Reddit mentions of Why the West Rules--for Now: The Patterns of History, and What They Reveal About the Future

read this http://www.amazon.com/Why-West-Rules-Now-Patterns/dp/0374290024

answers it in more depth and with greater clarity.

the short answer is that 12,000 BCE, people were hunter gatherers, and the people that happened to live at each end of asia (the yangtze and the anatolian plateau) happened to live in an area that has naturally occurring cereal crops. small bands gathered. people had a decent life, they stopped wandering as much. First evidence that people began to think: "hey, let's take some of these rye seeds we are beating into our baskets and plant them closer to home." Small rodents that were not aggressive or fearful could live off human trash. Same for wolves--becoming dogs (although that perhaps came about sooner). But in general things just happened to be really ideal there and in China.

Then disaster struck. earth tilts a bit, north america gets a little warmer, the glacial lake agassiz (roughly size of all great lakes combined) breaks and funnels into the atlantic ocean where it shuts down the jet stream for 1,000 years. New mini ice-age. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Agassiz

Most hunter gatherers go back to huntering and gathering, but for the guys in turkey, this may have been an impetus for more intensely preparing and cultivating food. still not full agriculture, ox-drawn plow type stuff, but working in that direction. Around this time is when non-utilitarian structures start showing up. Suddenly things are colder, it's harder to find food, and you start making weird religious stuff. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6bekli_Tepe

Back in 9000 BCE, things have changed in this "fertile crescent" area. Most other groups are the hunter gathering type. But these guys just went through 1,000 where they have religious roots. They have invented modern grains whose seeds don't fall off the stem when they are ripe. Well, they unconsciously selected for them and these seeds became over-represented in each subsequent generation.

keep repeating this cycle: grow a little more food, have a few more babies, need a little more food, cultivate more intensely, develop social customs of ownership, property, religion, etc. until you have the sumer you know. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubaid_period

Then, just that reinforcing cycle.

tl;dr. Sumerians didn't "settle" in mesopotamia, the land gave birth (sort of) to that civilization there.

also, yeah, middle east used to be much different--read the bible about the "cedars of lebanon" or abraham coming out of sumeria-ish area and settling in fertile valleys. Right now it all looks like a wasteland. Jared Diamonds book http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse:_How_Societies_Choose_to_Fail_or_Succeed to see just how easily we can screw up our environment.

Have you considered reading Ian Morris' Why the West Rules...For Now? The book attempts to find why Western Civilization became dominant over all the other civilizational cores that have emerged in human history, as well as whether the West's position is tenable. As the book starts with an introduction of human evolution out of Africa and goes through a summary of human history into speculation into our future, I think you may enjoy this book. I know I did.

Why the West Rules - for now is a good overview of history written in an easily accessible way - with history, social sciences and economics thrown in.

For a great easy read on financial history, I recommend Niall Ferguson's The Ascent of Money, which will teach you a ton - and it includes all of the above (how influential psychology can be is astounding).

Because all good things are three, I'll throw in Against the Gods. A book on the history of risk analysis, you do get a hefty dose of psychology as well as a great understanding of how that all-important field works.

This is a great documentary. For anyone who likes the sort of thing there is a book I just read called Why the West Rules - For Now which is very much in the same vein.

this. Don't let the title fool you into thinking its west-centric, it's pretty much about the whole world and delves into what makes civilizations succeed and fail.

I strongly recommend listening to Dan Carlin's Hardcore History which has a multi-part set of episodes on this. (His podcasts on other topics are fantastic too.) As others have mentioned this is a very complex topic and there are many different threads woven through it.

I also strongly recommend reading Why The West Rules. Ignore the title and final section. The majority of the book is about human history showing how things progressed and regressed in various parts of the world over time and is absolutely fascinating.