"The West’s use of what was its temporary edge in technology, including guns, armour and steel, enabled it to take over much of the rest of the world before the subjugated peoples learned how to fight back. It also helped, in the case of the Americas, that the Europeans brought new diseases with them. The Spanish adventurers Cortés and Pizarro overthrew great empires in Mexico and Peru, which had millions of subjects and huge armies, with mere handfuls of men. The odds were fantastic but the Spanish had the advantage of the germs they carried, which were already spreading inland, going ahead of them to lay waste the local populations, which had no immunity to such things as smallpox or measles. In addition, the Spanish rode horses against foot soldiers, wore steel armour and carried steel and guns against men armed with bronze and wood and armoured with quilted cotton."