Spread Of Eurasia

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.”

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 geographical advantages of Eurasia allowed civilizations to develop productive agriculture, and domesticated animals as a result the Europeans had food surplus, developed immunity to epidemic diseases, and forged steel. These inherited advantages allowed them to decimate other civilizations and appropriate their resources making them even more powerful.

Chapter 10: DIfferences in axis orientation affect the diffusion of both inventions and food production. America’s major axis is north-south while Eurasia’s is east-west. According to Diamond a continent with an east-west axis has an advantage over one with a north-south axis. This, in theory, means that a crop developed somewhere can spread East to West but will have difficulty spreading from North to South.

Throughout Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond explains the importance of geography in the ways ancient civilizations grew and spread and how some areas were more advanced than others. He began his research when he was asked a question by a Papua New Guinea residence, Yali. Yali had asked Diamond “[w]hy you white man have so much cargo and we New Guineans have so little?” At that point Diamond had no answer and he was curious to find out why Eurasia had a head start in civilizing people meanwhile the other continents were behind. As a result, several differences were made between countries that did not have the same resources as those who were advanced. Some of the developing countries were poor and they had to rely on whatever was given to them through nature. When Diamond went to Papua New Guinea, he discovered that the residences of the island had the same routine as those in the ancient civilizations of Eurasia. They would often hunt for animals and used stone weapons instead of metal.

The plants associated with the Columbian Exchange affected the Old and New Worlds by providing success in agriculture as well as technological advancements. First, as explorers came to the New World, they brought over plants such as wheat, rice, and sugarcane. Crops Columbus brought, ones he believed would thrive, grew poorly in the beginning but eventually began to flourish.

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 growth of commerce and industry led to the technological advances, which in turn stimulated, and were stimulated by science.” (p. 403) The European scientific revolution was fueled by the blending of “liberal” and “servile” arts, in other words, science and technology. Because of the European expansion taking place throughout the world, new commerce and industries were advancing, creating the need for new technology and science. The theories and inventions that Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton provided were the fist major advances during the scientific revolution, and perhaps were the most profound.

Eurasia has a predominately East-West axis. This means that much of the landmass shares similar climates, hours of sun, diseases, and crops. This is important for many reasons. It was easy for people of East Eurasia to migrate to West Eurasia and vice-versa. Technology could diffuse faster, crops were basically universal across the mega-continent, and livestock could be moved far because of similar climates. This was very beneficial towards the advancement of the Eurasian people.

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

8. Summarize Diamond’s thesis. This requires you to first understand Yali’s question, and outline how Diamond proposes to answer this question. Diamond thesis is that people are wrong if they say that this is because of culture or anything like that, instead, Diamond wants to look at geographical factors.  He will argue that accidents of geography are what made the Europeans rich and powerful.

Differences in axis orientation affected the diffusion of both food production and inventions by altering the rate that crops and livestock spread. The major axis of the Americas is north-south, while the major axis of Eurasia is east-west. According to Diamond, a continent with a long east-west axis has an advantage over a continent with a long north-south axis. A crop that has developed in one place can spread east to west rather easily, but it would have difficulty spreading north to south because some areas are more ecologically suitable for the origins of food production.

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

Diamond argues that civilization arose from regions that were susceptible the domestication of both plants and large mammals to plow fields. This combination vastly increased food production, which in turn supported larger populations. From there, it's the standard political economy story about the positive feedback loop of prosperity and social complexity favoring the evolution of more complex forms of social organization, specialization, increased technical innovation, etc. This is the Guns and Steel part of the story.

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