The conquistadors were con-vinced that God was on their side, and the bloody evidence backed them up. What else but divine favor could explain how 168 Spaniards under Francisco Pizarro could, in 1532, massacre an army of 80,000 Incas? Over the years historians trying to come up with a better explanation have suggested that either the intellectual superiority of Europeans over Native Americans or differences in world outlook led one civilization to invent swords and steel shields and the other to progress no further than clubs and quilted armor. But a new book offering what the eminent historian William McNeill calls "a radically new vision" argues that neither God nor IQs determined history's winners and losers.
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