Guns Germs And Steel Critique

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.

Yali’s question is “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?” In a broader sense, why did some things progress in some areas, but not in others?

Why do the origins of every major civilization lead to European conquest and settlement? How did Europe somehow gain the upper hand so early in history? Gun, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies delivers a clear theory as to why the Europeans were able to conquer almost the entire world in less then one millennium.

Many geographers have attempted creating a unified theory explaining why cultures advance much more readily than others. Very few have actually reached mainstream society and even fewer seem reasonable. However, Jared Diamond shines where most do not. His book, Guns, Germs, and Steel, proposes an idea that has long been established called environmental determinism. Most view environmental determinism as a racist theory attributing a peoples’ intelligence only to their oppressive climates and geographical barriers. Diamond instead has created a theory that applies environmental determinism to only a peoples’ technology—not the people themselves. This has given researchers valuable tools that allow them to explain why some nations have

Jared Diamond is a professor at UCLA, a biologist by training, and a specialist in human physiology. He is trying to figure out how the Europeans developed advantages of military power, lethal microbes and advanced technologies in the first place. His quest was to uncover the roots of inequality.

In J. R. McNeill’s The World According to Jared Diamond McNeil is arguing that Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel has reasonable arguments for how geographical determinism assisted some continents in their success, but he makes it known the argument has many downfalls. McNeill’s arguments all lie under the umbrella of Diamond’s arguments being to large scale. McNeill makes many examples that show these holes.

1. Yali's 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?"

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

When reading the title of Jared Diamond’s, “Guns, Germs, and Steels,” the readers must initially think how do these three connect? After starting the first few chapters they will realize that Diamond is referring to the proximate and ultimate factors in that lead to the advancement of society. When Diamond talks about proximate and ultimate factors, he is explaining the cause of European dominance in the world. The proximate factors are the one that directly led to the European dominance and the ultimate factors are the ones that let to proximate factors. I believe that this book is referring to the Homo sapiens revolutionizing through the years, through the Neolithic Revolution through agriculture and industrialization.

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.

As members of the new generations, people often wonder about the path of history if something else occurred in the past. What if the Dark Ages never appeared? What if the westerns powers never invaded China? What if the atomic bombs never went off in Japan? At the same time, there are also many questions about why things happen the way they are. Jared Diamond in Guns, Germs, and Steel – the Fate of Human Societies reflects over 13,000 years of the history of human civilizations, examining why it was Europe that conquered the Americas and Africa but not vice versa. What are the determining factors of the development and progress of human civilizations?

Peeta is stopped by medics from choking Katniss further longer. Katniss learns that the reason for Peeta’s actions are due to a type of torture called hijacking. Hijacking is when someone puts venom of a tracker jacker (a deadly mutant animal) into your skin and alters your memories to become bad. The Capitol altered Peeta’s memories and made them against Katniss by making it seem as if she tried to kill him. Katniss is hopeless and is sure Peeta will never be the same.

Guns, germs, and steel have developed the world significantly, so that different continents have geological advantages over others. Guns had a large impact on why Europeans were able to dominate others. Germs affected others who were exposed to new diseases, and were unable to adapt an immune system to avoid getting ill. Steel helped the world grow in economic power, and those civilizations that had a greater range of metallic technologies, like steel have always defeated their rivals.

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

Guns, germs, and steel. Three of the main components found in changing civilizations, and three essential factors that must be brought into consideration when discussing how our modern day world came to be. In the critically acclaimed documentary, based off of the book by Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel provides valuable insight into these crucial aspects, showing an in-depth history of world and culture. In the first portion of this three part series, Diamond and other commentators explore the impact of agricultural development and how various societies were affected by either geographical advantages or hindrances. The explanations provided help to clarify reasons behind historical turmoils and wars, along with current economic status of states, and are perhaps more relevant than ever.