Guns Germs And Steel By Jerry Diamond Summary

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In this video, Jerry Diamond uses history to explain how Africans came to be in current economic status. At the heart of this African story lies the story of European occupation and subsequent colonization of Africa. To weave his story together, Diamond explains how through guns, germs and steel, the Europeans exercised an advantage over the Africans. However, Diamond makes it clear that it is Geography, rather than above factors, that has in history played a greater role in influencing the European and African economic and technological odds.
As the story starts, he illustrates how Geography gave the Europeans a head start in spearheading modern civilization. As agriculture developed, the Europeans luckily found themselves better endowed with surroundings that had wide varieties of domestic-able animals and crops strains. Better yet, the in Europe
To succeed at agriculture they had to understand the distinct climatic variation of the tropics from the climatic conditions in higher sub temperate latitudes. Similarly, they had to find ways of preventing and managing the tropical diseases, which were foreign to them. However, before they realized their new circumstances, they faced huge loses in agricultural capital and lives to tropical infections.
After several decades of continued failure, the Europeans realized the circumstances at the tropics were alien to them. However, the natives were comfortable and the tropical conditions. By colonization the natives, Europeans gained an edge over the tropics. Now that they could take advantage of African’s forced labor, their exposure to tropical health hazards was reduced immensely. Similarly, the Europeans control mastery over steel production enabled them to build railroads at they used to tighten their grip over African territory and its