worse regime.
The Aztec and Inca empires at the time of the Spanish conquest.
Then, 10 years later, Francisco Pizarro conquered the Incan Empire based on what he learned from Cortés’s expedition. The Incans, who knew nothing about what had happened to the Aztecs, had no idea what was coming. Meanwhile, no Asian nations sent expeditions to the Americas. Harari thinks they were relatively unconcerned by the Europeans’ conquests, until Europeans started infiltrating Asia. By the time Asian nations realized what the Europeans were up to, it was too late. Harari thinks that the only time other nations could defeat European rule was when their plights became globalized—like Vietnam’s fight against the Americans. Harari wonders how Montezuma might have fared if he’d know about other nations and reached out for support against the Spanish.
So far, Harari has focused on his worries about being too trusting of science. Many scientific projects actually serve other purposes—like making people rich or expanding nations’ empires. Curiously, Harari changes tack here to argue that empire-building often yields scientific knowledge, which he depicts as a good thing. He suggests that British scientists were able to learn a lot about history from their imperial activities in Persia, and he suggests that it was beneficial for humanity overall.
Another imperialist scholar, William Jones, discovered connections between Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin, and developed a methodology for linguistics. Harari thinks such pursuits of knowledge gave imperialists an advantage in their empires. Harari thinks the pursuit of scientific knowledge also made imperialists feel that their conquests were justified. Harari also thinks imperialists used their thirst for scientific knowledge for “sinister” purposes, like arguing that Europeans were superior to other races. The idea of European (or Aryan) racial superiority fueled many right-wing agendas in Europe, including the Nazi regime. Harari thinks modern Europeans are no different. He thinks about French politician. who argues that Muslim cultures have backwards attitudes towards gender equality, and she uses the social sciences to justify her position.
Harari continues weighing up the pros and cons of scientific discoveries that arose during European imperialism. On one hand, he thinks William Jones’s research was good for humanity. But he also condemns research that tried to privilege some races over others. Harari thinks that modern politicians (like Marie le Pen) don’t argue that some races are superior, but they do argue that some cultures are superior, and—like their predecessors—they use social scientific theories to back up their claims. Harari wants to show that scientific research is still being used to service political goals today.
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