Guns Germs And Steel Essay Geography

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

It has to deal a lot with geographic luck. The chance of your climate or soils being more fertile is completely based on chance. To have larger animals like horses, cows, and camels, you need to have food that the animals can sustain themselves on. A lot of plants in New Guinea do not have a lot of protein in them, so it is very hard to keep the larger animals alive long enough for you to build farms, or use them as vehicles. Because there is only so few foods with protein in New Guinea, all their effort is put into finding more food, so there aren’t any metal workers or anything of the sort. That’s why I think It has to be geographic luck.

Diamond believes that the main reason why people were able to create such a great civilization in Middle East is because they had over produced food so people were able to specialize in labor and produce military, leaders, architects, art and such. But why New Guineans were not able to do the same?

The transition to farming was a turning point in human history since people who remained hunter/gatherers couldn’t produce food as quickly as farmers, and couldn’t produce food that could be stored for a long period of time. Instead of roaming to search different locations for food, farming allowed them to drop seeds in soil that grow next to their

The enviromnet plays a huge role in the way they live in Africa. Where a region is located has a very big impact on the activities that are able to take place there. If a place is too hot or too cold, certain plants are not able to grow there. Also, too much rainfall or not enough rainfall can help or prevent certain plants from growing. In Africa your specific location in regards to elevation, and the equator, the climate and the natural resources all play a role in Africa's economy.

The “Factors Underlying the Broadcast Pattern of History” chart shows the spreading and domesticating of plants and animals and the pros and cons of it on civilization. I agree with the author that when you have domesticated animals in the civilization food storage and surpluses; large dense, sedentary, stratified societies with political

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

The establishment of food production proved to be more fulfilling than hunting and gathering since it reduced the risk of starvation. Despite being provided with some of the advantages that came with transitioning to agriculture, many regions remained as hunter-gatherers. While some areas, such as the Fertile Crescent and Eurasia, had many advantageous plants and animals that could be domesticated, other areas, New Guinea, Eastern United States, and Mesoamerica, possessed limited availability. Some areas are simply not suited to agriculture of any kind, while others may support some crops that are suitable for domestication but not others. Likewise, while there were big animals living in several regions, those species were not suitable for domestication since they did not follow the six requirements, which involved being sufficiently obedient, humble to humans, cheap to feed, able to breed well in captivity, immune to diseases, able to grow rapidly (Diamond 1999, 169). On the other hand, in some areas, food production developed independently. However, only a few places developed food production without any outside influence, which included the Fertile Crescent in western Eurasia, China, the eastern United States, Mesoamerica, and New Guinea. In the Andes and Amazonians, and three areas of Africa, food production was also probably an independent development, but there are

Geography and the environment play a monumental role in the establishment and success of a nearly every civilization. For example, rivers bring water and allow for agricultural development, while mountains or deserts provide for protection and create a barrier. Many things, such as the aforementioned deserts and mountains, can offer both positive and negative influences on the society in question. The climate and amount of rainfall is directly related to the success or failure of crop growing, and thus related to the amount of time spent on simply surviving. Civilizations that are able to spend less time on subsistence farming are able to redirect that energy towards the establishment of arts, culture, religion, and science. Where a

In the movie Guns, Germs, and Steel and Matthew Restall’s book Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest, two very different accounts of the early conquests by the Spaniards are uncovered. The movie, which follows Jared Diamond through his studies, presents a more European-centered view, while Restall individually debunks commonly believed myths of the conquest that are perpetuated in the film.

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.

As Jared Diamond states multiple times it comes down to “geographic luck.”-Guns,Germs and Steel. The main parts were climate and how hot it was. Livestock how the animals shaped out. Personally I think the biggest one is diseas. “Climate and access to natural resources and farmable animals are what matters most.”-Jared Diamond. Trainable livestock that listens to you helps you heard and have food to live. also the terrain people had to go threw took a toll on their environment too. Germs and diseases spread very fast in the native americans life. Population decreased as they spread through populated villages. According to Jared Diamond “livestock also plays a significant role in a civilization's ability to become rich and powerful.” Without this places like New Guinea can not advance to become powerful and rich. This is why I think location is such a big part because it depends on it to be able to live a destained

The central issue is that some economically and ecologically inclined areas were unable to adopt food production for a long period of time. Mexico, Iraq, and the Andes are the areas that we find are the earliest sites of food production. Southwest Asia's Fertile Crescent, Mesoamerica, China, the Andes, possibly the Amazon Basin, and eastern United States are the areas where food production rose solitarily. Radiocarbon is used to date early organic remains. Southwest Asia has the most accurate radiocarbon dates for food, plant, and animals. Hunter gathering became a second art and more like a hobby instead of a

The beneficial continental circumstances enjoyed by Eurasians first appears in vegetation. The Fertile Crescent was endowed with diverse, abundant, and highly productive cereals and pulses such as wheat, barley, and pea that yielded both starch and protein. These food staples were domesticated very quickly and with little effort by Eurasians, whose newfound farms gave rise to specialization and division of labor. Conversely, in the Americas, the sole cereal crop of corn took many more thousands of years of domesticated refinement to prove useful to humans. Mr. Diamond also places great emphasis on the geographic East-West orientation of Eurasia. A plant growing at a given latitude can grow at that latitude the world over. Thus, Eurasia's East-West orientation was highly conducive to the rapid spread (by trade) of productive domesticated grains across the continent. Conversely, the Americas, Africa, and Australia were impaired by their North-South orientation, which dictated that domesticated plants from people of one latitude were of little use to their neighbors to the North and South. Compounding the effect, the trade of agricultural technology in Eurasia ultimately led to trade in other things, such as technological advances, including writing and language

The revolutionizing transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture was a central shift in the way homo sapiens lived that occurred twelve thousand years ago. Consequently, several factors contributed to this astonishing modification of life including increasing population size, favorable environments such as the Nile River in Egypt and the Fertile Crescent in the Mediterranean. Furthermore, the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture allowed for mass production of food in order for the sustainability of the increasing population size, but with agriculture also came specialization and the division of labor ultimately leading to moral inequality.