Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond
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What central question is Jared Diamond attempting to explain with his book?
He was attempting to answer why did only a few countries develop so much faster than seemingly everyplace else on the planet.
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What are the six reasons he gives to answer his central question? If possible, provide one specific piece of information for the reason he gives.
Eurasians and especially West Europeans have the geographic advantage of:
- Food advantage — they had many different types of crops far more crop varieties with far better yields and higher protein.
- Animal advantage — They had large mammals like horses, cows and sheep.
- Fertile lands advantage — Europe had many rivers and their soil was better for crops and a temperate climate
- Natural Resources advantage — there are many rivers for trade and water, many trees and good soil
- Germs advantage — Livestock had germs that they gave to people and crowded cities were so dirty that illness and disease spread quickly, leaving the survivors hardened and disease resilience and resistant
- Inventions advantage — Europe’s abundant streams encourage development of waterpower inventions and the mechanical advantage. Nobody in politics could agree with each other caused by geography, and it created chronic warfare and an aggressive military culture
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Do you think his argument is sound. Why?
His argument is sound because when the farmers left to live in cities in Europe, many inventions made life so easy that now they had new time to further make inventions, and it is all a big circle. Also, because they lived in such close quarters with each other. It made them aggressive and want to move to other new lands and conquer them to spread out.
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Compare how the worst mistake plays a role in the dominance of European guns, germs and steel
In the worst mistake Jared diamond felt that people were better off when they were hunters and gatherers, and they were even healthier. He had many examples to prove that people were taller In guns, germs and steel. He furthers his argument by saying now that they are not hunters and gatherers. They have more time to create new inventions to make life easier but in reality it’s really making life harder, because now we have wars and we fight with each other all time.