In the book Guns,Germs and Steels, Jared Diamond illuminates how and why the human societies of different continents followed widely divergent pathways of development over the past 13,000 years. However, Mcneil thinks, though Diamond makes a good case for the critical importance of continental differences in the wild plant and animal species available as starting material for domestication, he puts too much effort to reduce history to the level of biological science. In my perspective, Diamond frames his book around “Yali’s questions”, and his answers to those questions are simple in principle but complex in detail. One of the most important viewpoints of Jared Diamond is that he proposes, before culture was advanced enough, small differences …show more content…
He asserts that the development of human societies and cultures has nothing to do with natural selection. For instance, in Chapter four, he analyzes why most big wild mammal species were never domesticated. “In this chapter, he quotes Tolstoy’s great work Anna karenina and thus calls his principle “Anna Karenina Principle” in which Diamond explains a feature of animal domestication that had heavy consequences for human history---that so many seemingly suitable big wild mammal species, such as zebras and peccaries, have never been domesticated and that the successful domesticates were almost exclusively Eurasian”(11-12). Furthermore, he puts forward that the importance of domesticated mammals rests on surprisingly few species of terrestrial herbivores. The reason behind such phenomenon is obvious: aquatic mammals were difficult to maintain and breed until the development of modern sea world facilities. From this aspect, we can see that it was the development of science and technology rather than the natural selection that determines whether a species is able to be domesticated or not. Two forces were at work--- first, the human selection of the most useful animals, and second, the natural selection for the optimization in the huma n environments compared to the wild. This is the same as what he has discussed of plants. Nevertheless, Mcneill, on one hand, confirms that Diamond makes a good point Eurasia on east-west axis as opposed to north south continents, but he, on the other hands, doubts whether it should be as bid a part of development as Diamond makes it out to be, because in his view, geographic reductionism is radically out of fashion these
In the book, Guns Germs and Steel, Jared Diamond attempts to answer questions of conquest, such as why Eurasia conquered the Americas, and not the other way around. Diamond is a biologist by trade, and both impressed and disappointed the academic world with his new historian side. He believes the answer to western dominance lies in geography and the spread of guns, germs and steel. His theories had led him to be heavily critiqued by historians everywhere, including environmental historian J.R McNeil and Professor of Anthropology and Geography James Blaut. While Diamond provides solid ideas relating to the conquest of the New World, he often uses his scientistic background loosely with unclear supports forgetting other historical factors that
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Most historians consider many factors to piece together our planet’s past. When looking at the exploration of what was named “the New World,” they often point to the success of the conquistador’s missions and attribute it to their determination, skill, and weaponry. The film “Guns, Germs, and Steel” names the real reasons why the conquistadors were so successful on their missions. The empires of Central and South America did not have access to certain animals and had not advanced as far as the Europeans did in terms of weaponry. Additionally, they had never been exposed to the diseases that many animals carry.
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.
Agriculture played a pivotal role in the evolution of human life, as well as revolutionize the globe to what it is today. Jared Diamond wrote a book that is called "Guns, Germs and Steel". In the book, he explains why some societies are materially successful than others. He attributes societal success to geography, immunity to germs, food production, the domestication of animals, and use of steel. Other parts of the globe, such as Europe While on a trip in New Guinea, one of the politicians named Yali, asked the question, "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?", which made him write a book about it.
A 1. The documentary film called, "Guns, Germs, and Steel: Out of Eden" is produced by Tim Lambert and distributed by National Geographic. I have not heard of Mr. Lambert, however I have watched National Geographic previously. Unfortunately, I do not have enough information on Mr. Lambert to assess whether or not he would be incapable of providing accurate information.
Jared Diamond Claim/Counterclaim Essay By: Trent Dickerson I have very mixed opinions on the statements of Jared Diamond and the Neolithic revolution. A way that I think it is bad is because it could have possibly caused overpopulation. A reason that I think it is good is because it allowed us to settle down in one place and have less people die from starvation. Another reason it was good was because it created the invention of agriculture.
The classic debate of guns versus butter is a deciding factor of what is prioritized in the society we live in. The debate is over how much money a government should dedicate to the military versus how much money it should dedicate to domestic needs. Out of all the money spent worldwide for military purposes, the United States accounts for half of that. However, the United States is accredited for only about 25% of the world’s gross domestic product (GDP). Our percent of the world’s GDP is about twice of our percent of the world’s military spending.
The need to obtain such resources, which is necessary for their survival, may have been the pivotal point for social changes of the hunter-gatherers of the
In like manner, “This teleological view of nature was common in antiquity and is crucial to the understanding of the Natural History (7).”” In the same way, Pliny gave a description of humans as monsters. Pliny thought that people who live in another land were different by customs, and culture. In Pliny’s Natural History book, VII “India and parts of Ethiopia especially teem with marvels. The biggest animals grow in India: for instance Indian dogs are bigger than any others.”
How the Neolithic Revolution Shaped History The Neolithic revolution was a very important event in history because the change from hunting and gathering, to farming and domesticating animals, allowed early humans to have specialization, develop surpluses, and construct permanent settlements. Without the need of gathering food all day, early humans could work on other things, such as government, organized religion, writing, arts, jobs, and architecture. These things are the basic characteristics of nearly every ancient, or modern civilization. Also, food surpluses were developed because farming and domestication were better ways of acquiring food.
The declaration of Social Darwinism as a science increased its popularity tremendously as the 19th century was an era of rapidly accelerating scientific discoveries. Social Darwinism saw Samuel George Morton’s “Crania Americana” Published in 1931 and stated that the size of the racial groups skull was a direct link to the races intelligence and sophistication, Re-emerge into the world of science and was seen as a direct link of Social Darwinism. Sociologists and anthropologists felt it was necessary to educate the public about the indigenous and native people and thus human zoos were established. Human zoos were ethnological expositions in which the native people, generally people in a position in a position of authority and their family, were kept in captivity. The purposes of human zoos were to emphasize the differences between Europeans and the native people or non-Europeans.
In PBS’s episode one entitled Out of Eden of the series Gun’s Germs, and Steel, Professor Jared Diamond attempts to answer the question of “why you white men have so much cargo and we New Guineans have so little.” (Cassian Harrison, 2005) Professor Diamond’s begins his research by exploring history from 13,000 years ago, pre-dating civilizations, during a time period equivalent to New Guinea’s present day. Professor Diamond delves into the origins of traditional societies and tracks their evolution into modern times, searching for an explanation for why some societies have expanded and modernized while others remain frozen in an earlier time. Professor Diamond theorizes that the reason behind the inequality between the people of New Guinea as compared to “white men” societies is due to geography and what the land has produced.
Guns, Germs, & Steel questions 1. Yali’s question is “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?” In this statement, Yali is questioning why different races and civilizations developed differently. He is curious to see if one races intelligence is superior to the others, and if perhaps that explains why technology was introduced to europeans faster than others. (14) 2. Three main objections to answering Yali’s question are its justification to domination, the eurocentric approach to history, and conveys the idea that civilization is crucial for human happiness.
The human way of living has changed from what it was 12,000 years ago. Humans used to have a "precarious journey through a hostile world in an unceasing search for food". Gone are the days when humans migrated looking for food and being hunter gatherers. They have changed from being hunter gatherers to being herdsmen, which is a major turning point in history. The change to herding in humans meant that they had to domesticate.