In his article, "Why Did History Unfold Differently On Different Countries For the 13,000 years?", Jared Diamond discusses various themes and offers a major explanation to this question. Some of the major themes Diamond discusses are how domestication of plants and animals, and land mass size were the major factors to why different areas of the world developed differently. He discusses how the major advantages used in colonizationing, and expansions, such as germs, guns, and steel, were all centered to the geographic and environmental aspects of regions. Diamond focuses on how domesticated plants and animals led to Eurasia's advantage in weapons, oceangoing ships, political organization, and writing, all of which were products of the large societies made possible by agriculture, and these were the advantages used in much of the Eurasian expansion and colonization. Diamond also talks about the main reason different areas of the world developed differently were due to continental environments and geography, and not based on any biological difference between the people in the areas. He talks about how the most of the diseases the Europeans brought with them to the Americas, were diseases they got from the domestication of animals, and how they had adapted to the diseases, while the Natives who had not contact with domesticated animals, were very vulnerable to the diseases, and how this not due to the biological weakness of the Natives, but it was attributed to their lack of previous contact.

Diamond identifies the difference in continental environments, and the difficulties they led too, is the most important detriment to a society's success. He believes that the different environments in the different continents can provide various difficulties for some societies. These challenges include the availability of domesticated or domesticable plants and animals, land size, and population size. This environmental disadvantage is especially prevalent in the Americas and Africa since these places have a major North-South axis versus the East-West axis in Eurasia. The East-West axis provided many advantages that led to the success of Eurasia, and led to their dominance over other places of the world. The East-West axis made the spread of domesticated animals and plants much easier, because the climate, latitude, and day-lengths would be very similar in different parts of Eurasia in the East-West direction. For example, the domestications of horses in Ukraine, wheat, barely and cattle in the Fertile Crescent and of chicken and citrus food in China, were able to spread easily in the East-West (or West-East) directions due to similar conditions. While this was advantageous in Eurasia, Africa and the American did not have this advantage, due to their North-South axis. This axis provided many challenges in spreading of domestications, because they provided different conditions in the landmass. This was visible in the different crops that were planted in different regions of Africa and the Americas. Land and population size were also affects of the various environments and geographies, both of which were out of human control. Eurasia also had a major advantage compared to the other areas discussed in terms of land size, and this was a major disadvantage to other areas, in particularly Australia. Eurasia has by far the largest land mass and very little isolation, these factors helped because since there more competing societies in these areas, the rate of invention was very fast (compared to elsewhere), and there was very little if any cultural loss. This is where the isolation and size of Australia played an important role. Australia is the smallest continent, has the least rainfall, and is the most isolated, thus while Eurasia was entering the Steel Age, the small population of Australia (300,000) remained as hunter-gatherers. They remained hunter-gatherers because unlike in Eurasia, here were fewer competing societies and individuals, so the rate of invention was slower, while the rate of cultural loss was fast. The disadvantage of isolation could be seen more clearly in the island Tasmania, which suffered from much cultural loss after separation from the mainland.

Diamond's idea that different regions developed differently due to naturals conditions such as weather, climate and other environmental conditions can be applied to today's economy, because some the problems that set those regions back, still exist. The conditions in Africa and in South America, are still not ideas growing conditions for everything, and their North-South axis still makes it difficult to spread domestication. Thus, these regions may rely on other parts of the world to the technology to domesticate plants and animals, as well as the plants and animals themselves. In addition, the idea of continental environments can be applied to today's economy due to the environment and geography of various countries. Today the climate and environment of the regions are still similar to what they used to be, thus some areas in African, for example, may not be ideal for farming, thus they will rely on trade and other countries, so that they can import, various vegetables they need.