The book Guns Germs and Steel takes the argument that Europeans were not smarter than any other civilizations. They were just a little luckier. That is why the Europeans were able to dominate over the rest of the world. The author Jared Diamond provides us with examples of tests were they show that undeveloped countries are not less intelligent than developed countries, they have just been unlucky.
Jared Diamond uses examples such as it was a little easier for crops to diffuse throughout Europe because it is the widest continent. (It has the biggest ratio of west to east compared to north to south.) Since it is so wide, the crops could easy diffuse on the same latitude, and areas with the same latitude have very similar climates. That makes it very easy for a crop to diffuse, because it is the same climate. A crop from the Fertile Crescent couldn't survive in cold climate, but could easily survive on climates of the same latitude. Once Europe was had a surplus of food, because of the crops, they were able to spend more time researching other things, other than hunting food all day. This is when "specialists" started coming into play, and different people had different jobs.
Since Europe didn't have to worry about food anymore, they were able to make guns. This made conquering other civilizations very easy. Also since Europeans were around so many domestic animals, they were able to domesticate them for an extra food source, and being around the animals led them to contract diseases, but then become immune to them. That is why when Europeans went to conquer other continents, such as North America, millions of Native Americans were killed by diseases that the Europeans carried. Based on those two things, people can see why Europeans were able to conquer many civilizations, and it is not because Europeans were smarter than the rest of the world.
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