[nurbl]

It's been a long time since I read the book, but I do think he made the point that part of what gave Europe a military edge was the fact of lots of natural geographical borders like rivers and mountains, giving rise to lots of small kingdoms instead of one big one. So there were constant conflicts, driving innovation.

And the thing about latitudes I think applies more to mobility of things like crops than to human travel, since you need to cross climate zones.

[tsunamifury]

I’m curious how that’s different from the Native Americans who, regardless of their Nobel savage portrayal in media, were constantly at war with each other yet failed to develop any weapons nearly powerful enough to repel the Europeans.

[nurbl]

As I remember it, a major thesis of the book (which I recommend, it's a fun read!) is that Europeans had the benefit of several, mainly geographical factors. This was just one of them.