Guns Germs And Steel Summary

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?

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?

Agriculture was such a prominent part in every civilization since the beginning of time. It was a way for humans to be one with their land for it gave them means to survive. As agriculture became much more recognized in Africa, “cultivators and herders displaced many of the hunting, gathering and fishing peoples who previously inhabited Saharan Africa.” (Bentley,384) With the progression of new technology; iron axes, adzes, and hoes were created, and revolutionized agriculture on their land. The introduction of bananas from sea lanes became popular in Africa and increased the supply of food that was available. Likewise for Medieval Europe, cultivation on Europe grounds allowed more room for agricultural techniques, the utilization of developed tools and technologies, and the institution of new crops. Similar to Africa, population pressure rose and space for more agriculture became necessary. Beans were important to the diets of Europeans as were the bananas to African diets. They also dug ponds to raise fish which in turn led to new

Yali’s question puzzles over why the white people have become more successful than others. Diamond states that Eurasian societies were set to dominate from before 3000 B.C. He wants to know why other races are unable to be as advanced with technology and power.

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.

Why do some people get the privilege to live great and others have to suffer everyday? There are many places in the world today that are not great places to live and grow up but people don't always have a choice. Guns, germs, and steel by Jared Diamond is written with a purpose to discuss and reveal why some societies have so much and others have so little. He explains the theory behind geographical luck and migration. He also talks about how these two things can lead to technology advances. The reason behind the difference of technology and economy advances all begins with the geography and the way that guns,germs,and steel were introduced and how they were introduced.

By studying the societies before the Agricultural Revolution, it is clear that the corruption of the man and the lack of an egalitarian view of people, happened gradually and the reason for that is power. And for that, the Europeans were hungry

The Moriori and the Maori people developed differently due to environmental differences. Although the Maori people were originally farmers, their cold crops could not grow in the cold climate of the Chathams. This caused them to resort to hunting/gathering. While this got them by, they weren’t able to bring in the mass amount of crops needed to support the other nonhunting craft specialists. Their prey did not require elaborate machines, so they just used traditional hunting methods. Also, they were a small island with no easily accessible neighboring islands, so they did not colonize and they learned to get along with each

According To, “Guns,Germs,and Steel” by Jared Diamond,was written to discuss what led to the unequal distribution of wealth and power. Jared Mason Diamond was born September 10,1937.He wrote this article to answer Yali’s Question “ Why Is It That You White People Have So Much Cargo And We Black People Have So Little?” This article is was published in March 1997. He is a professor of geography and physiology at the University Of California,Los Angeles. Diamond was on an mission to answer Yalis Question. He wanted to know why was there such diffusion based on their ethnicity and living area.I agree that these major aspects led to the unequal distribution of wealth and power over the world. Jared Diamond believed that diffusion,trade,disease,

The Prologue: A biologist named Jared Diamond was in New Guinea to research the evolution of birds in the area. While on the beach Jared encountered a New Guinean politician named Yali. After walking on the beach having a conversation together Yali asked Jared how people settled in New Guinea over ten thousand years ago but white Europeans took political control over it in the last 200 years. Jared’s theory is that this happened due to environmental variations, not because of racial differences. Jared does not agree with Eurocentric thinking or intelligence due to race, he in fact thinks that industrialized people are less intelligent than modern stone age people.

In Chapter 2 of "Guns, Germs and Steel", Diamond's argumentation turn around the idea that the "opposite evolutionary courses" of the Maori and Moriori "sealed the outcome of their eventual collision. If we could understand the reasons for the disparate development of those two island societies, we might have a model for understanding the broader question of differing developments on the continents" "the outcome clearly illustrates how environments can affect economy, technology, political organizations, and fighting skills within a short time." So, Diamond throughout this chapter is giving an answer to a specific question, how did two populations that one belonged to the same race; diverged and developed differently as a result of the influence of environmental issues? Well, this main argument will be tackled in this current paper. The former is supported by 12 conclusions mainly.

After watching the film about the Europeans take over of the Incas, I really don’t get the impression that it was an accident. It just seemed that the Europeans knew that something like this would happen. The Europeans main reason for going to the Americas was to find gold, and I don’t think they necessarily cared what they destroyed along the way to get their prize. They knew that the Incus had a good sum of gold, and the temptation to take it was probably too much for them. They made sure they brought their weapons, horses, and enough men. Also, how can they expect the Incas to look at a book that they had no idea what it is, and convert to Europeans beliefs after having their own beliefs far before the Europeans

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