...of mankind. The life and form of human beings have evolved over the years. While all human beings have same origin historically, evolution and development of human life and their living conditions led to inequality among different groups of people and different parts of the world. As a result, there are many pieces of literature including books, journals, among others, which explain different historical events (Diamond, 1999). However, some historical books or articles do not address historical issues fully especially historical factors that led to high development in some areas while leaving others highly underdeveloped. However, Guns, germs and steel: The fates of human societies, a book written by Jared diamond is totally different and unique historical book in contrast to other historical books. This is because in his book Gun, germs and steel: The fates of human societies, Jared examined all historical events that happened in the last 13,000 years. However, unlike other historical books, Jared applied different methods and materials including scientific ones so as to ensure that he covers all necessary information and that every reader understands him properly. Another unique feature of this book is that unlike others, which focus on specific place, people or event, this book is focused on the entire human race (Diamond, 1999). This placed it in a neutral position as every reader comprehends that it has no any sign of racism or favor. This book is not only exciting...
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...During the New World Encounters, the Spanish conquistadors both Cortes and Pizarro were able to take over the cities of the native people of the Americas. The advantage they had were their cannons, firearms, steel sword, armor and horses; but their potent weapon turn out to be their own germs. Since the native people of the Americas didn’t know what all of these advantages were, their population weakened. In the book Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond shows how the common cold and other germs played as much a role as anything else. In the article “World History for Behavior Analysts: Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel" by Stuart A Vyse explains more about the struggles the native people went through and how they were defeated. Peoples of Eurasian origin, plus those...
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...Information about the Book: Guns, Germs, and Steel was written by author, anthropologist, ecologist, geographer, and physiologist Jared Diamond and published in 1997 by W. W. Norton & Company. It has 480 pages, and has won the Phi Beta Kappa Award in 1997 for Science and the Pulitzer Prize in 1998 for General Nonfiction. Later in 2005, a documentary based off the book was produced by the National Geographic Society and was broadcast on PBS. What is the book about? Guns, Germs, and Steel starts off with a simple question asked by Jared’s friend, a local New Guinea politician named Yali: “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?”[p.14]....
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...In 1977, UCLA professor and biologist, Jared Diamond, published Guns, Germs, and Steel, sparking debate among anthropologists and other academics. Winner of the 1998 Pulitzer Prize and New York Times bestseller, Guns, Germs, and Steel is arguably one of the most controversial novels of its genre, for Diamond’s futile attempt to explain why human development proceeded at such different rates on different continents has resulted in critical responses among scientists. In his novel, Diamond explains that civilization is exclusively the consequence of climatic and environmental imperatives, contending that the polities allowing for expansion and technological advances in human society are attributed to geography, food production, the domestication...
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...From the opening line of the preface, Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel is nothing if not an ambitious work: “This book attempts to provide a short history of everybody for the last 13,000 years” (Diamond, 9). This is a bit misleading, however, as Diamond’s motivation is not simply to provide an overview of our species since the dawn of civilization; his aim is to answer the question of “why history unfolded differently on different continents” (Diamond, 9). In the near five-hundred pages of the book, he makes a valiant effort to answer the question in terms of geography (with the adjoining environmental explanations). Indeed, his argument is exceptionally persuasive, and provides strong evidence that Eurasia’s dominance over other parts...
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...Guns, Germs And Steel JARED DIAMOND W. W. Norton & Company, 1999 Word Count: 774 How did guns, germs, and steel shape the history of the world? Jared Diamond’s journey to discover equality began in the rainforest of Papua New Guinea. In the Prologue Diamond tells the readers about how he became intrigued when Yali, his New Guinean friend posed the 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?” (Pg. 14) When Yali talks about cargo he is referring to technology i.e. tools, accessories, and other complicated inventions. So Diamond rephrases the question as such: “Why did human development proceed at such different rates on different continents?” (Pg. 16) Yali’s question gets Diamond motivated to research and write this book on the history of everyone for the past 13,000 years. He attempts to peel back the layers of the past like an onion and explore the roots of power in the modern world. The question motivating the book is that: “Why did history unfold differently on different continents?” (Pg. 9) Diamond has traveled the world for the past 30 years looking for answers to eventually come up with this well thought out theory to this question; it is not because of intelligence due to racial differences but rather environmental differences. As stated before this book emphasizes on the search for ultimate explanations, and on pushing the causes of history as far back as possible...
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... [pic] An Overview of Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel Why do some nations have so much material wealth while so many others have so little? This was the question Jared Diamond posed in his book Guns, Germs, and Steel. After identifying a point in time when all societies were roughly equal (over 13,000 years ago), Diamond identified the key variables that allowed some societies to develop highly complex, material-rich societies, while others developed at much slower rates. Guns, Germs, and Steel uncovers how Europeans came to dominate every other group on the planet by virtue of their access to what Diamond terms the “Agents of Conquest”: Guns, Germs, and Steel. Jared Diamond’s journey of discovery began on the island of Papua, New Guinea. There, in 1974, a local named Yali asked Diamond a deceptively simple question: "Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo (material goods), but we black people had little cargo (material goods) of our own?" Diamond realized that Yali's question penetrated the heart of a great mystery of human history -- the roots of global inequality. Why were Europeans the ones with all the cargo? Why had they taken over so much of the world, instead of the native people of New Guinea? How did Europeans end up with what Diamond terms the Agents of Conquest: Guns, Germs and Steel? It was these agents of conquest that allowed 168 Spanish conquistadors to defeat...
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...Guns, Germs and Steel Page 1 GUNS, GERMS, AND STEEL: The Fates of Human Societies By Jared Diamond, 1997 About the Author: Jared Diamond is a professor of physiology at UCLA School of Medicine. He is a recipient of a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship and was awarded a 1999 National Medal of Science. He is also the author of The Third Chimpanzee. SUMMARY The book asks and attempts to answer the question, once humankind spread throughout the world, why did different populations in different locations have such different histories? The modern world has been shaped by conquest, epidemics, and genocide, the ingredients of which arose first in Eurasia. The book’s premise is that those ingredients required the development of agriculture. Agriculture also arose first in Eurasia, not because Eurasians were superior in any way to people of other continents, but because of a unique combination of naturally occurring advantages, including more and more suitable wild crops and animals to domesticate, a larger land mass with fewer barriers to the spread of people, crops, and technology, and an east-west axis which meant that climate was similar across the region. The book is well written and contains not only information about the history of cultures around the world, but excellent descriptions of the scientific methodologies used to study them, from how archeologists study the origin of agriculture to how writing evolved to how linguistics can trace the movements of peoples across huge geographic...
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...The question was answered with racial intelligence differences and environmental differences. He also talks about survival of the fittest. He says that intelligence is closely linked to human and cultural survival. All of these questions would be answered by the end of the book. Part One: - From Eden to Cajamarca Chapter 1. Up to the Starting Line Evolution is explained, relating us and our “ancestors” of many centuries ago. Primates such as gorillas are said to be our closest relatives. Africa presides as the homeland for all species. Neanderthals have always been viewed as mindless, mentally deranged creatures. Fifty years ago, The Great Leap Forward was like a big advancement in technology. Hominids also began to spread across New Guinea and Australia. The larger animals that failed to attain protection qualities against other predators during evolution died out and became extinct. Eurasia also occured. It became the more advanced between them and Africa, although Africa started out on top. Chapter 2. A Natural Experiment of History The Maori and Moriori descended from Polynesians,...
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...Don’t blame geography for growth patterns There is a well-known economic growth debate whether geography affects growth patterns directly or merely through an indirect channel affecting the choice of economic policy and institutions. The view that geography is at the center of the story in shaping the rhythms of economic development dates back to Montesquieu and has been recently revived by Jared Diamond in his book “Guns, germs and steel: The fates of human societies.” This perspective was applied to explain long term patterns of economic growth by Jeffrey Sachs, who argues that growth is related to geographic variables like climate, disease ecology and distance from the coast (Sachs 2003). On the other hand, economists like Acemoglu, Johnson and Robinson, and Engerman and Sokoloff argue against simple geographic hypothesis and illustrate that geography can only affect patterns of growth through the choice of institutions that influence economic performance. Looking at the current situation, one can observe tremendous differences in living standards between developed and developing countries. There is a variety of explanations why economic performances have diverged so extremely. However, the two main candidates to explain the causes of the big divergence are geography and institutions. The geography hypothesis emphasizes nature forces and geography as the main factors determining economic performance. Acemoglu, Johnson and Robinson (2002), however refute this hypothesis...
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...Guns, Germs, and Steel 1. Yali’s question was, “How come the rate of technology development differs with people in different races and levels of intelligence?” 2. One of the three objections to answering Yali’s question is if you did answer it, it would seem like you’re justifying world domination instead of understanding it. Another reason is that it may seem like you glorify the Eurocentric view of everything. The third is by answering this question you’ll come across saying that civilization is better and makes life better than the tribal ways of life. 3. A Eurocentric approach to history is focusing on Europe. 4. Jared Diamond doesn’t agree with the argument that Europeans are more innately intelligent than the New Guineans. H believes this because the survival of the fittest. In New Guinea people who aren’t smart wouldn’t be able to survive where they are, therefore unable to pass down their genes. While Europeans...
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...Titles: Episode 1: Out of Eden Our thesis is based on Jared Diamond’s book ‘Guns, germs and steel’. Modern history is a product of conquests of European “explorers” and the Conquistadors, who led the way. The local population was utterly decimated by the few who came to the New World. With the aid of Guns, germs and steel, they were successful in taking over those lands. Ever since, people of European origin have dominated the globe, with the same combination of military power, lethal microbes and advanced technology. But how did they develop these advantages in the first place? Why did the world ever become so unequal? How have guns, germs and steel shaped the history of the world? There have been people living in the rainforests of New Guinea for at least 40,000 years – long before the settlements of North and South America were formed. But one of the few places on earth where it’s still possible to find people hunting and gathering is the rainforest of Papua New Guinea. They are among the most culturally diverse and adaptable people in the world. So why is it that they are being ravaged by rampant poverty while their European and American counterparts sit in bungalows and have their lavish their meals? Advanced technology, large populations, and a well-organized workforce have been common characteristics of majority civilizations. To understand the pace of the progress of each civilization in the course of history, we must need to dwell deep into the roots of the...
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...Jared Diamond had a question that was asked to him by Yali, a New Guinean native, “Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo?” he had a hard time giving him an answer but after twenty-five years he finally had an answer to it. The reason is Indo-Europeans became so much more accessible to their resources unlike the New Guineans. The people of New Guinea were set aside from the world with many people not bothering with what the have as opposed to was Indo-Europeans have. While the world around them was developing, the New Guineans were completing tasks the same as their ancestors did many years before them. The reasons the New Guineans are frozen in time is because mainly of its geography. In “Guns, Germs, and Steel” Diamond...
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...In Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel, the author proves a point that the formation of human history developed differently all over the globe because of science. Jared Diamond explained how this is true using facts from science. The author wrote that, “The fourth and last set of factors consists of continental differences in area or total population size. A larger area or population means more potential inventors, more competing societies, more innovations available to adopt- and more pressure to adopt and retain innovations, because societies failing to do so will tend to be eliminated by competing societies. That fate befell African pygmies and many other hunter-gatherer populations displaced by farmers. Conversely, it also befell...
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...What Does it Mean to be Human in an Age of Modern Technology? What does it mean to be human in the age of modern technology? Many feel that technology is only a useful tool and has not changed what it means to be human. Others argue that today’s technological advances have become so rapid, sophisticated and ingrained in daily life it is taking away from the interest, welfare and humanistic nature of our society. Most all do agree that technology has certainly played a role in humanity’s social and behavioral progress throughout history. However, to what extent technology really drives the development of our social and behavioral changes can elicit a heated discussion. Humans are driven, curious creatures that seek to solve problems and have a need for social interactions. As well they desire some form of system of belief (though not necessarily religious in nature) and aspire to be part of something collective or feel a sense of purpose to life. Countless studies provide that human behavior arises out of the interaction between individuals and their environment. Although environments do influence human behavior, many contend the basic tenets of humanity such as compassion, the need to have connected relationships and the desire to improve upon our lives have not changed in the face of technology. However, it is clear that human attitudes and expectations today are certainly very different than even several generations ago. Much of which, is a direct result of technological...
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