Guns, Germs, And Steel

“Guns, Germs, and Steel” is a fascinating and enlightening book to read. I enjoyed reading this book, but don’t become confused that I agree with everything that is written in this book. The author, Jared Diamond wrote this book in response to a questioned presented to him by a politician named Yali in New Guinea. The question was, “Why is it that you white people develop so much cargo and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people had little cargo of our own?” Diamond attempts to answer this question in this book.

In this book he comes to the conclusion that the rise of agricultural, centralized governments, geography, and animal domestication all played a part in the reason why some countries came to be more powerful than others. He has to trace human roots all the way back to when they first evolved. He runs into problems because some of the weakest countries were one of the first to evolved, but why?

Jared Diamond summarizes his book, and answer to Yali’s question into one simple sentence; “History followed different courses for different peoples because differences among people’s environment’s…” (Pg 25). Of course, this answer is just scratching the surface when the complexity of the question is truly comprehended. However, lets focus on the simple answer for the time being. Diamond is saying that the disparity between the wealth of some countries versus the wealth, or lack of, is essentially caused by the differences among the countries environment. Environments constitute a wide range of things; Climate, animals, crops, social environment, among other things.

This simple answer doesn’t answer Yali’s question because the question is a complex one. I attempt to interpret his findings to the best of my knowledge. The most important thing to remember is the importance of food production by harvesting crops. Throughout the book he attempts to relay the importance of societies that accepted this new way of gathering food. Those societies that managed to switch to growing crops were usually the ones who showed the most success than those societies that stayed hunter-gatherers or those who waited to change their lifestyles.

He compares these societies a lot in his book and that is because it is the backbone to his thesis. Allow us to first look at the hunter-gatherer society. In a hunter-gatherer society every human resource was put to work hunting for food to feed their small community. This kind of society did not promote organized countries, but rather small groups consisting usually of family. Because food was not readily available it did not allow people to come up with inventions, or adopt inventions by other places. Inventions such as new, improved weapons to hunt larger game. The scarcity of food affected birth rates, thus affecting population growth. Members of this society did not try to have babies back to back because it would be difficult for that baby to keep up and would slow the tribe down. These societies for this reason did not expand.

On the other spectrum, were societies that began to adopt crop planting. Crop planting was a major factor for some becoming more powerful than others. Societies that switched to farming first and successfully were the ones that became powerful. How did agriculture allow a country to gain power? Diamond lists several reasons why agricultural would allow a country to become powerful. One is that it allowed food producers the ability to make enough food for the non-producers of the society, mostly the innovators, kings, and priest. Agricultre allowed farmers to store food. Instead of every able body hunting for food this allowed one to produce the food for say ten people. The other nine could use their time trying to invent new things, like technology. Agriculture also allowed centralized governments to form. Centralized governments could distribute food to those non-food producers, and allow the society to be organized especially in the military sense. This allowed their expansion through new weapons and organized military versus small tribes with stone tools.

Another factor in the distribution of power is geography. Particularly where you are located relative to other agricultural societies, if your land is fertile, and how long it would take to get to other places. Also important is whether your location has animals and plants available for domestication. Animal domestication plays a major role in that of diseases spreading. To answer Yali’s question in my opinion is this: the reason why black people of New Guinea had to import was because they were isolated, their land is hard to cultivate crops, and they didn’t have any animals to domesticate.

As I mentioned earlier the rise of agriculture is a major part in answering Yali’s question. Again it shows up here to answer why this book has the title that it does. Also mentioned earlier was that the rise of agriculture caused the rise of populations. These populations became dense because more babies could be born because farmers could feed more than their family. The rise of agriculture caused people to domesticate animals, for other important uses, clothes, mild, and food just to mention a few. Well, for every decision made there are consequences, whether good or bad. The domestication of animals caused the rise of germs. Just like humans evolved so did diseases. These diseases went through natural selection for host sites. These host sites happened to be domesticated animals. Eurasia was the first to domesticate animals. If diseases were evolving how come these first people didn’t die out? Eurasian people eventually grew immune systems to these diseases. Their populations were so dense that it eventually became hard for diseases to continue to kill off populations.

One might be wondering how does the domestication of animal’s show why power is unevenly distributed. Diamond answers this question rather simply. He uses the example of Cortez and his 600 men army conquest of millions of the Aztec Empire on page 210. One man from Spain had smallpox and infected the Aztecs. The Aztecs were not immune to this disease and it killed more of their men the Cortez’s men did. The rest became demoralized by their loss of men through this mysterious disease. So germs or diseases played a part in the reason why some have power. The first to domesticate animals gained immune systems to these new diseases first and could spread to other places that weren’t immune. Therefore, constituting the reasoning behind “Germs” part of the title. Eurasians used diseases, probably unintentionally, to get rid of natives in other territories and take control.

The “Gun” part of the title comes from the evolution of technology. Technology is directly interlocked with food production. Remember that agricultural societies could stockpile food for non-food producers. This allowed those not producers to spend time inventing new things, like guns. Hunter-gatherer societies didn’t have the time luxury, as their members were hunting for food, to make new inventions. However, technology could spread like agriculture did in some areas, but how? The leading factors were when did agricultural begin, how easy it is for others to see the new technology and accept it. It was easier for Eurasians, than for the Americas or New Guinea, to see these new inventions, and thus gave them a head start. Guns allowed for the conquering of other territories. Diseases and guns are two weapons most hunter-gatherers couldn’t defeat because they used stone tools and were easy prey to the disease.

And “Steel” shows in the form of a centralized government. Those earlier agricultural societies allowed for a government to form that could distribute food the non-producers, but more importantly allowed them to organize armies while hunter gatherers were small unorganized groups easily overtook by these new guns never seen, by men on horses, and diseases. When we bring these things together we have the reason why the book was named what it was.

It is believed by the author that Australia actually had a head start of Eurasia, so how come Eurasia became so dominant instead of Australia. There are some important reasons why. One important thing is the geological factors of Australia. It’s separated from the rest of the world. It also didn’t have a selection of animals to domesticate as Europe did. The author attributes it the Great Leap Forward and the large mammals in Australia became extinct. Eurasia being connected to surrounding areas allowed things to be adopted and seen by neighbors, thus spreading.

I think that Diamond did a good with this book. For a long time people have pushed the opinion that one race is better or more intelligent than another based solely on the skin color. At times, I must admit, I felt that he was making excuses for why Europeans ended up with much control of the world. For example, he says that it’s harder for places that are north south to get the new inventions and so on. Places such as the Americas and Africa. When you look at North America it’s now rich and Africa isn’t. He gives a brief explanation that the Africans in the south were less receptive to these new principles. He doesn’t explain why though. Africa is closer to Eurasia than America by far and had a considerable amount of time to see the success of the other people. Also, how come whites control the mining industry in Africa? Other than that problem I think his research is thorough and well thought out. His facts, to me, are straightforward.

I think history is repeating itself. American’s are now the ones trying to expand their power because they realize that Asia sooner or later will become the world power of the future. America is trying to position itself to be just as strong by helping many countries gain freedoms and adopt America’s way of government. We have troops in the Middle East and in Africa among other places. History will repeat itself but it won’t be as easy as it was for Eurasia to expand power because the technology is expanding in all countries. Some places, as Diamond says, do benefit from their geography, such as Middle Eastern countries and oil. The fact that computers, television, and phones will make it even harder to repeat history, because other countries can see what is happening rather quickly, and stop countries from taking peoples land like North Korea invasion of South Korea.

Bibliography:

References

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