Read all of Guns,Germs, and Steel, but I am stumped on one question.....

Question

I have these questions done in the beggining of the school year and i can not find the answer t my question....here it is....

How does Diamond explain China's striking unity and Europe's persistent disunity? What consequesnces do these conditions have for world history?

Thanks alot if you can answer it. I appreciate it.

Answer 1

Diamond's explanation for it is weak. He talks of their coastline for some reason. Its because of CHinese script which is not phonetic at all. Each letter or symbol represents an object or a word. In  European languages, each letter is a sound.



  Chinese script allowed faster cultural intergration than European langauges did. Plus the shared history of the Chinese peoples.