Analysis Of Guns, Germs, And Steel By Jared Diamond

Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel was written to answer one man’s 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?”. The man who asked this was a Papua New Guinean politician named Yali, who Diamond met while he was walking down a beach in Papua New Guinea 25 years before he wrote Guns, Germs, and Steel. Yali was asking why Europeans (“white men “) have so many manufactured goods (“cargo”, such as umbrellas, clothing, medicine, soft drinks, etc.), while Yali’s people (“ black people”) have so little, and why does what they have comes from “white men”. He wanted to know what had happened to cause Europeans to dominate over other cultures with

superior guns, population-destroying germs, and steel, but not his people.

This essay will explain some of the reasons why the Middle East has developed so much better than Papua New Guinea through the evidence in Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel.
In chapter 4 of Guns, Germs, and Steel, Diamond discusses the benefits of animal domestication and herding over a hunter-gatherer society. The 4 most, and best, domesticated animals are cows, sheep, goats, and pigs. Cows, sheeps, and goats all produce milk, and all 4 produce meat. Also, leather can be made from certain pelts. Manure from the animals can be used on plants to increase quality and quantity of food production. The increased availability in calories allows for lower hunger and the ability to support a larger population. Also, exposure to animal-based germs allows for a build up in the immune system, which later helps prevent

against diseases. All of the benefits from these animals can be a tremendous help in growing and advancing your society, especially if these animals can be domesticated. Then, instead of tracking and killing the animals one by one, a large group of them can remain close to your village, town, etc. Once the animals are domesticated, caring for them will consume a lot less amount of time and energy then tracking them, therefore that excess time and energy can be spent farming, building new homes, or allowing certain members to become specialized in a certain skill such as medicine, religion, or government. All 4 of these animals originate in the Middle East, which has developed much better than Papua New Guinea. The only domesticated animal in Papua New Guinea is the pig, which produces no milk for food, or fur for clothing. This gives the Middle East a significant advantage. They have access to much better food and clothing sources then Papua New Guinea, allowing them to advance quicker and easier.
Chapter 6 goes over the difficulty of switching from a hunter-gatherer society to a farming one.

In order to even be able to switch, there has to be proper conditions: animals to domesticate, and the right crops that can be farmed. The Middle East had the best crops such as wheat and barley, which allowed them to grow much more food. This enabled them to become a farming based society, which allowed for specialists to advance in technology, science, medicine, gov’t, etc. The crops in Papua New Guinea are poor in nutrition and difficult to harvest, preventing them from being able to farm enough food to sustain themselves, let alone the excess food needed for specialists. This keeps them at the hunter-gatherer stage, preventing them from advancing into a global powerhouse. However, sometimes switching isn’t necessarily a choice, based on the want to advance. It can be forced by lack of wild animals to hunt or food to be foraged. If the population grows too big for what is naturally growing around them , then one of two things has to happen; either the society has to start domesticating its own food, or the population has to die down. In Papua New Guinea, there isn’t enough food around to support any larger amount of population, but they don’t have the right crops for domestication to grow the amount of food needed either. So they’re stuck at the population they’re

at.
The seventh chapter is about domesticating plants in order to make them bigger, more nutritious, and in some cases edible. Wild almonds are poisonous, therefore they need to be domesticated before they can be eaten. However, once domesticated, they become a healthy source of protein. Seed crops domestication came first. Plants were selected for domestication and improved based on the size, quality, and taste of the individual crop. The better plants were chosen to take seeds from, while the lesser plants were harvested, but not used for seeds. The new domesticated plants were larger, healthier, and more nutritous; therefore they could support a larger population without needing as much work. The Middle East had access to wheat, barley, and other crops that were easily domesticated, high in nutrition, and could be easily stored. This allowed them to build up a food surplus that would allow other members of society to become specialists and focus on things other than food. While in Papua New Guinea, their main focus is food because they dont have easily domesticated seed crops to provide large amounts of excess food.
There are many geographic differences between the Middle East and Papua New Guinea. The Middle East is mostly a hot desert, while Papua New Guinea is an island with a tropical climate. The available food sources are very different also. From the different types of animals to the different crops and plants, both areas have their own challenges. However, the Middle East clearly has many advantages over Papua New Guinea. That is why I believe the Middle East has a superior economic, political, and global standing then Papua New Guinea. Plus, there’s all that oil.