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Chapter Summary: Professor Diamond

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Mackenzie Follis

7th Period, Frazier
In the Prologue the author presents us with Yali’s question. Professor Diamond rephrases the question as followed. “Why did human development proceed at such different rates on different continents?” and “why did wealth and power become distributed as they now are, rather than in some other way?” Diamond continues to try and explain the answer to Yali’s question while asking similar questions, such as: “Why is it that europeans, despite their likely genetic disadvantage and their undoubted developmental disadvantage, ended up with much more of the cargo?”
The Europeans colonized the New world rather than Native Americans colonizing Europe simply due to the European stage of development. The Europeans had military technology (guns and steel),political organization, their superior armament, knowledge of human behavior …show more content…

The Hunting - Gathering lifestyle became less and less rewarding over the years. Another factor, resulting in the lifestyles being less rewarding, was that plant domestication was becoming more rewarding. A third factor was the development of technologies on which food production would eventually end up depending on. A fourth factor was the link between the rise of human population density and the rise in food production.
The axis of a continent played an important part in the success of human beings. The Fertile Crescent had a very rapid spread of crops due to the east- west axis of Eurasia. It has the longest growing season because of it’s closeness to the equator. The plants were also adapted to the diseases prevalent at this latitude. The non success of some human beings was due to the north- south axis of Mexico and the America’s. The cooler climates and shorter growing seasons was not a good atmosphere for plants. The axis was also not suitable for crop diffusion because of the dry

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