Importance of Agriculture

“Guns, Germs, and Steel” by Jared Diamond examines the reasons for why the Western world progressed faster and was able to conquer the people such as the Native Americans and the New Guineans. Diamond uses a scientific approach to analyze this history, Many points he made were interesting and possibly viable. It makes sense that environmental factors can affect how fast a country can progress. For example, if it takes a longer time to produce food in one place than the other, the place that takes shorter time to produce food will have more free time to spend on activities and learning that can help them progress faster. The human race began as a solitary race, with several small groups foraging together for wild plants and animals to eat. The beginning of modern civilization has its roots in agriculture. In terms of agricultural factors, there is a vast disparity between the resources that the Eurasians possessed and those of other civilizations. Eurasians had multiple kinds of large mammals to domesticate while the rest of the world wasn’t even able to domesticate more than one species of mammal. Also, Eurasia possesses massive landmasses where many crops could be planted and large groups of animals could be domesticated for food. Eurasians also were able to diversify the crops they could grow. Barley, wheat, and other sources of protein were planted in contrast to maize, which doesn’t provide nearly as much nutrition. The variety of resources available meant that Eurasians were able to allocate labor in separate groups. This division of labor allowed for the foundations of a modern civilization to be built. With these new resources available, countries were then able to trade with other nations. There are less significant barriers to trade in Europe when compared to other countries (ie. Japan). Therefore, the development of iron and the spread of modern agriculture accounted for the rise of the west.