Professor Jared Diamond is an American scientist and author of the best known book “Guns, germs, and steel”. He is known for drawing from a variety of fields, including geography, ecology, anthropology, and etc. Documentary movie which was shot on guns, germs, and steel, made an excellent job of demonstrating the authors theoretical approach in pursuit of the question “What are the factors that contributed to some country's capacity to grow, while others have remained impoverished?”. In each episodes of three parts, Jared Diamond visits a different continents of the world to find an answer for the root of inequality. He mainly focused on how environmental resources such as topography, climate of different parts of the world predisposed particular …show more content…
outcomes. His basic thesis statement is an environmental differences, geography and topography, that made an extreme differences in the world's societies, where some societies got advantages to progress and some are still stagnating.
His thesis based on the New Guinean, Yali's question “ Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo, we New Guinean people had little cargo of our own?”. Along with the author's statement, I will argue that the movie is a comparative history and Professor Diamond made a great job on his statement. He makes his points very clear and factual by using example throughout the movie. In each episodes of guns, germs, and steel, he provides one main theme. Episode one shows the differences in animal species and plants for the domestication, episode two demonstrates migration within the continents or parts of the country, and episode three is based on …show more content…
demography. First part of the movie starts with the Diamond's personal background in New Guinea and the root of his research question.
Part one shows one of the main theme of domestication of animals and plants which depends on the geography. The agricultural revolution started in the Middle East; barley and wheat were the first domesticated crops. The first farmers used common sense and did selective breading. Farming spread out from the Middle East to Eurasia. Only mountainous places did not develop a main food sources according to its location. The topography of the country played a main role in farming over that time up to now. Areas with great topography conferred advantages among others. Animals became second in domesticating by the Mideast. Goats and sheep were the first domesticated animals. Animal domestication improved the human condition. Animals were not only source of food, they were good for farming also in pulling plows. Once again geographically and topographically blessed areas had more advantages than others. Middle East became the most advanced area on Earth, but they lost their position according to the weather. They migrated to to the west and east. People of the new place quickly adopt what was brought by the Middle Easter's, and the civilization of Eurasia was rising. Back to the main theme of part one is that, the great geographical and topographical location of the place which had an access to a different natural resources played main role in getting more
developed and be advanced. This was one of the answers to the Yali's question and to the Diamond's research. Farming did not became a main feed source to the mountainous area of the New Guinea. Geographical position made New Guineans left behind; however, they are adaptive and clever people who have lived for decades in New Guinea. Second part of an episode is about migration over the countries. Professor Diamond goes to the South America to examine why Europeans were able to conquer the powerful Inca Empire. This part is more about the history of Francisco Pizarro, the leader of the Spanish force, and Atahualpa, the king of the Inca Empire. Since the Europeans, F. Pizarro, were more developed than the American Indians and had an advantage over the Incas. Inca Empire was more primitive, meaning they were way behind the Europeans. Pizarro used the defenseless position of Atahualpa. Pizarro captured Atahualpa for a certain period of time, than he killed him after he was done with his mission. Since the king of Incas was captured, indians ceased and paid Pizarro enormous amount of gold, silver, and jewelers in order to release Atahualpa, but the end is tragic. Another advantage of Europeans was germs (diseases such as smallpox). Since the Europeans have been in contact with animals for a long period of time they developed immunity to the disease. Native Americans did not have immunity resistance to the disease, a lot of people had died. Spain became rich from stealing gold and silver from the Native Americans. Migration within the continents gave its harvest. According to the part two Europeans harvest was because of Inca Empire; Pizarro had advantage of steel, weapons, germs, and horses to overcome or destroy the Inca Empire. One can be dominant over other because of the adaptation of useful sources such as steel, and this could be the answer to the Yali's question. In part three Jared Diamond in Africa. He examines the biological and geographical limits of the European colonial expansions, which is the different demography. European colonists are arrived to the Africa because of the climate. African climate was very similar to the Europe, so they can transported crops and animals. Moving from north to south Europeans entered to the tropical zone. Farming method did not work in tropical zone, because the temperature and soil was not suited to grow crops. However, Europeans were able to colonize South Africa, but could not go to the north because of the tropical climate. Even though, Africans were colonized they were happy to adopt new lifestyle and thousands of people were enslaved. When the colonization of Europeans finished, Africans were in mess. Overall, we can conclude from part two and three that one can take and advantage of another because of its level of developments and achievements. Looking in a broad-spectrum point of view, Professor Jared Diamond did a great job by providing many details supporting his statement point. However, the topic itself is too broad and massive that going into the deep details can open up another doors of information. Also, he used some scientific level of details on explaining in a simple words. The complex ideology of the movie was understandable and well supported with the evidence. For all of these impressive charackteristics and total running time of just three hours, the movie captured the main idea which is an environmental resources of different parts of the world predisposed particular outcomes, and the statement that Professor Diamond claims. Answer to the question “ why are some societies got advantages to progress and some are still stagnating?” is that the main role played geographical and topographical locations to be more developed and progress which includes to itself the domestication, migration, adaptation over the continents
The reason Jared Diamond wrote this book was to answer the question of his political friend Yali, why did some societies like Eurasia were able to develop Guns, Germs, and Steel that were able to dominate major parts of the world, and why New Guinea was not capable of doing this? This question is certainly not a small picture kind of question because it covers a broad realm. Diamond is a book that has tried his best to cover a whole pattern of history, starting from before the Ice Age to the modern period. But Diamond's all-time famous and award-winning book was really successful in explaining the broad question. Such a type of question is critical to gain a stronger understanding of Diamond’s argument and its effect on the field of history.
Jared Diamond, author of the Pulitzer Prize Winning, National Best Selling book Guns, Germs and Steel, summarizes his book by saying the following: "History followed different courses for different peoples because of differences among peoples' environments, not because of biological differences among peoples themselves." Guns, Germs and Steel is historical literature that documents Jared Diamond's views on how the world as we know it developed. However, is his thesis that environmental factors contribute so greatly to the development of society and culture valid? Traditions & Encounters: A Brief Global History is the textbook used for this class and it poses several different accounts of how society and culture developed that differ from Diamond's claims. However, neither Diamond nor Traditions are incorrect. Each poses varying, yet true, accounts of the same historical events. Each text chose to analyze history in a different manner. Not without flaws, Jared Diamond makes many claims throughout his work, and provides numerous examples and evidence to support his theories. In this essay, I will summarize Jared Diamond's accounts of world history and evolution of culture, and compare and contrast it with what I have learned using the textbook for this class.
The book tells the history of human civilization through the development of our food production and culture. A highly relevant book to present although food is a special type of natural resource or products hereof and history is a wider subject than conflict. The gradual transition towards hierarchical social order is described. Especially the significance of irrigation is compelling.
Diamond wrote this book to answer the question of a New Guinean politician, Yali. He 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 set out to find the answer to this question, to find out why history unfolded like it did. Diamond credits the inequalities in history to differences in environments not biological differences as so many people like to say. Most of the advantages the Europeans had were a direct result of geography. The main points that Diamond attributes to European dominance are early plant and animal domestication and as a result of close contact to animals the deadliest germs were given to the Europeans. As result of its East-West axis the diffusion of food production, technologies, humans and ideas were easily spread throughout Europe. The axis mean that there were similar climatic, geographic, and disease conditions to migrants and no barriers. So anything that could be grown in one area was sure to quickly spread and thrive in the neighboring locations. Moreover, political administration, economic exchanges, incentive for exploration and conquest, and making information available to every individual were facilitated after the development of writing.
I first read Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel in the Fall 2003 based on a recommendation from a friend. Many chapters of the book are truly fascinating, but I had criticisms of the book back then and hold even more now. Chief among these is the preponderance of analysis devoted to Papua New Guinea, as opposed to, say, an explanation of the greatly disparate levels of wealth and development among Eurasian nations. I will therefore attempt to confine this review on the "meat and potatoes" of his book: the dramatic Spanish conquest of the Incas; the impact of continental geography on food production; and finally, the origins of the Eurasian development of guns, germs, and steel. In terms of structure, I will first summarize the book's arguments, then critically assess the book's evidentiary base, and conclude with an analysis of how Guns, Germs, and Steel ultimately helps to address the wealth question.
“Why is it that you white people developed much cargo and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people had little cargo of our own?” (Diamond, page 3)
Many geographers have attempted creating a unified theory explaining why cultures advance much more readily than others. Very few have actually reached mainstream society and even fewer seem reasonable. However, Jared Diamond shines where most do not. His book, Guns, Germs, and Steel, proposes an idea that has long been established called environmental determinism. Most view environmental determinism as a racist theory attributing a peoples’ intelligence only to their oppressive climates and geographical barriers. Diamond instead has created a theory that applies environmental determinism to only a peoples’ technology—not the people themselves. This has given researchers valuable tools that allow them to explain why some nations have become the superpowers they are today. If applied to the modern United States, Jared Diamond and his new theory would attribute the country’s dominate status to blankity blankity blank.
I believe that the environment deiced whether a society will or will not have technology, militaristic and farming abilities imbedded within the society. That will give an advantage so that one society is better equipped than others.
“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.
Before the land of what we no class Turkey, Iraq, Jordan, and other countries in the middle east grains, such as wheat and wild barley, could be seen growing in the wild without human hand to cultivate and nurture it (Authors 2007). Over time, humans began to recognize the benefit of the plants and began the first signs of human agriculture. The skill of farming took time and trial and error, but along the way, humans began to settle down to tend to their crops. Though the first crops were nothing more than seed s thrown about without rhyme or reason to the process we know today such as fields having, rows and sorting out the seeds to create a higher yield each harvest (Authors 2007). Because of the trial and error process, agriculture of plants did not take place of a short period but took many, many years to evolve to what we know today as agriculture; the new fa...
Landes, D., 1999. The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 38-59
The factors of irrigation, inherent topography, and useful bronze-age technical innovations paved the way for the agricultural revolution to occur in the land of Sumer and Akkad. The people of the Tigris and the Euphrates basin, the ancient Sumerians, using the fertile land and the abundant water supply of the area, developed sophisticated irrigation systems and created what was probably the first cereal agriculture. This historical factor resulted in an excess of production of cereals, dates, and other commodities. The consequence of excess is the emergence of a productive peasant agricultural system and a redistributive economy that fuels the progress of civilization.
When looking through the topic of development, two drastically different ways to assess it arise. The majority of the western world looks at development in terms of per capita GNP. This means each country is evaluated on a level playing field, comparing the production of each country in economic value. Opposite this style of evaluation is that of the alternative view, which measures a country’s development on its ability to fulfill basic material and non-material needs. Cultural ties are strong in this case as most of the population does not produce for wealth but merely survival and tradition.
Why nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty, is a captivating read for all college economic courses. Coauthored by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, they optimistically attempt to answer the tough question of why some nations are rich and others are poor through political economic theories. They lay it all out in the preface and first chapter. According to Acemoglu and Robinson, the everyday United States citizen obtains more wealth than the every day Mexican, sub-Saharan African, Ethiopian, Mali, Sierra Leonne and Peruvian citizen as well as some Asian countries. The authors strategically arranged each chapter in a way that the reader, whomever he or she is, could easily grasp the following concept. Extractive nations that have political leadership and financial inconsistencies within their institutions are the largest contributor to poverty and despair within most countries. It also states that countries with socioeconomic institutions that work ‘for the people and by the people’, or in other words, focus on the internal agenda of that
Cipolla calls it the first great economic revolution (Cipolla 18). The development of agriculture leads to the development of communities, city-states, civilizations, and other settlements. The social structure that formed around agriculture brought about the possibility of specialization within a society, since not everyone had to hunt and gather all the time. Instead of living in an ecologically sustainable manner like the hunter/gatherers, people started living in an economic manner (Southwick 128). Specialization enabled the development of social institutions such as religion and government, and agriculture necessitated the development of irrigation.