there was a striking difference between the Eastern and Western Hemispheres: the degree of interaction between their great cultural centers. A constant traffic in goods and ideas among Eurasian societies allowed them to borrow or steal each other’s most interesting innovations: algebra from Islam, paper from China, the spinning wheel (probably) from India, the telescope from Europe. “In my lectures, I put this very baldly,” Alfred Crosby told me. “I say that nobody in Europe or Asia ever invented anything—they got it from somebody else.” He added, “When you think of the dozen most important
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