Guns, Germs, And Steel, Diamond Chronicles History

Diamond describes the early parts of human history in a broad scope towards the beginning of the book. He focuses on both the evolution and spread of human beings, arguing that some civilizations had a head start over other ones because of when the period of human evolution took place. He explains how different environments shaped human history through an a example of how populations which inhabited the Polynesian islands developed differently due to the different environments and then by telling the stories about what happened as populations with better geographical advantages encountered more disadvantaged populations in the Americas. Diamond explains the many factors that influenced the historical progression of different societies. Diamond argues how food production was very much a primary factor in the advancement of each society. Societies

Throughout Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond explains the importance of geography in the ways ancient civilizations grew and spread and how some areas were more advanced than others. He began his research when he was asked a question by a Papua New Guinea residence, Yali. Yali had asked Diamond “[w]hy you white man have so much cargo and we New Guineans have so little?” At that point Diamond had no answer and he was curious to find out why Eurasia had a head start in civilizing people meanwhile the other continents were behind. As a result, several differences were made between countries that did not have the same resources as those who were advanced. Some of the developing countries were poor and they had to rely on whatever was given to them through nature. When Diamond went to Papua New Guinea, he discovered that the residences of the island had the same routine as those in the ancient civilizations of Eurasia. They would often hunt for animals and used stone weapons instead of metal.

Over the course of human history, humans and our ancestors have made tremendous strides. From Homo habilis making the first stone tools to the Egyptians building The Pyramids of Giza, human history is nothing short of intriguing. If it wouldn’t have been for each stride made by our ancestors we probably wouldn’t live in the world that we live in today. When the Neolithic Era began in 9600 BCE, human civilizations gradually started to spring up all over the world. Humans set up civilizations from Mesopotamia in the Middle East, to China in East Asia, and all the way to Caral-Supe in South America. Although these ancient civilizations were separated by thousands of miles, they all share common patterns and

Describe the major developments of early human and social evolution. Throughout, discuss tool manufacturing, language development, agriculture, social behavior, and population growth.

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.

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

One of the most significant mile-stones in the human race is agriculture. Ten-thousand years ago, the practice of farming, cultivating land and soil to produce crops, and domesticating and rearing animals to produce food, wool and other products, opened a door for the beginning of civilization. In the article, “The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race”, written by Jared Diamond, Diamond contradicts the fact that human history has been a long tale of progress. He argues that agriculture is the reason that the human race is cursed with social and sexual inequality, disease, and despotism. Diamond uses many examples to prove his statement.

Assessing how environmental and geographical factors, such as location and availability of resources have affected and continue to affect the development, distribution, and diffusion of the human race over time is intriguing. There are several examples of how society’s start and why. One example is the site of ancient Mesopotamia, the birthplace of the world’s first civilizations. Diffusion is the movement of things and ideas from one culture to another. When diffusion occurs, the form of a trait such as tea drinking may move from one society to another but not its original cultural meaning. Two significant

In “Guns, Germs, and Steel,” by Jared Diamond, Diamond starts to question why Europeans generally are so ahead than other countries and civilizations. Diamond wonders if any of this has to do because of race. Throughout his book, Diamond tries to answer 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?” (Diamond 14). This question can be answered by numerous factors that had affected many civilizations that put Europe on the top. One key factor was diseases. Diseases had either helped or hurt civilizations and it had impacted the fate of human society. Diseases have caused many civilizations to either become stronger or weaker. The most

In chapter four of his book “Barbarian Virtues,” Matthew Frye Jacobson connects the theories and beliefs used to interpret relationships to the development of humans over time. He states that scholarly methods in academics have been used to systematically rank different groups of people. Jacobson discusses many academic disciplines used in these theories such as, anthropology, genetics, biology, psychology, and linguistics. Throughout this chapter, Jacobson divides his research into three categories: cultures, genes, and minds. Together these theories of human development highlight the superiority and inferiority conflict between races in nineteenth

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 this chapter, Jared Diamond recalls the greatest collision in modern history. Atahualpa’s, Incan emperor, capture by Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro was known as the biggest population shift in modern history. When he Europeans colonized the Americas, Native Americans were nearly wiped out as the biggest population shift occurred. As Diamond depicts the story, he includes eyewitness writings to describe the fight at Cajamarca. The Spaniards were able to win the fight due to weapons, and not to anything other considering they had fewer soldiers than the Incans. Steel swords and chainmail armor played a colossal part in the defeat of Native Americans. The sight of horses confused many Native Americans, as they had never seen one. The

Jared Diamond's bestseller Guns, Germs, and Steel (GG&S) is an attempt to explain why some parts of the world are currently powerful and prosperous while others are poor. Diamond is both a physiologist and a linguist who spends a good deal of his time living with hunter gathers in Papua New Guinea. As a researcher and as a human being, he is convinced that all people have the same potential. Hunter gatherers are just as intelligent, resourceful, and diligent as anybody else. Yet material "success" isn't equally distributed across the globe. Civilization sprung up in relatively few places and spread in a defined pattern. I should emphasize that Diamond doesn't equate material

One of mankind’s greatest achievements is the development and organization of diversified societies that regulate life and ethical values for those enticed within it. Societies bring interpersonal relationships that expand within a geographical region, usually populated by a collection of people sharing the same cultural, spiritual or ethical expectations. Today, we can be thankful for some of histories earliest civilizations, for they passed on diverse aspects of ethnicity into the everyday life of humanity. These ancient peoples were the building blocks for trial and error, contributing to modern day care and how we govern today’s most successful societies. Surprisingly enough, they were great educators of how societies can rise with control and authority but, even more; on how societies can weaken and crumble when negligent to the environment.

In this essay I will be considering only but one of the many questions that archaeologists analyse when researching the human past. As the title suggests, did civilization, or, a term preferably used by scholars; social complexity, arise from a conflicted band of nomadic people or from a mutual consensus among them? As well as my own thought’s, I will be discussing the ideologies of a number of professionals, both in archaeology and social anthropology, focusing mainly on the early development of the archaic Mesopotamian and Mesoamerican civilisations.