All of our history can be dated down to some place anywhere in the world and the time, now just imagine if that history could still be affecting you to this day. In Jared Diamonds Guns, Gems, and Steel he explores the idea, the theory that geographic could determine the differences between societies and social development. The book is framed upon a question that Yali, a New Guinean politician, asked him as they were chatting the question being “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?” Diamond concludes that geography has ultimately affected the differences between peoples of the world. Many of the points are all based around that geography is the
Jared Diamond begins Guns with a prologue which sets the stage for the rest of the book. Approached in New Guinea by his friend and local politician Yali, he is posed a 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?" Yali's question flared a nerve in Diamond. This question brought about the thesis of his book, that environment is more persuasive on development of civilization than people may have once thought.
“History followed different courses for different peoples because of differences among peoples ' environments, not because of biological differences among peoples themselves” (Jared Diamond). In the book Guns Germs and Steel he accounted a conversation with Yali, a New Guinean politician that had asked “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?”. Diamond tries to answer this by describing the difference in use of government throughout history by bands, tribes, chiefdoms, and states.
...sumption, creates emission of greenhouse gases and other harmful chemical materials. Once released into the air, it can cause environmental problems, which in turn threatens not only the environment, but also the health of the people who live in it. In order to reduce the use of energy to help protect our planet and our health, the diamond mining industry has implemented renewable energy programs to monitor energy and carbon emission. Since its beginning, mining company PHP Billiton program has saved an equivalent of one million liters of diesel fuel per year at their Ekati Diamond Mine in Canada’s Northwest Territories. The health of the environment and the health of humanity are as one. Whatever we do to our planet, we do to ourselves. Reducing energy consumption of diamond mining not only helps protect our planet, but also helps protect the health of our people.
I deeply agree with Jared Diamond’s ideas on the relationship between geography and history. Geography has had a lot to do with the way early civilizations grew and developed over the course of history. In this essay, I will explain in detail how and why certain civilizations grew quickly. Through my studying and interest in history I can see that it’s very clear that certain civilizations grew faster than others based on geographical location. There is a strong and clear link between geographical location and the history of early civilizations.
An analysis of the two civilizations, Sumer and Egypt reveals one challenge facing human social development: geography and environmental features tend to shape the patterns of civilizations. Although the civilization of Sumer was prosperous and powerful, its geographical features ultimately weakened Sumer, exposing its vulnerability to invasion by neighboring civilizations. Egypt was similar to Mesopotamian civilizations in many ways, but Egypt’s distinct differences led to a distinguished social systems: government, economic, and religion that contributed to the seemingly endless prosperity of the Egyptians.
Geography has provided natural resources and boundaries for cultures continuously over many generations. The topography led civilization to have protection from other cultures and plentiful natural resources that they used for human survival or for an economic profit. With a good amount of resources available, cultures like India and China thrived in the creation and expansion of their civilizations. Geography helped India and China civilization develop their culture, spread their religion, and determine the rate at which each civilization’s ideas were transferred. The physical features that India and China lived on helped their cultures form and thrive into their current form.
It’s hard to imagine that a mineral could be fueling wars and funding corrupt governments. This mineral can be smuggled undetected across countries in a coat pocket, then be sold for vast amounts of money. This mineral is used in power tools, parts of x-ray machines, and microchips but mostly jewelry. Once considered the ultimate symbol of love, the diamond has a darker story. "Blood" diamonds or "conflict" diamonds are those mined, polished, or traded in areas of the world where the rule of law does not exist. They often originate in war-torn countries like Liberia, Sierra Leone, Angola, and Côte d'Ivoire were rebels use these gems to fund genocide or other questionable objectives. Even with a system known as the Kimberly process which tracks diamonds to prevent trade of these illicit gems, infractions continue as the process is seriously flawed. The continuation of the blood diamond trade is inhuman, and unethical, and in order to cease this illicit trade further action to redefine a conflict diamond, as well as reform to the diamond certification prosess is nessasary.
Diamonds symbolize wealth, success, power, and really all of the characteristics of living the good life. Shirley Bassey immortalized her love for the jewels as she sang “diamonds are forever, they are all I need to please me “are the first two lines of the song. Diamonds are forever is the theme song of the same name for the seventh film in the James Bond Franchise. Diamonds are forever was released in 1971, transitioning into the decade 2010 I believe we still have the same Obsession on the value we as consumers and a society place on Diamonds. People have a fascination with diamonds. Although these precious stones are visually captivating and highly valuable are they more precious than human life? If the answer is Yes, Then you support blood/conflict diamonds. If the answer is No, than become a conscious consumer by purchasing only certified diamonds. The trading and distribution of blood diamonds must have zero demand and zero tolerance if blood diamonds are to be complete if blood diamonds are to be completely and effectively eliminated.
In summary, Davidson successful traces Africa’s earliest origins and demonstrates that this is a civilization far from having no arts, technology, sophistication and unique culture. Culture and civilization as we know it today can be traced back to Africa, and modern science has verified the early perceptions of Europeans to be wrong. He provides more than adequate evidence of Africa having a history complete with vast and rich civilization, including archaeological finds and specialized interviews with distinguished scholars and philosophers. Despite the fact that society possesses a more positive attitude towards African civilization today in terms of recognition, equality, and acceptance than in the past, negative stereotypes are still acknowledged and modern day racism unfortunately exists. I believe that the existence of Davidson’s work and videos such as Different but Equal are crucial to challenging these stereotypes and discrimination in order to create a more accurate image of Africa and its history. Overall, Davidson proves that the continent of Africa is home to a history that is just as meaningful, comprehensive, and progressive as that of any other civilization in the
Many people in society today take for granted all the things they have been constantly consuming for generations. They all see the final product, but hardly ever notice what goes on into making it and where it goes when they’re done using it. In this report, the diamond commodity chain is followed from beginning to end and an explanation of some of the issues faced by the people associated with this product at each state of the commodity chain will also be addressed. Moreover, this report analyzes the working conditions and practices of diamond miners. Many workers, children, and communities are exploited in the industry of diamond mining. The health and well being of these people are constantly at risk and an effort to address this significant issue needs our immediate attention. Luxury commodities come with a cost. Some cost are higher than others. In a world where the rich and poor are countless, and the middle class are few, labor practices in less fortunate countries should be questioned.
When studying ancient civilizations and the beginning societies in the world, the geography has shaped its story significantly. Depending on the location of the civilization society, whether or not water was nearby was crucial for its survival. With trade networks, metals, foods, and languages were spread. Weapons were able to be formed from these metals which led to a stronger military. Mountain ranges formed the boundaries of civilizations. Geography greatly impacted Asia, Africa and Europe.
Diamonds mined illegally caused a lot of problems, it caused wars and killed millions of people all for people to make money. Blood diamonds were used by rebel movements to finance wars against the government. The rebel groups successfully overthrew the government in 1999 and continue to cause conflict. They traded diamonds to buy weapons to terrorize and kill the civilians and forced them to dig in the mud along riverbanks with their bare hands to mine the diamonds.
When one is on the other side of the earth, there is only so much information that a person could obtain. This was a great enough reason for the author, Greg Campbell, of "Blood Diamonds" to expose what all eyes are not seeing and what many are blind to in this world. Campbell went out to research the tracks and origins of a very valuable stone known as the diamond. In doing so, he urges to research the origins and life of this precious rock. He goes about researching just exactly how the life of the diamond begins in the jungles of Sierra Leone and ends up in the London on its market. This is what could be said to be the ultimate reason for this book "Blood Diamond”. Evidently, Campbell wanted to expose or let it be known how African were being mistreated and exploited from greed for a precious rock, a precious rock that at first was not even appearing to the human eye .
...mong the world are contributed by the biological differences among peoples, even though there are firm evidences that this position is flawed. In this sense, Diamond’s theory of geographical determinism can be perceived as an example of “unconceived alternatives”. Indeed, Diamond argued that this is a very serious problem for social sciences, not only because it will create an intellectual gap of human history, but also create a more severe moral (or perhaps racist) problem (Diamond 34). In conclusion, although the problem of unconceived alternatives poses a significant threat to scientific realism, at the heart of the matter it is not to undermine science completely, but perhaps to regard scientific theories as “useful conceptual tools” for explaining and predicting the world, instead of literal descriptions of how things stand in nature itself (P. K. Stanford 5).
We have been learning about how geographical luck affects economic success in countries around the world through the perspective of Jared Diamond. Diamond is an american scientist at UCLA with interesting views on the discrepancy among countries around the world on an economic level. He believes that a country’s development and success is based on its geography and climate. Diamond first started to notice this when he was in the island country of Papua New Guinea. The people here live in a very isolated non-technologically advanced society. Papua New Guineans are not stupid, they just have minimal technological advancements and Diamond believes that this is due to their geography. Then though, the people that lived in the “Fertile Crescent”