Human Expansion through Environmental Interaction Essay

According to page 103, “The people of areas with a head start on food production thereby gained a head start on the path leading towards guns, germs and steel.”

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.

Humans have used hunting and gathering for many years, it did the job to feed family's. As population grew humans evolved and switched to agriculture. Some may argue that “Agriculture came with the gross and sexual inequality, the disease and despotism, that curse our existence.” This causes some to argue that, switching

Hunter- gatherers was able to consume many variety of foods, such as animals meat, berries, nuts, roots etc which are high in proteins and fiber. Farmers can only consume the crops they grew, which is limited. Additionally, the main commonly crops are rice, corn, and wheat, which is high in carbs and lacked fiber, vitamins, and proteins. As a result, farmers’ diet consists of carbs and fats, but no vitamins or proteins. The second risk is limited crop production. Farmers are easily opened to risk of starvation if their crops fail to grow. The final risk to agriculture is epidemic diseases. Agricultural encouraged farmers to get together in crowded societies in order to trade their crops, which can easily lead to spread of contagious diseases and

From the early prehistoric society until now, we often heard the word “adaptation”, which means the process of changing something or changing our behavior to deal with new situations. The ways people adjust their natural environment varies according to time, place, and tribe. Foraging is common way of adaptation that people uses for most of human history; however because of the population pressure, some people adopt agriculture to fulfill their need. This essay, will discuss the positive and negative aspects of life in hunting and gathering societies compared to the agricultural societies based on Martin Harris’ article “Murders in Eden” and Jared Diamond’s article “The Worst Mistake in the History of Human Race.”

Farming initially developed in the Middle East, the Fertile Crescent. Grains such as barley and wild wheat were abundant. Also, not heavily forested, and animals were in short supply, presenting a challenge to hunters. 10,000 BCE to 8,000 BCE. Notice: it took thousands of years for this “revolution” so not fast but profound for history. Agriculture was hard for many hunting and gathering peoples to adopt – lots of work. Those in agricultural communities developed diseases, which they became immune. The agricultural people would unintentionally infect the hunters.

The ability to produce more crops required a method to transport them to more people. This method was for people to clump closer together, which facilitated the spread of disease amongst communities. People migrated nearer to each other because they could receive a frequent supply of food. “The mere fact that agriculture encouraged people to clump together in crowded societies, many of which then carried on trade with other crowded societies, led to the spread of parasites and infectious disease” (65). Diamond argues that because agriculture brought people together in close proximity disease and parasites were able to spread more rapidly and frequently. Hunters and gatherers tended to spread out and keep to themselves. This ultimately eliminated the possibility of an epidemic sweeping through societies. For instance, “epidemics couldn’t take hold when populations were scattered in small bands that constantly shifted camp” (65). Among hunter-gatherer

How the conquest of the Spaniards led to an impact on one of the world’s largest empires.

Key Concept 1.2. The Neolithic Revolution and Early Agricultural Societies II. Agriculture and pastoralism began to transform human societies. B. Technological innovations led to improvements in agricultural production, trade, and transportation. Pottery improved agricultural production because it gave a way to store a surplus of food.

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.

In the novel Guns, Germs, and Steel, by Jared Diamond, it is emphasized how the modern world holds an utmost array of differences among societies. Those of Eurasian origin greatly influence the world of power and wealth. However, other people such as Africans, fought off against European colonial dictatorship, lack such influence and wealth. And other people, including the Aboriginal Australians, no longer rule their own land. Rather, they have become decimated and subjugated by European colonists. Food production, technology, and the decisions made by varying continents played a role in the fates of societies. Geographic features, along with other factors, dictated the development of guns, germs, and steel.

As members of the new generations, people often wonder about the path of history if something else occurred in the past. What if the Dark Ages never appeared? What if the westerns powers never invaded China? What if the atomic bombs never went off in Japan? At the same time, there are also many questions about why things happen the way they are. Jared Diamond in Guns, Germs, and Steel – the Fate of Human Societies reflects over 13,000 years of the history of human civilizations, examining why it was Europe that conquered the Americas and Africa but not vice versa. What are the determining factors of the development and progress of human civilizations?

One of the greatest revolutions in the history of homo sapiens was the adoption of agriculture, which changed the face of communities at every level of class. Though this change was built upon new ideas and allowed us to provide more food for more people, was it in fact a positive change at the time? Today in 2017, we can all look around and see where the agricultural revolution has gotten us in the long run, but authors such as Yuval Noah Harari (2011) claim that during the infancy of the agricultural revolution, life for the average citizen was often a worse one than that of the common forager. A change in food production created many other changes, such as permanent human settlement, biologically unconventional labor, and a larger population density. This paper explores the pros and cons of the agricultural society and the hunter-gatherer society

Jared Diamond is a professor of Geography at UCLA and a world traveler. He believes that in the past 13,000 years of human history, agriculture has lead humans to conquer, develop and prosper and therefore cause the rise of civilizations. In 1972 he was in New Guinea when he met a local named Yali who asked him a simple question that took years for Diamond to answer. Yali said “Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo [goods] and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people had little cargo of our own”. [Work cited 7] Diamond was profoundly puzzled and couldn’t answer right away. In fact it took him many years to come up with what he thinks is the right answer. ‘Yali’s question’ plays a central role in Professor Diamond’s enquiry into ‘a short history of everybody for the last 13,000 years’, leading him into a wide-ranging discussion of the history of human evolution and diversity through a study of migration, socio-economic and cultural adaptation to environmental conditions, and technological diffusion. (Diamond, Guns, Germs and Steel, p. 22-23)

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.