Bibliography: McNeill, J.R. "The World According to Jared Diamond." February 2001. The History Teacher. 11 March 2012 .
Bibliography: McNeill, J.R. "The World According to Jared Diamond." February 2001. The History Teacher. 11 March 2012 .
Eurasia has covered the largest East to West area of any continent. Diamond believes that this is yet another r advantage for Eurasia. Eurasia had “amber fields of grain and spacious skies”. With the New world not having these advantages, it slowed diffusion.…
When Diamond started his research to the understanding of inequality amongst civilizations, he came to the conclusion that he needed to begin thirteen thousand years ago, back into prehistoric times when all humans were equal. The Middle East was where Diamond noticed the factors that would come into play when forming a civilization. History shows that all the different cultures began as hunters and gatherers. This caused a constant nomadic way of life. This nomadic way of living was due to the fact that they had to continuously move to wherever there were animals to hunt or plants to gather. The animal movements were attributed to the change in seasons, thus the nomads were forced to follow the cycle of migration in order to prevent starvation from lack of animals and plant life. Over time, hunting became a major epidemic because as the civilizations became more populated; fewer animals were available to hunt. Although gathering was more productive, it was unable to provide them with enough nutrition in most cases to live off of. This would eventually lead to diversity amongst civilizations due to their geographic locations. Thus resulting in two very different ways of life.…
Jared Diamond, author of the Pulitzer Prize Winning, National Best Selling book Guns, Germs and Steel, summarizes his book by saying the following: "History followed different courses for different peoples because of differences among peoples ' environments, not because of biological differences among peoples themselves." Guns, Germs and Steel is historical literature that documents Jared Diamond 's views on how the world as we know it developed. However, is his thesis that environmental factors contribute so greatly to the development of society and culture valid? Traditions & Encounters: A Brief Global History is the textbook used for this class and it poses several different accounts of how society and culture developed that differ from Diamond 's claims. However, neither Diamond nor Traditions are incorrect. Each poses varying, yet true, accounts of the same historical events. Each text chose to analyze history in a different manner. Not without flaws, Jared Diamond makes many claims throughout his work, and provides numerous examples and evidence to support his theories. In this essay, I will summarize Jared Diamond 's accounts of world history and evolution of culture, and compare and contrast it with what I have learned using the textbook for this class.…
Prologue: According to the author, why did human development proceed at different rates on different continents? What is his personal view on civilized and progressive societies versus hunter- gathers?…
2. “How do you understand areas of the world, such as Bantu Africa and North America, that did not generate “civilizations”? Do you see them as “backward”, as moving slowly toward civilization, or as simply different?…
The Earth is filled with many different environments, but only a few are suitable for the domestication of crops. Throughout the first few chapters, Diamond emphasizes the importance of crops being domesticated in certain areas. The nation's that learned to domesticate crops first became more prosperous. A good example of this is the Fertile Crescent. The reason the Fertile Crescent got such a head start on developing a civilization was because they were quickly able to domesticate crops. Some civilization's, like the Maori people, could not prosper because they did not have the correct environment to do so. The book explains, "Maori tropical crops could not grow in the…
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…
In this section of Guns, Germs, and Steel, Diamond portal’s the food production was the root because of beneath the ability of the Eurasia people. This information helped develop guns, germs, and steel. This helped them conquer the rest of the world. Jared Diamond discusses how the food production came to this. The greater the population the more food can be produced. The more food you have for the people the longer they will live.…
Q: What was the Great Leap Forward? Describe the life of a Cro-Magnon person. What impact did the arrival of humans have on big animals? Provide an example. Which continent had a head start in 11,000 BCE (Before Common Era)?…
Cited: Adler, Philip J., and Randall L. Pouwels. World Civilizations. 4th ed. Vol. 1. Belmont CA: Thomson Wadsworth, 2006. 117-118.…
Physical environment helped with the development of early civilization in Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Indus Valley by helping societies to flourish. Excerpt from the story of Gilgamesh states how the people of Sumer depend on the grain that they grow. The environment provides Sumer their grain thus allowing them to feed themselves and continuing to grow. The increase in population allows the society to flourish. One could say that document 1 is unreliable because it only describes how Sumer depends on grain. It does not state if their population flourishes or not due to the grain. An additional…
In 1974, a local man named Yali asked Diamond a deceptively simple question. “Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo, but we black people had little cargo of our own?" Diamond realized that Yali's question had penetrated the heart of a great mystery of human history, the root of global inequality. Diamond knew that the answer had little to do with ingenuity or individual skill. From his own experience in the jungles of New Guinea, he had observed that native hunter gatherers were just as intelligent as people of European descent and far more resourceful.…
The ultimate factors that added to the natives’ demise were the geography, animals, and agriculture. Europe is geographically situated in a region better suited for farming because of the land and weather of the climate. Eurasia’s more…
The way the continents were spread out helped some countries, but isolated others. Europe and Asia, or Eurasia, was spread out from east to west and it helped people spread crops, animals, ideas, and technologies because these areas were of the similar latitude. The Americas were spread out in a north to south direction and required harsh travel that no one really bothered doing. The Fertile Crescent was in the perfect location. The geographic luck brought wild crops and wild animals to this location. The humans that lived there used this to their advantage by altering the cycle of crops and domesticating animals for their needs. To change the cycle of crops, humans had to get the best seeds and plant them on their land. They used the domesticated animals for many things including their meat, milk, fur, and their power. An animal’s power can plow a field much faster and only requires about two people to help the animal. With fields producing more agricultural products, some people started leaving the fields behind, and started developing new skills. The earliest evidence for this is found at the Fertile Crescent. These people started building larger and…
In Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond is the response to a question Diamond had been asked by a New Guinean politician, Yali, in 1972. The question was, “Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people have little cargo of our own?” This refers to the inequality between many different civilizations, quite like how Europeans developed great objects and wealth that they used to dominate over other societies. Diamond begins to wonder why that is, “Why did human development proceed at different rates on different continents?” Before explaining possible answers, Diamond clarifies that his book isn’t to justify European domination of other civilizations nor does the answer take a European historic approach. Diamond also clarifies that hunter-gatherer civilizations are not inferior to agricultural or industrial civilizations.…