Guns, Germs and Steel Essay In 1920 American women were allowed to vote. While in Papa New Guinea people were trying to find a more efficient way of farming. This shows just how unequal our world is. So what causes inequality? The cause of inequality is due to geography. Farming and domesticated animals is where the problem started. After domesticated animals, came steel leading to the exposure of germs. For a civilization to succeed it needs a steady source of crops, domesticated animals, production of steel, and early exposure to germs. A huge factor that affects a civilization's development is what can be grown in your region. An ideal food supply would be high in protein, have a surplus of calories, and long-term storage. The Fertile Crescent had a spectacular food source; they had wheat which supplied high protein, surplus of calories, and had long term storage. Smaller civilizations such as Papa New Guinea harvest sago. Sago is a type of tree …show more content…
The armor protected them from other weapons and people. The Inca’s on the other hand, did not have steel because of their wet climate, and no specialists. The Inca’s had stone but with the power of the Spaniards steel the Inca’s were defenseless. The Spanish and the Inca’s came into contact and the Spaniards ended up taking all of the inca’s land. Due to the latitude of the Inca’s they couldn’t produce steel because of the climate and lack of specialists creating inequality once again. Exposure to epidemic disease affects the development of civilization by immunity; if we hadn’t been exposed to germs such as smallpox we would be still having a problem with it today. The spanish developed an immunity to smallpox by having domesticated animals. The domesticated animals actually carried smallpox and germs. The spanish worked with the animals and developed an immunity to smallpox. The Inca’s however ,did not have an immunity. They weren't exposed to domesticated
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.
The novel “Guns Germs and Steel”, by Jared Diamond, discusses the affects that science and technology have on society and politics. His ideas are reflective of almost all societies we know today and his explanations dive deep into our world history to show the patterns that occur as innovation excels in cultures and societies. The topics of Diamond’s novel ranges from the time of hunter-gatherer societies to modern Eurasia.
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.
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.
A: The chart in this chapter is explaining the factors that allow some people to overcome others. For example, the factor of having domesticated animals and plants allowed epidemics and diseases. However, at the same time domestic animals and plants provided sustainable food. I agree with the author’s conclusion and the chart because it is true that something good and beneficial may also cause harm. On the note of having domesticated animals and plants, to many it gave them an advantage. It allowed, like I said before, sustainable food. That food source enabled many to be fed and it led to tows being built. With that food supply, it also led to army being built to protect that food supply and
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 his work, “Guns, Germs, and Steel” (W. W. Norton, New York, NY, 1997) Jared Diamond attempts to explain why human history has carried out the way it has, he often refers to accounts from history to support his argument. Accounts that will be deemed adequate will discuss specific groups of people, at a specified period of time. Diamond suggests that guns, germs, and steel are three contributing factors for why the world is in its current state. It is not difficult to recognize while reading, that the book spends a large amount of time talking about germs and much less text discussing guns and steel. In “Guns, Germs, and Steel” Diamond does adequately account for the historical development of guns and steel, in the way he accounts for the role of germs in the history of human societies. It is no debate that germs played a massive role in many important events in history, but guns came late, were not very effective at first, and steel production was most important militarily.
Historical arguments are seldom proved without controversy, while there are certain historical methods that, if not dissipating all questions, give enough credibility to a theory or argument for us to call it proven. In Guns Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond, the author linked history development with well-recognized evolution theory and other biological knowledge to back his argument. He also employed the strategies of traditional historians, which included dealing with primary documents from multiple sources, evaluating different explanations as well as appealing to common sense and deduction to support his view.
In the video “Guns, Germs and Steel: Episode 3.” The overall summary of the episode is how Europe dominated Africa, how they fought through diseases and land wars with local tribes. During this adventure major diseases spread across Africa, affecting Europeans and Africans, causing thousands to die. The main two diseases were smallpox and Malaria, for example in the video it stated that, “It was believed Smallpox originated in the tropical region of Africa, Africans were certainly similar with the disease, they had even developed methods of immunity for life.” This was the advantage they had over the europeans, they were able to protect themselves from Smallpox; avoiding such a dramatic incline their population. Not only did they develop immunization to Smallpox, they tried to fight off Malaria. For example in the video it says, “Native Africans had also developed antibodies against one of the most virulent diseases on the earth, Malaria.” This was because they settled and live in high or dry locations, away from wet and humid areas, which is where mosquitos are generally found, hence why thousands of Europeans died to this disease due to living by rivers and swamps. However, Malaria isn’t the most common disease in Africa now, the most common disease is “Pneumonia and Other Lower Respiratory Tract Infections….Pneumonia alone is responsible for 90% of all lower respiratory tract infections and is one of the most deadly diseases in
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.
Yes, if there is a lot of resources around it can support a large group of people instead of a small group of gatherers
If you're not immune to a disease it'll slowly attack the blood vessels in closet to your skin. This disease can kill you if not treated properly. Contracting smallpox can limit your mobility as it is extremely infectious. If you have it, you can infect everyone you come in contact with. When this happens everyone will eventually get infected. In a primitive civilization this can lead to immense problems because there are no doctors with the proper materials to treat it. Thus causing the disease to kill off all of the infected. In Europe smallpox was discovered to be in animals, and because the Europeans were in very close contact with their animals for several years their immune system evolved to kill off the virus. But they still had it in their system and when they traveled westward, they infected the indigenous people of the new lands. When the natives got infected with the disease they have never seen before they couldn’t treat it properly, causing mass death. The Inca’s are a great example of the smallpox pandemic of the new world. The Inca’s hadn’t been in close contact with animals, so they weren’t immune to the disease. Their immune system was trying to fight a disease it had never come in contact with and lost. This caused the death of approximately 20 million natives to the Americas. Eurasia had exposure to animals so they had an immunity to the disease. But unfortunately, the Inca’s immune system
The Spanish had the immunity to the disease, since they had already encountered the animals much earlier than other civilizations. This gave them a big advantage for being a thriving civilization. The Incas were not around animals for a long time, like the Spanish. The Spanish got to domesticating animals a really long time ago. They had the advantage of being around animals for a really long time because they were able to build up an immunity to Smallpox, and carry the germs and get their enemies who fought them sick. The Spanish having germs made them be a successful civilization by being able to use the germs to kill off their enemies, in addition to all the resources they already
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
Once a country develops steel, they are able to travel anywhere and most likely win every battle, because steel weapons are the strongest and sharpest weapons. This opens up the whole world’s resources land to colonize. To make steel, a civilization needs to have the right geography to grow trees that had dry wood to create long, hot fires. They also needed to have the right geography that gave them iron ore, the foundation of steel, and a food surplus to create non-food specialists, that could dedicate their life to creating steel, which luckily Spain’s geography gave them all of these things. They decided to create better weapons because they had competition with the other civilizations that lived around them. Although the Incas had dry wood, for the fire, and a food surplus, to give them specialists, they didn’t have iron ore to create steel or a motive. They didn’t have any civilizations that lived near them. They did have an abundance of precious metals, but since they had so much of it, they didn’t think of it as very valuable and they used it for everyday tools. When the Spanish developed steel and sea-going ships, they decided to search for Eldorado, a paradise made of gold. They eventually found themselves in the Incan