Guns, Germs, and Steel Study Questions Essay

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.

The novel “Guns Germs and Steel”, by Jared Diamond, discusses the affects that science and technology have on society and politics. His ideas are reflective of almost all societies we know today and his explanations dive deep into our world history to show the patterns that occur as innovation excels in cultures and societies. The topics of Diamond’s novel ranges from the time of hunter-gatherer societies to modern Eurasia.

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?

Chapter 4: The availability of domestic plants and animals explain why empire literacy, and steel

The emergence of agriculture was a major stepping stone in human history. During this birth of agriculture, also known as the Neolithic revolution, humans began inhabiting permanent settlements, grow their own crops, and domesticate both plants and animals for food (Weisdorf, 2005). Considering humans have been hunter-gatherers for the majority of their approximately 7 million years of existence, the emergence of agriculture in the Old World only occurring 10,000-5,000 years ago, marks a significant transformation in food sustenance techniques (Weisdorf, 2005). However, this turning point in history is associated with both positive and negative implications. There is much controversy over whether or not the introduction of

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.

The “Factors Underlying the Broadcast Pattern of History” chart shows the spreading and domesticating of plants and animals and the pros and cons of it on civilization. I agree with the author that when you have domesticated animals in the civilization food storage and surpluses; large dense, sedentary, stratified societies with political

8.) Connection - In what ways did agriculture spread? Where and why was it sometimes resisted?

A: The chart in this chapter is explaining the factors that allow some people to overcome others. For example, the factor of having domesticated animals and plants allowed epidemics and diseases. However, at the same time domestic animals and plants provided sustainable food. I agree with the author’s conclusion and the chart because it is true that something good and beneficial may also cause harm. On the note of having domesticated animals and plants, to many it gave them an advantage. It allowed, like I said before, sustainable food. That food source enabled many to be fed and it led to tows being built. With that food supply, it also led to army being built to protect that food supply and

Diamond refers to the dispute that once societies began to change from hunters and gathers to food producers and farmers that people would begin to build homes to live in that were stable. The regions where food manufacturing took place became denser in population. Societies then began to domesticate animals so they could be used in moving cargo, plowing fields, and doing any substantial work. However, the animals carried germs and bacteria which led to people becoming ill. The weaker individuals died, while the stronger ones persisted. This overall relates to Yali’s question in answering the role that germs

The establishment of food production proved to be more fulfilling than hunting and gathering since it reduced the risk of starvation. Despite being provided with some of the advantages that came with transitioning to agriculture, many regions remained as hunter-gatherers. While some areas, such as the Fertile Crescent and Eurasia, had many advantageous plants and animals that could be domesticated, other areas, New Guinea, Eastern United States, and Mesoamerica, possessed limited availability. Some areas are simply not suited to agriculture of any kind, while others may support some crops that are suitable for domestication but not others. Likewise, while there were big animals living in several regions, those species were not suitable for domestication since they did not follow the six requirements, which involved being sufficiently obedient, humble to humans, cheap to feed, able to breed well in captivity, immune to diseases, able to grow rapidly (Diamond 1999, 169). On the other hand, in some areas, food production developed independently. However, only a few places developed food production without any outside influence, which included the Fertile Crescent in western Eurasia, China, the eastern United States, Mesoamerica, and New Guinea. In the Andes and Amazonians, and three areas of Africa, food production was also probably an independent development, but there are

In his work, “Guns, Germs, and Steel” (W. W. Norton, New York, NY, 1997) Jared Diamond attempts to explain why human history has carried out the way it has, he often refers to accounts from history to support his argument. Accounts that will be deemed adequate will discuss specific groups of people, at a specified period of time. Diamond suggests that guns, germs, and steel are three contributing factors for why the world is in its current state. It is not difficult to recognize while reading, that the book spends a large amount of time talking about germs and much less text discussing guns and steel. In “Guns, Germs, and Steel” Diamond does adequately account for the historical development of guns and steel, in the way he accounts for the role of germs in the history of human societies. It is no debate that germs played a massive role in many important events in history, but guns came late, were not very effective at first, and steel production was most important militarily.

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.

Plants in a area may have stopped people in that area from domesticating the plants, 12 plants account for 80% of the world’s food tonnage

The beneficial continental circumstances enjoyed by Eurasians first appears in vegetation. The Fertile Crescent was endowed with diverse, abundant, and highly productive cereals and pulses such as wheat, barley, and pea that yielded both starch and protein. These food staples were domesticated very quickly and with little effort by Eurasians, whose newfound farms gave rise to specialization and division of labor. Conversely, in the Americas, the sole cereal crop of corn took many more thousands of years of domesticated refinement to prove useful to humans. Mr. Diamond also places great emphasis on the geographic East-West orientation of Eurasia. A plant growing at a given latitude can grow at that latitude the world over. Thus, Eurasia's East-West orientation was highly conducive to the rapid spread (by trade) of productive domesticated grains across the continent. Conversely, the Americas, Africa, and Australia were impaired by their North-South orientation, which dictated that domesticated plants from people of one latitude were of little use to their neighbors to the North and South. Compounding the effect, the trade of agricultural technology in Eurasia ultimately led to trade in other things, such as technological advances, including writing and language