...Reflection Paper Your name Institutional Affiliations History has been in existence since the formation of the earth and existence 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...
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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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... World History Unit Two: Global Inequality [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...
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...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 formation of each of these. To comprehend the origins of inequality, we need...
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...In the documentary "Guns, Germs, and Steel", Jared sought to determine the roots of inequality in the world when one of the natives from New Guinea, Yali, once asked him how "the white folk had more cargo and us New Guineans have nothing." This question would spark Diamond's journey on discovering the reason that some people were more privileged than others and where that privilege came from. Diamond would later come to the conclusion that geography played a major role in some civilizations progressing faster than others, as the availability of stable land and nutritious crops enabled societies to fulfill their primary needs, allowing for specialization which led to technological advancement. This technological advancement in a sense then became the determining force for development of societal of cultural values. On another hand, Diamond's work also reveal that Europeans have also derived their innovation from other nations, suggesting that groups construct knowledge for each other, allowing for a...
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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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...THE BEGINNING OF AGRICULTURE THE FIRST CIVILIZATION IN HISTORY APPEARED IN THE MIDDLE EAST. HOWEVER, 13 THOUSAND YEARS AGO, BEFORE THIS APPEARED, INEQUALITY HAD ALREADY SET FOOT. INEQUALITY WAS MOSTLY KNOWN AS “CARGO” BECAUSE IT RESEMBLED MATERIALS BROUGHT IN FROM WESTERNERS AND THE POWER THEY HELD. AS PEOPLE BEGAN DEVELOPING NEW WAYS AND SKILLS TO SURVIVE, HUNTING BECAME A NON-PRODUCTIVE WAY TO MEET THEIR NEEDS. IN THE DOCUMENTARY, “GUNS, GERMS, AND STEEL,” JARED DIAMOND, AN ANTHROPOLOGIST WHO STUDIED HOW AGRICULTURE DEVELOPED, EXPLAINED THAT IT TAKES TIME TO TRACK DOWN EACH ANIMAL WITH A BOW AND ARROW. THE RESULT OF THIS TOOL CAME OUT TO THERE NOT BEING A POSSIBILTITY OF FOOD BECAUSE IT ONLY DEPENDED ON HOW THE HUNT WOULD TURN OUT. ANOTHER DISADVANTAGE THAT OCCURRED DURING THIS TIME WAS THE LIMITATIONS OF FOOD LIKE THE SEGO PLANT. THE LIMITATIONS CONSISTED OF THE PLANT PRODUCING LOW PROTEIN AND CALCIUM, THERE WASN’T MUCH OF IT; WHICH MAKES PEOPLE WORK HARDER; AND IT COULDN’T BE STORED FOR A PERIOD OF TIME. THE SEGO PLANT ONLY LASTED ABOUT 3 DAYS AND WASN’T ENOUGH TO FEED THE POPULATION. THE CAUSES AND EFFECTS THAT THE DEVELOPMENT OF AGRICULTURE HAD ON HUMAN...
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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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...Cultural Anthropology Fall, 2014 Study Guide for Midterm Exam PART I: In-Class Component (10 points each, 100 points total) Directions The instructor will put on the in-class portion of the exam a number of terms, names, and concepts drawn from the following list. The student will pick ten (10) and answer in a short I.D./short answer format. Although your answers should be concise, they should be complete enough to convince the instructor that you thoroughly understand the course material. Where applicable, use examples or illustrations. Each student is permitted to have one 8” x 5” handwritten note card during the exam. Frank Boas scientific method “Creation Science” theory hypothesis Karl Marx Charles Darwin Frederick Engels Origin of the Species Jared Diamond “social Darwinism” Margaret Mead natural selection Yehudi Cohen zoological taxonomy Anthropology vs. Sociology taxon ethnographic methodologies Paleolithic genealogical method Mesolithic interviewing techniques Neolithic key cultural consultants agricultural revolution in Neolithic longitudinal research human zoological taxonomy annual cycle what primates have in common why anthropologists should spend more than one annual cycle primates “ivory tower” approach differences between humans and other primates “advocacy” approach Homininoids Homo sapiens American Anthropological Association ...
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...co1 Introduction: The Sixteen-Page Economic History of the World He may therefore be justly numbered among the benefactors of mankind, who contracts the great rules of life into short sentences, that may be easily impressed on the memory, and taught by frequent recollection to recur habitually to the mind. —Samuel Johnson, Rambler No. 175 (November 19, 1751) The basic outline of world economic history is surprisingly simple. Indeed it can be summarized in one diagram: figure 1.1. Before 1800 income per person—the food, clothing, heat, light, and housing available per head—varied across societies and epochs. But there was no upward trend. A simple but powerful mechanism explained in this book, the Malthusian Trap, ensured that short term gains in income through technological advances were inevitably lost through population growth. Thus the average person in the world of 1800 was no better off than the average person of 100,000 BC. Indeed in 1800 the bulk of the world population was poorer than their remote ancestors. The lucky denizens of wealthy societies such as eighteenth-century England or the Netherlands managed a material lifestyle equivalent to that of the Stone Age. But the vast swath of humanity in East and South Asia, particularly in China and Japan, eked out a living under conditions probably significantly poorer than those of cavemen. The quality of life also failed to improve on any other observable dimension. Life expectancy was no higher in 1800 than for hunter-gatherers:...
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...The Diamond of Sustainable Growth A Historical Framework for the study of political economy and economic development George David Smith, Richard Sylla, Robert E. Wright( NYU Stern School of Business For most of its existence, humanity neither enjoyed nor understood economic growth, or society’s capacity for creating wealth. Prior to the 18th century, the aggregate incomes of particular societies may have increased a little for short periods in a few places, but most of the time incomes hovered not far above the subsistence level. Powerful leaders and ruling classes could accumulate vast wealth, but this was normally achieved through the redistribution of incomes from the weak to the powerful, and certainly not through the creation of wealth as we know it today. Going back centuries, to paraphrase the 17th-century English philosopher Thomas Hobbes, human life was solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short. Peace and good weather were more likely to summon forth children more than prosperity. Whenever war, pestilence, and drought returned -- and they always did -- people died in droves. To many observers, humanity appeared doomed to spend eternity wet, cold, hungry, and grief-stricken. In the late 18th century, the English proto-economist Thomas Robert Malthus warned that the mass of humanity, quite aside from the foregoing perils, was doomed to a life at the margins of starvation, as surges of population growth would inevitably outstrip the finite sources...
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...Volume 10 Number 6 June 4, 2007 Black Intellectual Genocide: An Essay Review of IQ and the Wealth of Nations Girma Berhanu Göteborg University Sweden Lynn, Richard & Vanhanen, Tatu. (2002). IQ and the Wealth of Nations. Westport, CT: Praeger. Citation: Berhanu, Girma. (2007). Black intellectual genocide: An essay review of IQ and the Wealth of Nations. Education Review, 10(6). Retrieved [date] from http://edrev.asu.edu/essays/v10n6index.html. Abstract I review the book IQ and the Wealth of Nations, written by Richard Lynn and Tatu Vanhanen. I critique the authors’ major assertion that a significant part of the gap between rich and poor countries is due to differences in national intelligence. The authors claim that they have evidence that differences in national IQ account for substantial variation in per capita income and growth of a nation. This essay review debunks their assumptions that intellectual and income differences between nations stem from genetic differences. This critique provides an extended review of the research literature that argues against these assumptions and presents a different picture from that presented by Lynn and Vanhanen about the concept of intelligence, what IQ measures and does not measure. The essay exposes the racist, sexist, and antihuman nature of the research tradition in which the authors anchored their studies and the deep methodological flaws and theoretical assumptions that appear in their book. The low standards of scholarship...
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...Readings for American History Since 1877 Historiography in America...................................................................................................................................................... 2 How to teach history (and how not to) ................................................................................................................................ 6 How Ignorant Are Americans? ........................................................................................................................................... 9 The West ............................................................................................................................................................................... 11 The Education of Native Americans ................................................................................................................................. 11 Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee .................................................................................................................................... 15 Prostitution in the West: .................................................................................................................................................... 17 The Gilded Age ..................................................................................................................................................................... 21 The Duties of American Citizenship ...........................
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...tu Twelve Domains of Culture Chart |Mexican |Chinese |South Korean |Indian |Laotian |German |Canadian |Japanese |Filipino |Brazilian | |Overview, inhabited localities, & topography |Prefer to be referred to as Mexican American, geo-graphically, historically, and culturally diverse, reside mostly in CA, TX, IL, AZ, FL, NM, CO, 90% live in urban areas, fastest growing ethnic population in U.S. |Immigrants to Western countries very diverse, culture differs with mix of west and traditional values & beliefs, value accountability to family & neighbors, value higher education, most live in CA, NY, FL, TX |Some major industries are electronics, telecommu-nication, chemicals, & steel. Entertain-ment industry is booming. Mountain-ous. Rapidly increasing immigrant group in U.S.. |Leave their country to attain a higher standard of living. Both religious & social system |Land-locked country in South-east Asia. Mountains & flood-plains. Trop-ical mon-soon climate. Mon-soon season from May to October Popula-tion of 5.2 million as of 1998. 70% of popula-tion is under 30 years old. Most live in rural villages near a temple. Paddy rice is subsis-tence for major popula-tion. |Reserved, formal, like order, love music & celebra-tions. Christmas tree with all its décor is a German creation. 60 million Germans in U.S.. Beautiful landscapes mountain ranges, lowlands & ocean borders. Largest economy in Europe, third largest in world. Climate similar to NW portion of U.S.. Embrace...
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...Journal of Economic Literature Vol. XLV (March 2007), pp. 83–126 A Flat World, a Level Playing Field, a Small World After All, or None of the Above? A Review of Thomas L. Friedman’s The World is Flat EDWARD E. LEAMER∗ Geography, flat or not, creates special relationships between buyers and sellers who reside in the same neighborhoods, but Friedman turns this metaphor inside-out by using The World is Flat to warn us of the perils of a relationship-free world in which every economic transaction is contested globally. In his “flat” world, your wages are set in Shanghai. In fact, most of the footloose relationship-free jobs in apparel and footwear and consumer electronics departed the United States several decades ago, and few U.S. workers today feel the force of Chinese and Indian competition, notwithstanding the alarming anecdotes about the outsourcing of intellectual services. Of course, standardization, mechanization, and computerization all work to increase the number of footloose tasks, but innovation and education work in the opposite direction, creating relationship-based activities—like the writing of this review. It may only be personal conceit, but I imagine there is a reason why the Journal of Economic Literature asked me to do this review. 1. Prologue hen the Journal of Economic Literature asked me to write a review of The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux 2005) by Thomas Friedman, I responded with enthusiasm,...
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