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…
