FREE ESSAY ON GUNS, GERMS AND STEEL

GUNS, GERMS AND STEEL

Book Review on Jared Diamond's
Guns, Germs and Steel
Why is it that Europeans ended up conquering so much of the world? Or as Yali puts it in
the far beginning of the book, "Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo
and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people had little cargo of our own"? Despite
all the contrary evidence from anthropology and human biology, many persist in
attributing the differing political and economic successes of the world's peoples to
historical contingency. On the other hand though, the author sees the fundamental causes
as environmental, resting ultimately on ecological differences between the continents and
as he well puts it on page 25: "Authors are regularly asked by journalists to summarize a
long book in one sentence. For this book, here is such a sentence: 'History followed
different courses for different peoples because of differences among peoples'
environments, not because of biological difference among peoples themselves." 
The complex and integrated argument unfolds in four parts, strategically constructed by
questions: why have different continents and regions developed so differently like the
Maori killing the Moriori, and why did Pizzaro capture Inca emperor Atahuallpa. The first
part, "from Eden to Cajamarca," sketches developments on all the continents before 11000
BC. In the second part, the author gives approximate dates on the early production of
food and explains why certain peoples developed food production whereas others did not.
Followed by the studies of why some peoples chose not to farm, why some did not
domesticate animals, and why production spread on different rates at different
continents. In part three the author argues that the settled communities made possible by
production of plant and animal food allowed diseases to leap from domesticated animals to
humans. He also links success in food production to the inventions of writing and of
technology. These he relates also to government and religion, which he characterizes as
"kleptocracy". After all this research and explanation the author returns to reconsider
the course of human development on each continent. Starting first with Australia and New
Guinea, then with China, Polynesia, Eurasia and the Americas and finally Africa.
Jared Diamond sees food production, or the domestication of plants and animals, as the
central key to human history. In a relatively short display (part two), the author
outlines the origins of agriculture. He describes when and where food production
originated, how it spread from the Fertile Crescent to other parts of the world and why.
There is a deep explanation about the types of crops around the world, and a thorough
description why the large seeded wild plants in Eurasia were easy to domesticate. Eurasia
had the same climate over its long east-west axis whereas the Americas and Africa had a
huge variation and thus could not grow those kinds of plants. The characteristics of
these crops are extensively discussed, driving us, the readers, to the conclusion that
food production indeed played a major role in a material sense, mental sense, as an agent
of civilization and as a source of power.
Firstly, the author argues that ancient farmers had to develop more advanced tools for
producing more amounts of food and had the opportunity to support people that did not
work in the fields, such as politicians, warriors, priests and so on. As a result of
that, farmers became materialistically richer than hunter-gatherers who stayed in
relatively small groups, because hunters could not support people that were not able to
hunt and kill wild animals. More food available meant, and still does, more people. More
people to feed requires better technology and also soldiers to guard, politicians to make
laws, priests to have as spiritual leaders and so on. Through this argument we can see
that new techniques were being invented and new levels of hierarchy as well. So, in a
nutshell, with food as basis the farmers were able to first build the materials, then
establish some sort of a hierarchical system, which led to the invention of the alphabet
and the rise of major civilizations.
A similar analysis is carried out for the domestication of large mammals. Here, again,
Eurasia was favored with almost all the suitable species. The author in this particular
section gives modern examples of modern animal breeders that were not able to domesticate
some wild large mammals of Africa and justifies why ancient Africans and other peoples
could not domesticate them either. Then, he continues on to demonstrate that when large
animals such as horses became available to some of those peoples, such as the Native
Americans, they adopted them and made use of them. 
Guns, Germs and Steel is a fascinating synthesis that brings together history,
archaeology, agriculture, linguistics, medicine, evolution and many other fields. We can
see that the writer starts off the book with a notable amount of frustration about the
mistaken ideas our society has come to believe: " ... objection to such racist
explanations is not just that they are loathsome, but also that they are wrong.
...evidence for the existence of human differences in intelligence... is lacking.
...modern "Stone Age" people are probably more intelligent ... than industrial peoples"
(page 19). Through these strong words we can see that he will try to convince people that
there was something else holding people back and there is not such a thing as a superior
race.
There are a lot of rock solid clever arguments in this book about writing, language and
how people came about to where we stand today. Studying extensively the history of World
War II, I've attained the belief of cause and effect and the writer describes almost all
of his arguments giving out a strong case. The only thing that I did not quite grasp, was
the quick description of the Spaniards' conquest of Mesoamerica; what exactly caused the
Spaniards to capture the natives, since the natives were not a thread to them?
Besides that, I believe Guns, Germs and Steel was a very well structured, extensively
researched and superbly presented book. Reading this was actually a different experience,
because it covers and explains in a nutshell how, when and why we are here today.