From the Roots Up Diamond’s Response to Yali’s Question
Jared Diamond, the author of Guns, Germs and Steel, began his research over thirty years ago. Diamond is a biologist by profession, but his real interest lies in bird watching. It is because of this that Diamond traveled to Papa New Guinea. It was there that Diamond was presented with the question that spurred his research. A New Guinean named Yali, asked Diamond “Why you white man have so much cargo and we New Guineans so little?” This question was one that Diamond was unable to answer right away, although he figured it would not be too difficult to figure out. Through his years of research, Diamond claims that race has nothing to do with prosperity, but that it is ultimately agriculture and geography. He makes several points throughout the book to support this claim.
When Diamond started his research to the understanding of inequality amongst civilizations, he came to the conclusion that he needed to begin thirteen thousand years ago, back into prehistoric times when all humans were equal. The Middle East was where Diamond noticed the factors that would come into play when forming a civilization. History shows that all the different cultures began as hunters and gatherers. This caused a constant nomadic way of life. This nomadic way of living was due to the fact that they had to continuously move to wherever there were animals to hunt or plants to gather. The animal movements were attributed to the change in seasons, thus the nomads were forced to follow the cycle of migration in order to prevent starvation from lack of animals and plant life. Over time, hunting became a major epidemic because as the civilizations became more populated; fewer animals were available to hunt. Although gathering was more productive, it was unable to provide them with enough nutrition in most cases to live off of. This would eventually lead to diversity amongst civilizations due to their geographic locations. Thus resulting in two very different ways of life.
The diversity
When Diamond started his research to the understanding of inequality amongst civilizations, he came to the conclusion that he needed to begin thirteen thousand years ago, back into prehistoric times when all humans were equal. The Middle East was where Diamond noticed the factors that would come into play when forming a civilization. History shows that all the different cultures began as hunters and gatherers. This caused a constant nomadic way of life. This nomadic way of living was due to the fact that they had to continuously move to wherever there were animals to hunt or plants to gather. The animal movements were attributed to the change in seasons, thus the nomads were forced to follow the cycle of migration in order to prevent starvation from lack of animals and plant life. Over time, hunting became a major epidemic because as the civilizations became more populated; fewer animals were available to hunt. Although gathering was more productive, it was unable to provide them with enough nutrition in most cases to live off of. This would eventually lead to diversity amongst civilizations due to their geographic locations. Thus resulting in two very different ways of life.
The diversity
Cited: Diamond, Jared. Gun, Germs, And Steel. W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York, NY. 1999