Jared Diamond Summary

Jared Diamond’s explanation for Yali’s question, is that it is not because of the racial diversity between the white and the black to make one have cargo and one not to have any cargo, but the fact that there were geographic variations that made certain region more suitable for agriculture than others. The whites had better geographic variations than the blacks, which made it why they had developed so much cargo and the blacks had little cargo of their own.

Many other people, other than Diamond, have attempted to answer the Yali’s question. There have been individuals of Northern Europe who have come up with an explanation of their climate and forms of agriculture they have, which requires the Northern Europeans to be technologically inventive

I assumed that a farming lifestyle would be an easier lifestyle than the lifestyle of hunter gatherers for many reasons. For example, you would not have to be constantly changing locations and you can control the food and animals you domesticate to get a steady source of food. Diamond challenged this assumption by him saying that life was actually harder in early farming communities than in hunter gatherer bands. It was not until farming became more established and more productive that life in farming communities became easier.

A civilization leads to epidemics because of proximity. When a civilization flourishes, more people are living closer together in order to get more people into the civilization. They also gather together frequently, and are more likely to spread disease. Also, in a civilization, there might be public water ways and wells so many people have access to water. Many early civilizations did not know or think about treating water systems to prevent epidemics, so everyone used the same water, and if there was something wrong with it, an epidemic was inevitable and the whole civilization would obtain