Guns Germs And Steel Critical Analysis

Time can provide connections and ideas of answers to complicated and intricate questions. In the book Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond, the author encounters a man named Yali while on a trip to new Guinea. Yali asks Diamond a question that is essentially about advantages and disadvantages between different civilizations. The author cannot provide a definite answer. Later in the book, Jared Diamond describes how Francisco Pizarro, a Spanish conquistador, easily overcame the Incas using European advantage. So, what is Yali’s question and how does the author attempt to answer? How did Pizarro defeat the Incas and how does this relate? Yali’s question attempts to be answered by the author, but a closer look into how Pizarro defeated the
However, there is no single reason for inequalities between humans today. Differences between civilizations involving politics and technology date back to 1500 A.D., and are the main cause of imbalance today. While a lot of Europe, Asia, and North Africa were metal- equipped empires, some even on the brink of industrialization, parts of sub- Saharan Africa were divided among chiefdoms and still using iron tools. Most people still lived as farmers or hunter- gatherers with stone tools, for instance, the Aztecs and Incas. Already there is an imbalance between civilizations, as empires with steel weapons are stronger than empires with stone and wood weapons. There is no definite answer as to why some cultures developed steel weapons, along with guns and germs, faster than others. One explanation for Yali’s question is that history is different for different people due to variables in peoples’ environments. For example, food production differs in different places around the world based on the orientation of the continents’ axes. More food production results in more time to create things and develop technologies, which help advance
The fact that Europeans colonized the New World instead of Native Americans colonizing the Old World can be seen as a simple answer to Yali’s question. This is because Europeans were able to develop maritime technology that would take them to the Americas, whereas Native Americans were not able to develop ships strong enough to take them to the Old World. This is also a part of the answer to Yali’s question. Europeans were fortunate enough to be able to develop the things that they needed. Pizarro had success for the obvious reasons of maritime technology, steel weapons, guns, and horses, among other things. Simply, the Europeans had more and better cargo. The two different events in history are related because the things that made the white more powerful during the Spanish conquest can still be seen as making them more powerful now, in relation to New Guinea.

The author of the book Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond, tries hard to answer Yali’s question of why humans developed at such different rates on different continents. However, he cannot. In order to piece an answer together, a look at history and how it has effected life today can help. For example, why and how Francisco Pizarro was so easily able to defeat the Incas loans an answer. The question is like a puzzle. There is not one, simple answer, rather, multiple complex answers that still