Jared Diamond Guns Germs And Steel Chapter 1 Summary

Conquest is an extremely violent thought, to subjugate and assume control of a group of people and their land with military force. It’s hard to imagine a large following, much less countries, that support imposing brute force onto strangers. Given that conquest is violent, why did Europeans conquer the Americas as they did? The Europeans followed the belief of Christianity, which forbids such massacres and hate, how could they have conquered and killed? Many, like Jared Diamond, promote the idea that it was pure geographical luck which granted Europe easier diffusion of knowledge; metal weapons and political organization which were more advanced. However, this idea becomes problematic because it assumes that no matter the inhabitants of the more fortunate land, conquest would have happened because of predetermined facts like geography. With this argument, one could say Natives would have conquered Europeans or that they would have been able to defend from their conquest if they had the same or better geographical luck. I believe that geographic luck is not enough to enable the conquest of the Americas. I want to argue that the major reasons behind the European conquest of the Americas were largely in their motivation to gain riches to boost their economy and the justification of their conquest by disguising themselves as saviors to the Native Americans.

Europeans were in a much closer proximity to the Americas than they were to asian countries. European societal groups, which included the competing merchants, impoverished nobles, monarchs, and commoners, Christian missionaries, and minorities different yet very strong motivations for having participation in empire building. European trading companies enabled the mobilization of both material resources like wood and crops as well as humans. The Disease in the Americas that had been brought by spanish conquerors made the natives weak and unable to stop the European invasion

When the Europeans came to the Americans they carried the diseases without knowing. Making majority of the population sick. Tribe after tribe they died because they could not fight these diseases. This clearly made more room for the Europeans but in a tragic way. Similarly, the European Empires were different from the Russian, Chinese, Mughal, and Ottoman Empires in their reasonings for expansion.

The European conquest of the new world was most commonly attributed to the superiority of the Europeans in all the facets of their confrontation. They had the superior weaponry, and were thought to have a superior intellect. After all, they were just bringing "civilization" to the new world, right? It sounds nice when you are learning about Columbus in grade school, but the traditional story is pretty far from the truth. The truth is that the Europeans, when they discovered this was a brand new world and not the spice islands, sought to rape the land for its gold and natural resources and enslave the Amerindians (native Americans), who were regarded to

iii.The trade introduced new products to Europe and European products to peoples around the world.

In this episode of “Guns, Germs & Steel”, the audience learns about the European colonization of Africa. Each continent has African and European influence still today, and this episode walks us through how the world sees present-day Africa based on its history. To me, one of the more interesting pieces of Africa’s colonization was how disease affected the people involved.

The Europeans came to the Americas far more advanced than any of the inhabitants and their advantage was staggering. Of course their conquest was far

the european monarchs were greedy to occupy the western lands of north america. French and Spanish monarchs sent military.

The printing press allowed for stories of fortune in colonies to travel back to the mother country, luring citizens to come explore also. Advancements in weaponry and sailing allowed for easier journeys and quicker confrontations with the Indians. The factor that played a hefty role in colonization only to technology was religion. Christianity served as justification for colonization and intrigued missionaries to colonize new lands. To ignorant Europeans, colonization was simply helping Indians and spreading religion. This brought more people and wealth to the colonies in support for Christianity. The third reason that Europeans were able to colonize so rapidly and efficiently was the desire for national glory. Competition has driven people and countries to obtain new lands and resources before the others. Once one country created a colony, the race for land was on between European powerhouses. Technology, religion, and the quest for national glory were the three main reasons why Europeans were able to conquer so much land in such a short period of

Hernan Cortez and Pizarro may have had better weapons the Natives that they conquered, but they were severely outnumbered. The secret to their success was the germs they brought with them. All the epidemics that the inadvertently started. Disease was their secret weapon, without it the Spanish may not have been able to inspire the rest of Europe to want a stake in the New World, and America would look very different

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

Jared Diamond's bestseller Guns, Germs, and Steel (GG&S) is an attempt to explain why some parts of the world are currently powerful and prosperous while others are poor. Diamond is both a physiologist and a linguist who spends a good deal of his time living with hunter gathers in Papua New Guinea. As a researcher and as a human being, he is convinced that all people have the same potential. Hunter gatherers are just as intelligent, resourceful, and diligent as anybody else. Yet material "success" isn't equally distributed across the globe. Civilization sprung up in relatively few places and spread in a defined pattern. I should emphasize that Diamond doesn't equate material

The Europeans had introduced germs and diseases that people in the Americas and the people in the South African cape had never been exposed to them in any way shape or form. Since the Europeans had been exposed to these germs, and disease over the course of history, and over the course of centuries, the Europeans immune system had built antibodies and were immune to the germs, and the diseases. Since the people of the Americas and the people of the South African cape had come into contact with these germs and disease for the first time in history, they were killed in massive numbers. This made is easier for the Europeans to make settlements of these lands faster. Since Europeans were too busy attempting to overtake and then settle into the tropical areas of the South African continent and how the European being responsible for the introduction of killer germs to the native populations of South Africa, the Europeans had also suffered from germs that were native to the South African continent.

There are many reasons as to why the Europeans were able to make empires far away from their homelands. The first reason being that Europeans were near the Americas unlike their opponents (Asia) in which were father away. The Europeans were determined to gain more land, enlarge the religion of Christianity, and expand the economy by gaining more territory. Every European had their own reasoning for wanting to expand therefore, everyone had their own motives. Another reason that enabled them was that they were also involved in trading which helped them transport items to and from the Americas. The last reason was the Europeans immunity to diseases. While many Americans fell ill because of all of the European diseases, the Europeans did not, enabling them to conquer more land.

Smallpox played a huge part in helping the Europeans conquer the world. Everywhere the Europeans went they left the deadly disease called smallpox in their wake. Smallpox helped wipe out all the people that the Europeans didn’t. It decimated entire ethnic groups and civilizations. The Europeans weren’t affected because they had built up an immunity after being around it for hundreds of years. Also, Lisa Prososki states “As anyone who has ever traveled to the tropics will know, this region is plagued by infection” (Prososki, “Malaria”). The Europeans had no clue that the tropics of Africa had so many mosquitoes that were plagued with malaria and as they entered it they were blindsided by it and it extremely hurt the Europeans and decimated their invading force. The Europeans had the big disease that killed, but they also got killed by a deadly