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.

Prologue: Yali’s question for word for word was “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?” Yali is asking about the inequalities of the world, he is wondering why his people have little to nothing, and the Europeans have so much money and power. He wants to know if there is something “wrong” with people like him.

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.

Yali met Jared Diamond on a beach over 30 years ago in New Guinea and Yali’s question was “Why you white man have so much cargo and we New Guineans have so

Chapter 1: Up to the Starting Line – In this chapter Jared Diamond attempts to answer Yali’s question by explaining how and where some of the first human settlements were located and where the earliest signs of evolution are. Diamond explains how many settlements had a clear advantage over others due to where they were located. He then shows the advantage by stating “… the earliest human fossil in Europe, the earliest evidence of domesticated corn in Mexico, or the earliest evidence anywhere…” This shows how the advantages played out. Diamond then goes on to explain how certain civilizations needed to adapt differently to survive. Diamonds last point describes how many of the civilizations were colonized and how certain colonies developed much

1. 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 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

Guns, Germs, and Steel starts off with an interesting conversation in the Prologue between the author, Jared Diamond, and a friend he made in New Guinea, a politician named Yali. Yali raises the question that why the rest of the world has so much of what he refers to as “cargo”, or in a broad sense technology, compared to his homeland of New Guinea which becomes the central focus for the entire book. The first chapter begins with the origins of humans and what Diamond calls the “Great Leap Forward” where the first tools, writings and paintings began to appear, as well as watercraft in aboriginal Australia and New Guinea. Then discussing the Ice Ages, leading up to the recent era and extinction of many large animals globally as humans began to spread out. Next Diamond uses the example of The Maoris and the Morioris in the Chatham Islands in 1835 and how one culture and civilization is able to overrun another due to geography, resources, and many other things and how that can lead

1.Jared Diamond states that the environment of a race determines whether or not it’s going to survive.

In Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond, Diamond’s explains that Europeans progressed faster than Native Americans technologically. Since the beginnings of time Europeans advanced faster than Native Americans, but why? To begin with, the Eurasian land mass had more species of large animals to domesticate. In addition, Eurasia had more varieties of grains for large scale farming. Finally, Eurasia was more accessible for trade between civilizations.

From the beginning of the book, Diamond focuses on answering Yali’s question. Yali is a New Guinean, who out of curiosity would ask Diamond questions, one of which was hard for Diamond to answer. That question was, "Why is it that you white people developed so much

Jared Diamond has done much research in New Guinea.  His friend, local New Guinean; Yali, asked why whites had been so successful compared to the locals.  Diamond, while looking into Yali’s question, wants to prove that the differences in success have nothing to do with racial intelligence, but rather environmental differences. He starts with saying that stone people "are on the average probably more intelligent, not less intelligent, than industrialized peoples." He says the New Guineans may not be technologically smart like Europeans, but they are a lot fitter than any European put in their environment. He traces back these differences in the folds of history.

The argument involves a question from a man named Yali whom Jared met on the island of New Guinea. They were walking along the beach when and had gotten into a political conversation when Yali him and asked him “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.” A very simple question Mr. Diamond Writes. He is unable to answer it because it is way more complex than it appears. In order to answer this question Diamond studies for years

In the documentary Guns, Germs, and Steel, there was a question that was presented to Diamond by a New Guinean man named Yali. Yali asked, "Why do you white people have so much cargo, but we New Guineans have so little?" This question from Yali threw Diamond off. He assumed that since it was a simple question, that there would have been a simple answer. Moreover, Diamond's experience with the New Guineans had showed him their ingenious ways. That they can go into uncharted, undiscovered territory. They could create a shelter from practically nothing. Then survive there, even thrive there.

In the prologue, Diamond focuses on introducing the structure and aim of the journey that the reader is about to embark on. This journey is contained in the pages and chapters of the book, Guns, Germs, and Steel. He rebukes the conventional way that most authors attempt to present world history to their readers. He claims that the "Eurocentric" way in which this is done provides a small viewing window in regard to time. It also fails to address why things are the way that they are.