The book Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond was first published in 1997, and then revised in 2005. Mr. Diamond is a Professor of Geography and Physiology at UCLA. Diamond’s interest in bird watching and his study of bird evolution has taken him to several places, including South America, South Africa, Indonesia, Australia, and New Guinea. He has spent an ample amount of time living in New Guinea with a tribe in the forest, and learning from them. He’s said he often feels like a fool when he can’t follow a trail or other endeavors that come second nature to the other tribespeople. Diamond’s mother is a linguist and a teacher, his father studies the genetics of childhood diseases. While attending school …show more content…
He first broached Yali’s question in a chapter of his book, The Third Chimpanzee, but he felt he needed to be discussed in more depth. He then applied this question on a broader scope, “why did wealth and power become distributed as they now are, rather than in some other way?” Diamond poses several questions throughout this book and then gives detailed accounts on why history took the course it …show more content…
The author does seem to mention all the relevant facts he needs to while skipping the lengthy journey from apes to Homo sapiens, that we read about in Worlds Apart. Diamond even felt the need after his book was published to republish it so he could add the chapter, “Who Are The Japanese.” He recognized that his first version lacked a discussion about the Japanese and their uniqueness. He describes how their development in isolation took place and the mythologies they created around their own history. I felt that the author skipped any in-depth discussions about religion in this book in favor of cultures. He mentioned most of the relevant facts pertaining to a society’s culture, (Gods, rituals, priests). Diamond (maybe purposely) shied away from any in-depth views on religion or the development of them. Also, the divisions of religion may have been outside of the scope of this
Title Some people will go to great lengths to get home safely. They will sacrifice muchPeople will do everything so that they can to survive, but how much are they willing to sacrifice to live?. When people are put into extreme situations, they are forced to do everything necessary to survive. In the short story, “The Most Dangerous Game” by Richard Connell, Rainsford is stranded in the middle of the Caribbean on Ship-Trap Island. On the island, Rainsford is forced to play General Zaroff’s game.
3885 Wednesday Wars February “You should learn from your competitor, but never copy. ”-Jack Ma. In The Wednesday Wars, by Gary D. Schmidt, the lead character, Holling Hoodhood has a dad who’s constantly agitated and distressed about his job. If you do one little thing that could mess up his business, it could affect the descendants after him. Holling’s dad finally has a chance to have his verge of happiness.
Jared Diamond’s thesis in Guns, Germs, and Steel is erroneous because it was mainly the inventions of the Industrial Revolution, specifically the light bulb and railway train, that really separated the European West from the rest of the world and enabled European global domination. The inventions of both the railway train and light bulb had profound impacts on improving manufacturing and transportation efficiency in European countries at different times throughout the nineteenth century. Jared Diamond explains why the Americas or in Africa did not surpass and become global dominants: “Diffusion was slower in Africa and especially in the Americas, because of those continents’ north-south major axes and geographic and ecological barriers”(Diamond
Ned Blackhawk, Violence over the Land does a great job at depicting how the Early american west was created and all of the violence that the native people endured over many years. For as long as I can remember the American west was all about shooting and gun fights due to how most people in history portray it. However Ned Blackhawk does a great job bringing many hard aspects of the Early American West to light. Blackhawk brings a unique perspective to light discussing how many different empires from the Spanish to American’s bringing hardships, death and diseases to the Indian groups living on the land hinting at the title “Violence over the Land”. He discussed how over time the native population has had a very pauperized life.
Chapter three of Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond is a story about how Francisco Pizarro, the Conquistador, brought the end to the Inca civilization with only two hundred men. Diamond uses real accounts from six of the 200 men to tell what happened. The story goes like: Francisco Pizarro by order of the King to travel across New World and conquer the lands and riches for his nation. They had gathered information about an Incan Empire and soon sent their sights on capturing the Incans. The Spanish Conquistadores tried to the Incan leader, Atahuallpa, to convert to Christianity but it failed so Pizarro then captured Atahullpa.
In Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond opposed the idea that European civilizations have advanced further than their contemporaries in other continents because their inhabitants were intellectually superior. Instead, he supported the notion that some civilizations developed at a quicker pace than others because of the environmental differences that were present in the continents where they resided. Factors such as wildlife, climate, and the types of resources presented in an area have dramatically affected the growth and development of hunter-gatherer groups into villages, and eventually, nations. In places where the environmental conditions were not ideal, the inhabitants were not able to advance as far as other civilizations. Diamond disproved
The boys on the island needed to build shelters, watch fires, be rescued; but, they only want to eat, to hunt, to kill. The accuracy of this picture is proven in the study of the human species, specifically in the tendency to kill one another; “Researchers compiled data on lethal violence within 1,024 species of mammals… The analysis shows that deaths caused by other members of the same species is responsible for 0.3% of all deaths on average for all mammals, but the rate of lethal violence among Homo sapiens is 7 times higher” (Fields). Although a successful human civilization should not kill itself and deplete its own population, human beings have the highest tendency to kill each other. Such civilizations lose control and fall into poverty and sorrow.
The Gilded Age was to describe America in the late nineteenth century. The outside of the US seemed glamorous and splendid alongside industrial development and massive economic growth. However, the dark sides were hidden beneath it. In my perspective, I believe we are living in the 2nd Gilded age.
All God’s Children: the Bosket Family and the American Tradition of Violence by Fox Butterfield explains the story of Willie Bosket and his family. Butterfield explains why he feels that Willie Bosket is the most violent criminal in the history of the New York Correctional system. Willie has committed more than two thousand crimes and of those crimes he has been convicted of two murders. He is currently serving three consecutive life sentences with 70 years of solitary confinement in a special cell created just for him. In a interview, Butterfield says “He's kept in a kind of Plexiglas cage.
The differences in customs, religion, and basic moral and human ideology prevented the Native American and European cultures from sharing the common bond of human fellowship to serve as the basis and foundation for the growth and betterment of human civilization. Unfortunately, this is a trait seen by the human species that have led to the collective downfall of civilizations throughout time, and will repeat itself until the human perspective of its remarkably fortunate place in the universe is dramatically
2. The three main objections to answering Yali’s question are that by answering the question we justify dominance of other societies, glorify the Europeans, and imply that civilization is good and hunter-gatherer societies are bad. 3. A Eurocentric approach glorifies western Europeans. This approach tends to be centered on Europeans and interprets the world in their ways.
Hatchet Brian Robeson is thirteen years old, he lives with his mother and father and is a single child in the family of three in New York Hampton. Brian's parents are going to get a divorce, which he knows why and calls it "The Secret." In the first part of the book we do not know what "The Secret" is, but as I got further in the book, it is that he is suspecting that his mother has cheated on his father with another man. He thinks it is a man named Jake in his mid forties, with blonde hair and towering height, he suspects this because he is silent for most of the rid to the airport, and he has seen his mom with Jake. When they got to the airport, Brian's mother gave him a hatchet so he could use it while he is in the woods.
Adam Smith is an 18th-century philosopher and free-market economist. He is known as the father of economics and is famous for his ideas about the efficiency of the division of labor and the societal benefits of individuals ' pursuit of their own self-interest. Smith is best known for two classic works: The Theory of Moral Sentiments, and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. The latter, usually known as The Wealth of Nations, is the first modern work of economics and the book which is considered in this research. This research will discuss chapter four of The Wealth of Nations (WN), specifically Smith’s paragraph of water diamond paradox.
The essay will discuss a paper written by anthropologist Gregory Possehl – Sociocultural complexity without the state: the Indus Civilization. It will first present the usual classification when approaching ancient civilisations and briefly summarise Possehl’s main argument. The essay will then dig more deeply into the Indus case, relying on archaeological findings, to see how far Possehl’s position can be supported. Archaeologists and anthropologists are usually classifying social groups considering their social organisation and material culture – one widely accepted classification recognizes four levels of development: (1) the band, a hunter-gather, kinship-based group, (2) the tribe, an organised collection of bands, (3) the chiefdom, a centrally organised kinship-based group with hierarchy and single leader, and (4) the state, a complex, hierarchical, centrally organised, non-kinship-based social organisation (Young 2014:19). Such a classification has stirred debates among scholars, as it conveys the preconceived idea that social groups ‘progress’ following this linear trajectory – furthermore, it is difficult to define the moment and the circumstances associated to a change of status (when does a band become a tribe?)
Either way that the History is viewed, there are many theoretical implications that can be drawn from it. This essay will look at three things: Human nature and its relationship with power and justice, human nature and how its struggle with power leads