Sammi Fernandez APHug Period D Guns, Germs, and Steel 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
In the book, “Guns, Germs, and Steel: the Fates of Human Societies” by Jared Diamond, one of the World History Thinking Skills shown was Skill Two: Chronological Reasoning. A specific example of this skill is represented in the quote, “Besides permitting sedentary living and hence the accumulation of possessions, food production was decisive in the history of technology...it became possible...to develop economically specialized societies consisting of non-food-producing specialists feed by food-producing peasants” (250). Diamond reasons that transitioning from a nomadic hunter-gathers lifestyle to a food producing sedentary lifestyle led to the advancement of technology and thence a more centralized and well structured society; all of which
Many historians and politicians ponder over the reason why Europeans have much more wealth and power than other ethnicities. However, this question was abandoned and rarely brought up because there wasn’t enough evidence to have a clear answer. Yali, a local politician in New Guinea, asked a similar 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?” Jared Diamond, the author of Guns, Germs, and Steel, believes that the differences in wealth and power between different groups of people is because of the environmental differences. An event that helped answer this question was when the Spanish Conquistador Francisco Pizarro easily defeated the Incas despite having only a few men because of their geographical location, resulting advanced military technology, and writing.
At the beginning of the book, Guns, Germs, and Steel, by Jared Diamond, the question is posed by Yali, as to why people of European decent are rich and why people in New Guinea are poor. Throughout the book, Diamond explains that the geography is what made Europe better because it gave them guns, germs, and steel which enabled them to conquer other nations. Chapter three of this book entitled “Collision at Cajamarca” specifically examines the Spanish conquering of the Incan Empire in 1532. As Diamond tells, Inca emperor Huayna Capac and his heir were killed by a smallpox epidemic brought to the New World by Spanish settlers in Panama and Columbia. This sparked a civil war between half brothers Atahuallpa and Huascar.
In the prologue of Jared Diamond’s book, Guns, Germs, and Steel, Diamond introduces readers to a question posed to him by Yali, a New Guinean politician. Yali inquired about the reason for different developmental rates of civilizations, and Diamond, who couldn’t explain at the time, began to search for the answer. Diamond links certain “power factors,” such as advanced weaponry, certain diseases, and metal tools, to the rate of advancement in civilizations. However, the causes for the creation and use of the “power factors” in some civilizations, but not others, remains an unsolved mystery. In the prologue, fittingly titled “Yali’s Question,” Diamond expresses his belief that throughout history, civilizations develop
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 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.
As Professor Diamond walked along the side of the beach he came upon a politician named Yali who was preparing his people in New Guinea for self-government. Yali and Professor Diamond talked each about their jobs and soon Yali started quizzing Professor Diamond and asking him many questions but only one had really made Diamond think leaving him without an answer. “ Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo and brought it to New Guinea , but we black people had little much cargo of our own,” asked politician Yali. After thinking about the question for a while, Diamond saw that the true question was much more broad and universal than Yali's initial question. He reworded the question as follows: "Why did wealth and power become distributed as they now are rather than in some other way?”
Guns, Germs, and Steel was released on PBS in July of 2005 and produced by Tim Lambert. It is based off of the book by the same name, written by Professor Jared Diamond. If you've ever wanted to learn more about how geographical factors influenced the growth and development of ancient civilizations, then Guns, Germs, and Steel is the film for you. It narrates Professor Diamond's search for an answer to a question asked to him by a man named Yali, "Why you white man have so much cargo and we New Guineans have so little?" During the show, Professor Diamond studies the factors of the evolution of ancient civilizations into the agricultural and technological giants they've become today. By comparing the geographical circumstances of those civilizations with those of New Guinea, he is able to finally find an answer to Yali's question.
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.
“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 is a Pulitzer Prize winning transdisciplinary nonfiction book by Jared Diamond. In the book, Diamond discusses how certain societies are able flourish and succeed and how other societies are not. He attributes this success to their geography, food production, how they domesticated animals, their use of steel, and immunity to germs. To him, these findings are the reason why certain societies succeed and others do not.
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
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
Guns, germs, and steel. Three of the main components found in changing civilizations, and three essential factors that must be brought into consideration when discussing how our modern day world came to be. In the critically acclaimed documentary, based off of the book by Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel provides valuable insight into these crucial aspects, showing an in-depth history of world and culture. In the first portion of this three part series, Diamond and other commentators explore the impact of agricultural development and how various societies were affected by either geographical advantages or hindrances. The explanations provided help to clarify reasons behind historical turmoils and wars, along with current economic status of states, and are perhaps more relevant than ever.
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