Why Geography is Destiny: 5 Surprising Lessons from the "History of Everybody"
March 3, 2026•1,336 words
The Inequality of "Cargo": Yali’s Question
In July 1972, on a wind-swept beach in New Guinea, a charismatic politician named Yali posed a question that still haunts the study of human history. "Why is it," he asked, his eyes flashing with insatiable curiosity, "that you white people developed so much cargo and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people had little cargo of our own?"
Yali wasn’t asking for a handout; he was asking for a ledger of history. To his people, "cargo" represented th...
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