Lack of Immunity
Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies made quite a splash following its 1997 publication. Diamond offered an explanation for the inequalities in development among groups of people in different regions of the world throughout history, an explanation that was not based on racial – or racist – theories or about the superiority of some cultures over others.
Instead, Diamond argued that the geographical orientation of the continents allowed people in Eurasia to domesticate plants and animals much earlier than people living elsewhere, which in turn led the people in Eurasia to transition earlier from hunting and gathering to economies based on agriculture, which subsequently made it possible for them to be the first to develop in other ways as well, e.g., in terms of concentrations of population, immunity to diseases, the stratification of societies, and advances in science and technology.
All these societal developments, Diamond posits, helps explains why Francisco Pizarro, pictured above in the painting Pizarro Seizing the Inca of Peru by Sir John Everett Millais, could, accompanied by only a small number of soldiers, overthrow the Incan Emperor Atahualpa in 1532, while the Incan Empire, advanced as it was among cultures in the Americas, had no means to overthrow King Charles I of Spain at that time. To emphasize this point, Diamond put the painting by Millais on the cover of his book.
Guns, Germs, and Steel has attracted criticism in academic circles in the years following its publication but is still widely read. We are not aware that Diamond’s critics have questioned the lamentable truth of the quotation we drew from the book for this week’s acrostic.
As always, we scattered a variety of clues and answers related to the puzzle’s theme, in this case European colonization of the Americas. How many did you see?
As for Clue/Answer G., we offer this remarkable video of a 3-point shooting contest between Sabrina Ionescu and Steph Curry:
As Johnny Most, Brent Musburger, Marv Albert, and countless other basketball announcers would say: They’re certainly shooting from DOWNTOWN!
Somehow knowing this doesn’t make me feel any better.
Still, one can still learn from discovering new words instead of decimating new worlds.
Wow, the toughest acrostic i can recall, with only 3 or 4 clues solved at first pass…I came very close to looking things up. Only staring at the grid for along time and recognizing I could fill in half finished words like LETHAL, HUMAN, BATTLEFIELD, got me anywhere, Still I was stuck for a long time with NITRO where NITER, a word I can’t say I’ve ever heard, belonged…Thanks to Dave and Jane for another contagious puzzle! (Too soon?)
A tough puzzle for me, but I don’t mind look ups. That’s the way my family (full of teachers) has always tackled these puzzles. It’s a learning experience. As to the quote’s message, through my history classes, I learned some time ago of the sad outcome of European diseases on the native populations of the Americas. A message we should still take into consideration in today’s world and share knowledge and resources worldwide. Thanks for a thoughtful puzzle and the downtown video. Go Steph!
Another great puzzle – and a quote from book that I greatly admire. It’s truly a monumental, eye-opening work.
Theme clues (and I remain dazzled as to how many of these you can pack into each puzzle):
B. Isabella funded Columbus.
D. Incan citadel
F. Ingredient in gunpowder (the “guns” part if Diamond’s title)
H. Apache miltary leader, ultimately dereated
L. Indigenous Guatemalans are of Mayan descent.
M. Former Emperor of the Aztec Empire
O. Malaria was one of the diseases brought to the New World.
Q. Early muzzle loading firearm, used to conquer the New World.
S. Ponce de Leon: Spanish conquistador.
U. Another disease brought to the New World.
V. Mythical city of gold that lured many colonists.
X. Coronado sought the also-mythical seven cities of Cibola in the American southwest.
Thank you, Greg, for identifying [almost all of] the clue/answer sets we considered thematic. In addition, Answer N. (“removal”) does, sadly, relate in a way to some conquerors’ activity, and Answer P. (“strife-torn”) certainly applies to many regions discussed in Diamond’s ambitious and illuminating book.
Definitely the hardest one you’ve done so far. This is not a complaint! When I got the A and Q in ARQUEBUS I knew I’d heard the word before, which I had, and I couldn’t remember it for the life of me. I have that book on my shelves somewhere and have never read it. Hmm.
If it wasn’t for “EU” giving me Europeans I still might be flailing away at this. Another great puz.
Great quote, great clues, great puzzle. It would have been relatively straightforward for me, except that I plugged in ELDORADO for clue X. How devious to have ELDORADO be the correct answer to clue V! I figured out the source of the quote (a wonderful book) and was able to undo the damage I’d done to myself. It’s times like these that make me really miss being able to do the acrostic on line because the cross outs (I just can’t bring myself to work in pencil) make my grid very messy. I was pleased with myself for being able to pull ARQUEBUS from the recesses of my memory.
Regarding clue “F” the N in TNT stands for Nitro not Niter. Otherwise, good puzzle.
Thank you all for solving and commenting. Jim’s comment sent us scurrying to our sources to see how we — and our NYT fact-checkers — managed to go wrong here. It seems the prefix “nitro-” can send one down any number of rabbit holes… where we got lost. Thank you for the correction, and apologies to David and others who were led astray.
Oh, thank goodness! I came here to ask just this. I am proud to say that I managed to solve this Acrostic without looking anything up! Not always the case … though I was in a quagmire for awhile, assuming that Argentina was “quetzal” nation 🤦🏻♀️ Still, the completed puzzle insisted that Clue F was “niter.” 🤔 Niter? Yes, based on the quotation, that had to be it. I’m glad to see here that it is indeed “nitro.”. Thank you for another great challenge.
Ah, yes indeed. Makes the theme-cluing even more impressive.
By the way, I loved the three-point shoot-off. It doesn’t get any better than those two.
I don’t think any apology is necessary. Although Wile E. Coyote’s explosive of choice was often TNT, he also regularly used dynamite. And niter (sodium nitrate) in is an ingredient in many types of dynamite.
But Wile E. fared no better with dynamite, as seen here:
https://youtu.be/g5hELThaKME?si=__WTM_mFRT5vnBl1
Clue S is “not a monkey”