Analysis Of Guns, Germs And Steel By Jared Diamond

According to page 103, “The people of areas with a head start on food production thereby gained a head start on the path leading towards guns, germs and steel.”

Jared Diamond discusses the reasons why geographical and environmental factors lead to a more rapid progression of certain civilizations throughout history. The book Guns, Germs and Steel portrays an argument that due to some societies’ access to an area witch contains sufficient amounts of wildlife and climates that are easily inhabitable, these societies developed into more advanced ways of living much easier and also earlier than societies who lacked these geographical attributes. These beneficial geographical attributes promoted the growth of technological improvements in weapons, religion, and farming.

In the book Guns, Germs and Steel Jared Diamond who is a biophysics scientist and a psychologist, set out on a journey to find out the reason behind great achievements and conquest of the Europeans. What is the secret of success of Europeans? His hypothesis was very original and at first looked very simple, it was guns, germs and steel. The journey of Diamond took over 30 years and helped him answer the main questions of human history and what is it that separates humans today from "rich and poor" and from "haves and have not’s." To do this he had to go back when everyone was equal.

In the novel Guns Germs and Steel, an American biologist named Jared Diamond is attempting to answer a question from a New Guinean politician named Yali, in July 1972. Yali asked him: (1)“Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people hat little cargo of our own?” For over thirty years, Diamond was investigating our inferred history for clues, to answer Yali’s question. He published a scientific opinion that explains how geography is to blame for the dispersal of power, as few societies and civilizations inhabiting in the Middle East had access to resources, such as the seeds of highly nutritious crops alike wheat and barley, and useful livestock such as cow and sheep, which others

The argument begins with a brief summarization of Diamond’s theory. The main point being that the distribution of wealth or success to countries or continents is decided geographically. And within the geographic category is the importance of farming and domestication of animals. Diamond says Eurasia’s advancement happened because of their

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, by Jared Diamond, attempts to explain why history progressed differently for people from various geographical regions. Diamond introduces his book by pointing out that history followed different courses for different people because of differences among peoples’ environments, not because of biological differences among people themselves. Through his convincing explanation for how civilizations were created and evolved throughout the course of history, he argues that environmental factors gave some societies advantages over others, allowing them to conquer the disadvantaged societies. While I agree with Diamond’s argument that the orientation of continental axis, availability of potential

In the book, Guns Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond, the author asks many questions about histories of the world. These question are questions that lie in the main question Jared Diamond is trying to answer. In the Prologue, the author discussed about his personal experience in New Guinea where a local politician asked him the major question "Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people had little cargo of our own?” (Diamond 14). When further exploring the meaning of this question it could represent why major civilizations developed and advanced so much faster technologically and economically but other civilizations like New Guineans are behind in these advancements. Which could explain

The Inca empire was the largest and most advanced empire in Pre-Columbian American. However, the Spanish led by Francisso Pizarro subjugated the Inca empire in 1572. Within mere 62 soldiers mounted on horses and 106 foot soldiers against 80,000 Incan soldiers, the Spaniard wins and killed thousands of the Incans. The Spaniard also apprehends the Inca emperor, Atahuallpa;the Spaniard received the greatest ransom in history and killed Atahuallpa afterward. In "Guns, Germs, and Steel" by Jared Diamond, Diamond summarize the Inca empire collapsed so fast during the battle against the Spanish are because the lack of technology and knowledge and the diseases brought to the land by the Spanish. In my point of view that even if Pizarro's attack had

This chapter focuses on the meeting of the two societies and discusses the causes of one having a greater dominance over the other. The Europeans led to dominance and beat with factors such as horses, guns, steel weapons, ships, diseases, and politics. Referring to the title, these guns, germs, and steels that the Europeans possessed helped them overcome and defeat the Incas, however it is because of the ultimate factors they had. The Europeans unlike the Incas had a lot of domesticated plants and animals, and it could be considered an agricultural revolution. They also lived in a better area, which helped them develop the proximate factors. Raising plants and animals were the \ most important factors of the civilizational differences of the past and present. Food production, industries, and cities arose. Food production had led to the industrialization and the “cargoes”

Diamond argues that civilization arose from regions that were susceptible the domestication of both plants and large mammals to plow fields. This combination vastly increased food production, which in turn supported larger populations. From there, it's the standard political economy story about the positive feedback loop of prosperity and social complexity favoring the evolution of more complex forms of social organization, specialization, increased technical innovation, etc. This is the Guns and Steel part of the story.

Eventually, after much deliberation, I decided that there is really only one argument of his that I can form a solid argument against. At one point in Guns, Germs, and Steel, Diamond asserts that a factor in the inability to produce excess food in the Americas and Australia was a lack of large mammals. He lists fourteen animals, among which are the cow and the sheep, as the most influential animals of human history. Only one of which, the alpaca, is found in the Americas. Jared Diamond’s entire argument in this instance is that because Europeans were around these animals and could domesticate them, their society could grow at a more rapid rate. I find this argument to be somewhat farfetched, as if the existence of cows in North and South America could have allowed the Native American societies there to develop a complex society rivaling those of Europe and Asia. But what about other species of animal that were in America? Diamond lists the yak even though it exists only in areas around Nepal. Surely the advantages of the yak are about that of the buffalo in North America? What makes them superior? Is it because they were domesticated, and if so, what is it that they did better than the buffalo? Buffalo were abundant in North America when Native societies were prominent, and American Indian societies hunted and used nearly all of their bodies. Buffalo were very large, providing a lump sum of meat along with sturdy bones for tool making. Another argument Diamond makes is that the outcome at Cajamarca may have been different had the Native Americans been able to charge the Spanish with cavalry. However, the numbers would still be the same, and surely if tens of thousands of Natives could not overcome a few dozen Spaniards, what difference would horses make? The answer is most likely a miniscule one. Despite all of his rather interesting and credible

If a civilization is created in a geographic area that is flush with flora and fauna that can be domesticated and spans horizontally, so the entire civilization will share the same climate, rather than vertically, where the climate will differ throughout, it has the greatest chance for success, while the inverse of this scenario is less likely to become dominant. Diamond also uses these factors to explain things like the development of guns, germs, and steel. Agricultural societies can use a small number of their people to harvest enough food for everyone, so the rest of the society can develop specialized skills, such as writing, or creating steel and guns. Civilizations that live in an area that does not allow for agriculture cannot have specialization. Civilizations that domesticate animals are also exposed to the germs they posses, temporarily lowering their population, but ultimately making them stronger by giving them immunities which they can use to exterminate civilizations that do not domesticate animals, and thus have no immunities. Diamond’s argument is convincing, and he provides plenty of evidence to support his claims. Guns, Germs, and Steel is a wonderful use of multiple fields of study to come to one conclusion that impacts the entire world that we live

The main research question for Jared Diamond research is to find out why is there inequality problem. In additional to that, how guns, germs and steels seem to affecting the inequality in our society. Diamond believes that the resources and technologies that contributed to advancement of society

Going from gatherer to farming occurred gradually, the decision was made by the availability of game and gatherables, and the pressures of population to how much is going to be grown

I first read Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel in the Fall 2003 based on a recommendation from a friend. Many chapters of the book are truly fascinating, but I had criticisms of the book back then and hold even more now. Chief among these is the preponderance of analysis devoted to Papua New Guinea, as opposed to, say, an explanation of the greatly disparate levels of wealth and development among Eurasian nations. I will therefore attempt to confine this review on the "meat and potatoes" of his book: the dramatic Spanish conquest of the Incas; the impact of continental geography on food production; and finally, the origins of the Eurasian development of guns, germs, and steel. In terms of structure, I will first summarize the