I am unaware of anyone ... seriously suggesting ... biological features of the region's peoples that might have contributed.  Guns, Germs And Steel

Books are the mirrors of the soul. Between the Acts

More and more it seems to me that the philosopher, being of necessity a man of tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, has always found himself, and had to find himself, in contradiction to his today: his enemy was ever the ideal of today. So far all these extraordinary furtherers of men whom one calls philosophers, though they themselves have rarely felt like friends of wisdom but rather like disagreeable fools and dangerous question marks, have found their task, their hard, unwanted, inescapable task, but eventually also the greatness of their task, in being the bad conscience of their time. Beyond Good and Evil

I quote others only in order the better to express myself. Essays