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.

In 1835 the Chatham Islands were discovered by a British seal hunting ship approximately 500 miles off the coast of New Zealand. Because of an abundance of fish and food available, there were numerous inhabitants. However, they did not know how to fight and they had no real weapons to use when they tried to hunt the game accessible to them. The Chatham Islands become inhabited in 1,000 AD. However, the climate is too cold for them to grow crops, and they become hunter gatherers of lobster, shellfish, and seal. The island that was inhabited was too small to support a lot of people, so they castrated some men and boys to handle population control. Contrasting with this new generation, the people on the original island specialized in agriculture and therefore gave rise to more dense populations. The cultivation group-type slaughters the other type because their agricultural society made them more bloodthirsty and warlike due to the more complicated features that an agricultural community possess. This leads Diamond to develop six major environmental variations that can apply to all societies: Climate, Geological type, Marine Resources, Area, Terrain fragmentation, and Isolation. Environmental factors and innovation are key sources to the success or demise of a

The first consideration Diamond discusses is that just because something happened and that it would have happened anyway, it does not make the act good or just. The second consideration is that the most powerful region, in this case, western Europe, should not be the only one talked about because ideas and practices that are now or were at that time integrated into their culture were not necessarily developed by them, but by other culture that imported their beliefs into European culture. The third

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.

Many geographers have attempted creating a unified theory explaining why cultures advance much more readily than others. Very few have actually reached mainstream society and even fewer seem reasonable. However, Jared Diamond shines where most do not. His book, Guns, Germs, and Steel, proposes an idea that has long been established called environmental determinism. Most view environmental determinism as a racist theory attributing a peoples’ intelligence only to their oppressive climates and geographical barriers. Diamond instead has created a theory that applies environmental determinism to only a peoples’ technology—not the people themselves. This has given researchers valuable tools that allow them to explain why some nations have

Jared Diamond is a professor at UCLA, a biologist by training, and a specialist in human physiology. He is trying to figure out how the Europeans developed advantages of military power, lethal microbes and advanced technologies in the first place. His quest was to uncover the roots of inequality.

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

Diamond’s first objection is implying that if we explain why some people rule over others we’re okay with the domination by others. His second reason explains that Europeans are disappearing anyways and it’s wrong to talk about them dominating the world. His third objection states that we must understand other societies and that the question implies that some are better than others.

“Ender did not hesitate. He stepped on the head of the snake and crushed it under his foot. It writhed and twisted under him and in response he twisted and ground it deeper into the stone floor… And in the mirror he saw a face that he easily recognized. It was Peter.” (117)

Yali asks Professor Diamond "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?" Professor Diamond’s possible interpretation of this statement could be broken down as such: Why do Europeans create so many inventions and manufactured goods to bring elsewhere? This applies the concept that people of Eurasian origin tend to dominate the world in wealth 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

The author, Jared Diamond, is asked a question by a local politician,Yali, while studying birds in New Guinea. His 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?". This question leads Diamond to write a book attempting to answer why some humans in certain environments developed faster than others. Food production, writing and government had already started to develop by 11,000 B.C. in many areas around the world such as the Americas, sub-Saharan Africa and Eurasia. Many Native Americans and Africans were still using wood and stone tools while Europeans had steel by A.D. 1500. Many people and historians believe that Europeans are biologically

Jared Diamond, however, believes that the environmental differences are exactly the case. His thesis is, “The striking differences between the long-term histories of people of the different continents have been due, not to innate differences in the peoples themselves, but to differences in their environments.” He believes that it is not biology that makes some societies more advanced than others, but rather the environments that people were and are currently living

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.

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