Guns, Germs And Steel: An Analysis

Throughout the nineteenth century, Europeans were able to control and dominate most of the world. Europe was able to emerge as a world power because of its economic supremacy and individualism. Europe came to rule the world because of its geographical determinism, British sea power which built the modern global system, and the continuous competitions that led to a self-perpetuating evolution in European economy. The main reason for Europe to gain control and dominate the world is because of geographical determinism. Many people argue that it was by geographical luck that allowed Europe to become dominate and gain control of the world. Jared Diamond argues this thesis in his book Guns, Germs, and Steel. Mr. Diamond argues that Europe was able to dominate because of where it was located. He says Europe gained control because of two causes. First, there was a surplus of agriculture available where Europeans had settled. It was also home to many domesticated
The British navy “reshaped the world in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to fit the needs and desires of the British Empire. Those needs---access to markets, freedom of trade across international boundaries, and orderly state system that prefers peace to war, speedy communication and travel across open seas and skies---remain the principal features of globalizations today.” If there had been no British navy there would be no British Empire, and without the British Empire there would be no Commonwealth. The British sea power establish trade routes going all the way to “America and the Caribbean around the coast of Africa to India and China.” After 1815, the world’s system that emerged was “increasingly reliant on the Royal Navy”---created by John Hawkins to rely on control of the seas rather than a sea army---“as international policeman.” Without the navy, Europe would have never been able to rule and dominate the