Guns, Germs And Steel By Jared Diamond

In the book ‘’Guns, Germs and Steel’’ By Jared Diamond explores a brief history of the human world and how it has become what it is today. When Jared Diamond takes a visit to New Guinea, he is encountered by a local politician on the beach whose name is Yali, and as they walked and talked together, Yali asked a simple 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?’’ .That question made Jared go on the journey of his life. The book explains how three major powers: Guns, Germs, and Steel brought by the Europeans, conquered the world and raises a simple question on why many societies and civilizations were different back then and how it has shaped the fates of humanity as it is today.
It all started in pre-history time, when everyone in the world were living pretty much the same as hunter gatherers in small groups and moved forward as a living. But in a small village located in the Middle East,
farming became the best invention back then and the location in which they habited made farming far more successful than in other parts of the world. This place was known as Eurasia and it contained many animals such as pigs, cattle and horses that where domesticated for battle and food use and they are now spread across the world. Humans that inhabited this location had a geographical advantage because not only was it a great place to farm, but it also contained many animals to domesticate and thus made for great living place. As Europe takes advantage of their location, they began to develop innovations such as steel which gave them far superior and advanced weaponry and gave them the urge to explore new world such as Africa and the Americas. This advantage of having steel was useful to conquer a powerful empire like the Inca Empire that although had an army of 80,000 men, Spanish conquistadors were able to conquer with their advance weaponry and domesticated horses.
With the advancement of steel, came new weapons called ‘’guns’’ which were first introduced by Chinese, but perfected by the Europeans. This weapon, along with steel swords helped conquer many great civilizations such as the Inca and Aztec which gave them an advantage since most of the Natives did not know what these weapons where and gave them a scare. With the advancement of technology, steel made a huge impact of how it shaped today’s society. Not only was it used as a tool to kill people, but I was used for advanced farming tools that gave them an advantage for producing more crops to make more food for people. Europeans also developed writing which was very advanced at the time and makes a huge impact right now in the world and without it, we wouldn’t be as advanced as we are today.

Although metal tools and the innovation of writing played a big impact in the development of the world, there was another great weapon that the Europeans had over anyone else: germs.
These germs that Europeans carried where animal viruses that developed into human viruses because both came into contact where farming usually happens. When Europeans went to the Americas to conquer many places, they eventually ended off killing a lot of Natives with their animal carried viruses. This was such a tragedy that only few native Indians survived the different types of viruses that Europeans carried. Germs that carried over to natives in the Americas made them very weak and Europeans had most control of them, without germs Europeans would have not been able to conquer most of the Americas. Germs nowadays is still a huge problem in today’s Africa where Malaria kills thousands of people each day and also killed off many Europeans in the late 1800s that tried to settle in central
Africa.
At last, Yali’s question has a significant answer on why Europeans where able to conquer the world, instead of natives conquering everyone else? Well the answer relies on ‘’Guns, Germs, and steel’’ that the Europeans had. But why did Europeans had gun, germs and steel? Well it all goes back to geographical advantage that Europeans had over anyone else that made them have such an advanced society. The reason why we were all so different back then was because of the places we settled in that required a specific type of living. Because Europeans had a geographical advantage, they were able to develop far superior weapons and better farming tools that helped them have an advantage over the rest of the world.