Quotes About Continents

the striking differences between the long-term histories of peoples of the different continents have been due not to innate differences in the peoples themselves but to differences in their environments.

why did human development proceed at such different rates on different continents? Those disparate rates constitute history's broadest pattern and my book's subject. While this book is thus ultimately

Maritime technology coupled with political organization was similarly essential for European expansions to other continents, as well as for expansions of many other peoples.

The Americas span a much greater distance north–south (9,000 miles) than east–west: only 3,000 miles at the widest, narrowing to a mere 40 miles at the Isthmus of Panama. That is, the major axis of the Americas is north–south. The same is also true, though to a less extreme degree, for Africa. In contrast, the major axis of Eurasia is east–west. What effect, if any, did those differences in the orientation of the continents' axes have on human history?

Different rates of development on different continents, from 11,000 B.C. to A.D. 1500, were what led to the technological and political inequalities of A.D. 1500.

Thus, we can finally rephrase the question about the modern world's inequalities as follows: why did human development proceed at such different rates on different continents? Those disparate rates constitute history's broadest pattern and my book's subject.

Thus, it is untrue that there are continents whose societies have tended to be innovative and continents whose societies have tended to be conservative. On any continent, at any given time, there are innovative societies and also conservative ones. In addition, receptivity to innovation fluctuates in time within the same region.

Why did history unfold differently on different continents?

Until the end of the last Ice Age, around 11,000 B.C., all peoples on all continents were still hunter-gatherers. Different rates of development on different continents, from 11,000 B.C. to A.D. 1500, were what led to the technological and political inequalities of A.D. 1500.

Hence geographic variation in whether, or when, the peoples of different continents became farmers and herders explains to a large extent their subsequent contrasting fates.

The European organisation contemplated could not oppose any ethnic group, on other continents or in Europe itself, outside of the League of Nations, any more than it could oppose the League of Nations.

Centuries later, as the dragon planet spun through space, a comet passed by, close enough to shine like a fourth moon in Pyrrhia's sky. Close enough to change the tides and shake the continents. As earthquakes rumbled through the ground, long-buried rocks shifted that had been in place for thousands of years. Deep underground, in the darkness, copper wires snapped. And a dragon awoke …

I was the toast of two continents: Greenland and Australia.

Today, the latitude and longitude lines govern with more authority than I could have imagined forty-odd years ago, for they stay fixed as the world changes it's configuration underneath them—with continents adrift across a widening sea, the national boundaries repeatedly redrawn by war or peace.

I thought about the future, the oceans and continents he would cross, far away from everyone who knew and loved him. Far outside the sphere of his mothers prayers. Among the women of the future, there was one who would know his secrets and bear his children, and witness the changes the years worked on him. And it wouldnt be me. -Liberty Jones

sniffing the musty air and peering up at the blotchy continents of mildew, the parchment-colored walls rising to the long ridge above

of Kuhn's and other theories of scientific change, see H. E. LeGrand, Drifting Continents and Shifting Theories (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988)

a busy man, Shaw, with business concerns on two continents. Obviously you agree with my statement." Shaw smiled slightly. "My lord, since my 'sexual congress' is limited exclusively to my wife, who happens to be your sister, I believe I'll have the good sense to keep my mouth shut.

The supercontinent Pangaea split in the Mesozoic era into the continents we see today, and resulted in extensive land movement over time.

But this will not do. No, this will never do. There are continents and shores which beseech our understanding. Seldom have we been so slow. Seldom have we been so far. My only wish is to see Far Arden again.

The next time you stand on a beach at night, watching the moon's bright path across the water, and the conscious of the moon-drawn tides, remember that the moon itself may have been born of a great tidal wave of earthly substance, torn off into space. And remember if the moon was formed in this fashion, the event may have had much to do with shaping the ocean basins and the continents as we know them.

As soon as the earth's crust cooled enough, the rains began to fall. Never have there been such rains since that time. They fell continuously, day and night, days passing into months, into years, into centuries. They poured into the waiting ocean basins, or, falling upon the continental masses, drained away to become sea.

Today, far continents have become suburbs. Even the moon has somehow come closer. But for all that, the past has not lost its power, and if within a lifetime a man changes his skin an infinite number of times--almost as often as his suits--still he does not change his heart: he has but one.

Traveling, you realize that differences are lost: each city takes to resembling all cities, places exchange their form, order, distances, a shapeless dust cloud invades the continents.