Guns, Germs, and Steel asserts that the success of different human societies can be attributed to geographical factors. According to the author’s theory, the broad strokes of history are all understandable when factors such as the presence of wheat, the width of continents, and the domesticability of an area’s wildlife are considered. Although the theory is intended to explain the global dominance of Europeans, historical details take a backdrop to science. I enjoyed reading the article, as it explained concepts I wasn’t aware of - such as the lack of useful domesticated mammals in most parts of the world. However, I felt that the theory failed to account for the effect individual action can have on history. Although Italy lacked the direct
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.
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.
In the book, Guns Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond, the author asks many questions about histories of the world. These question are questions that lie in the main question Jared Diamond is trying to answer. In the Prologue, the author discussed about his personal experience in New Guinea where a local politician asked him the major 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). When further exploring the meaning of this question it could represent why major civilizations developed and advanced so much faster technologically and economically but other civilizations like New Guineans are behind in these advancements. Which could explain
In Jared Diamond’s book, Guns, Germs, and Steel, he starts the prologue off by introducing the reader a question, 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?" In the book Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond set’s out to answer Yali's question by touching on a few main categories, such as food production, writing, technology, government, and religion.
Jared Diamond starts off his book, Guns, Germs, and Steel with stating his attempt to answer Yali’s question, “Why is it that you white people developed much cargo and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people had little cargo of our own.” Diamond elaborates and brings to simpler terms how Yali’s question relates to many questions on the origins of humans, but more specifically, how Eurasians, the white people mentioned by Yali, came to successfully dominate the rest of the world. In the prologue, Diamond mainly drives his point of the “effects of continental environments on history over the past 13,000 years” as to what he believes is the main root to why Eurasians came to dominate so successfully. Alongside of continental environments,
In Jared Diamond’s Collision at Cajamarca and Hemispheres Colliding from his book Guns, Germs, and Steel he addresses the factors relating to the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire. This is seen in their differences in development, warfare, disease and politics. Firstly, it is important to start by taking a looking at the Empire’s themselves. The Spanish Empire, like many in Europe, developed sooner than their Native American counterparts in agriculture and industries.
In the book, Guns, Germs, and Steel, the author was trying to conceive the explanations behind the idea that why did other societies dominated others and why those dominated could not dominate the other society. In the beginning of the book, the author, Jared Diamond, revisit his past experiences in New Guinea. There, Diamond meets a friend, Yali, who asks him a question of why did the whites had been successful and arrived with large quantities of cargo compared to the local people in New Guinea. From there, the author writes his book to explain Yali’s question. In each of the chapters, the author then uses events and facts to support his answer for Yali’s question. Diamond wasn’t trying to teach the reader history but also to point out that
“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 is the question that Jared Diamond seeks to answer in his manuscript Guns, Germs, and Steel. This question was asked by a man known as Yali during Diamond’s time in New Guinea. This question “concerned only the contrasting lifestyles of New Guineans and of European whites, it can be extended to a larger set of contrasts within the modern world,” (Diamond 15). What we can take from Yali’s question is this: why did sophisticated societies begin where they did and how did they do so? Why was it that Europeans conquered the Americas, and not that Native Americans conquered Europe? Why were
"Guns, Germs, and Steel," written by Jared Diamond, seeks to answer a simple question asked by a friend of his in New Guinea, "[w]hy is it that... white people developed so [many commercial tools and luxuries] and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people had little [of these goods ourselves]." (Diamond 14). Recognizing that the question could be applied more broadly around the world, he simplified the question; asking why wealth and power were distributed among people of Asian and European descent, rather than those of African, Aboriginal, and Native American descent? To answer the question, the entirety of world history must be explored, from the early expansion out of Africa around the world to the
The question of why civilization has evolved to it's present form is a complicated one. It is an area of study that is fraught with pitfalls and easy-to-make assumptions about cultures, specifically why some have advanced far enough to control the majority of the world while others have never managed to advance beyond simple hunting and gathering. In his book “Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies”, author Jared Diamond attempts to explain the factors at play in our history that led to the modern world. In Chapter 9, titled “Zebras, Unhappy Marriages, and the Anna Karenina Principle”, Diamond explores the patterns of domestication in ancient cultures. He examines the types of animals that humans domesticated, as well as the distribution of domesticated animals and the effect on human society that this uneven distribution would bring. Ultimately he will argue that environment, not culture, is what drove the domestication of animals in the ancient world.
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
Europe was a major power over the course of world history, before the rise of the United States, which was originally a British colony. As a result, many people wonder why that came to be. Why is it that Europeans became so dominant instead of the Native Americans or the Incas? Jared Diamond attempts to provide an answer to this question by writing the book Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. In this volume, Diamond describes how geography is the major reason why history became history. Using Diamond’s explanation, we can see how geography determined Europe’s fate in the approaching future.
Many historical events were created when the Europeans first came to the Americas. The Europeans brought many diseases, animals, new technologies, and their political structures in the Americas, or the New World. In the book Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond states many arguments about these events. This paper will take you through different topics about the Europeans and their culture and agriculture in the Americas. In this paper I will be talking about diseases that came from Europe to Americas, then I will talk about animals that were diffused to America. After that I will talk about Europeans developing a political structure in the Americas. Finally, to end of the paper, I will talk about maritime technology. In this paper I will
Guns, Germs, and Steel. This is the title of Jared Diamond’s incredibly powerful book. This title refers to how farming societies were able to take over populations of different locations, regardless of the fact that they did not have equal numbers. Diamond begins with the presentation of a question from a New Guinean politician: why were Europeans able to conquer so many other societies around the world? Despite uprooting some controversy among different scientists, Diamond writes to defend his belief that the answer to this question involves multiple different factors. Whereas some people believe that the success of a society is based on genetics, Diamond focuses on how it is immunity
Tris finds Christina and a comatose Uriah. Christina informs Tris of Tobias's arrest for his involvement with Nita's group.