Guns Germs And Steel Essay

The book Guns, Germs, and Steel is about how many different things contributed to the success of societies versus the destruction of other societies. The book starts out with the author, Jared Diamond, in New Guinea talking to a New Guinean politician named Yali. Yali asked Diamond "Why white men developed so much cargo…" Diamond was determined to seek an answer to Yali's question. Diamond surrounds his answer on how History followed different courses for different people because of differences among peoples' environments, not because of biological differences among peoples themselves. Diamond wonders how the Europeans could have so much power and advanced technology while the rest of the world was hunting and gathering. Diamond’s answer is revolutionary. People have attributed Europe's overwhelming success in the areas of economics and politics to things such as racial features, and biological differences. However, Diamond suggests that the "superiority" of Europeans was simply due to their environment. He bases their success to a lucky chance and ecological differences of the continents. First, Diamond gives a brief summary and update of the pre-history of the world, dating back to 11,000 B.C.E. This helped in seeing exactly how diverse some cultures were in their development. He uses Polynesia as an example of what happened in the world. He lived there for some time to study the people and their cultures in detail. He used this because the Polynesians all came from the same cultural and ethnic background, so if his thesis proved to be true, it would also prove the others wrong. He believed that the diversity of the world in politics and economics had nothing to do with race, but rather with environmental differences (geography). A long time ago, the Polynesian people were split into completely different environments, ranging from rocky, volcanic areas, to arid grasslands depending on the island. As Diamond predicted, some islands, even now, were inhabited by hunter-gatherer societies, while others were developed into civilized states and empires. Diamond believed that the differences were divided between the Modern Stone Age versus the Industrial age. The environment you lived in would affect your perception of the world you grew to know. Climate, wealth, and power were some of the things that had a huge impact on our history. In the cold, you have to find shelter and clothing to survive. In warm climate, clothing would not be a necessity. The Europeans had much more "cargo" than the New Guineans therefore they could trade or sell their cargo to make them wealthier. The people living in the Stone Age had to create their own tools, weapons, and survival methods to continue civilization. Without their ability to create the necessary tools to survive, civilizations did not last. Diamond also discusses how plants and animals spread due to geography. Much of the evolution of people has to do with the domestication of plants. Once groups of people stopped hunting and gathering and stayed in one place by a water source, they could obtain all the strongest strains of wheat and barley for growing. They developed buildings that housed the grains and could keep them for years which could feed more people. The grains had more nutrients which could also help keep the tribe larger and capable of more work. Along with plants came the domestication of animals. They could then control where the animals went, what they ate, and when they bred. They used certain animals for their milk, and others for their fur and hides to clothe themselves for warmth. The most important part of animal domestication was being able to use them as work animals. These animals were bred for the reason of pulling plows for agriculture. With animals helping, people could develop much more land for growing crops and could help feed a larger population of people. The largest influence domestication of plants and animals had on civilizations was that not everyone had to obtain their own food.