The essential purpose I determined for Jared Diamond’s book, Guns, Germs, and Steel: A Short History of
Everybody for the Last 13,000 Years, is to ask: Why did Eurasian societies develop much more rapidly than
all other societies? I found Diamond’s most intriguing argument to be that some
geographic areas had a “head-start” in development over others, before the
so-called “rise of civilization” even began.
Did the time of settlement give certain regions an advantage over
others? How about the time of
adaptation? There is evidence that
Africa would have had the greatest “head start,” being the most genetically
diverse, but as history panned out, it is evident that societies on the African
continent remain in developing stages, despite their extremely long existence. What it ultimately comes down to is "History
followed different courses for different peoples because of differences among
peoples' environments, not because of biological differences among peoples
themselves." Diamond exemplifies this in his discussion on
how the development of Polynesian islands differed due to their distinct
environments from one another in Chapter 2.
While some islands remained hunter-gather societies, others emerged as
“proto-empires.”
The heart of Diamond’s quest to find
the reason for such social divergence across continents lies in the importance
of food. As he describes in the books
second section, a basal point for social development is the evolution from a
hunter-gatherer lifestyle toward food production. Food production has led to some of the most
severe stratifications in social order, accounting for the subordination of
Native Americans by European conquerors and the perceived demand for African
slaves. Diamond goes on to explain that
agricultural societies we able to generate food surpluses, which permitted
these societies to support full-time artisans who did not need to grow their
own food. Consequently, these societies
developed more advanced technologies and governments, increasing rates of
survival. Hunter-gatherer societies had far more localized political systems,
based around the needs of the immediate tribe rather than more widespread and
specialized sects of a larger community.
Thus, agricultural societies, namely in Europe, began to develop
intricate governments that could sustain military forces, exploration voyages,
and innovative tools, all of which contribute to their exponential rise to
power.
I will admit that I have not yet completed
this (extremely long) book, but I could imagine that things get really
interesting when he starts talking about the impact on guns, because that
changes the conflict from human versus human to human versus armed human. I personally find this book interesting,
though I do not see it’s direct pertinence to this class. The most relevant topic was on the evolution
of germs and how they influenced dense populations. However, I think we were adequately exposed
to this subject in Dr. Sharon Moalem’s book, Survival of the Sickest.
I agree with a lot on this post. It is a very interesting book, however, I find that it is a difficult read and sometimes I find it tedious. Mostly because geography is not my strong suite. In any case, I agree that the "head start" idea is very intriguing. What I found especially interesting was the "war", for lack of better words, between the Maori and Moriori and how it is relevant to wars/hate crimes within the past century. It is clear proof on how history has repeated itself. I still wish I had a clear cut (short) answer for Yali's question, but I feel like there could never be one because of the differing point of views.
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