Guns, Germs, and Steel

Guns, Germs, and Steel

By: Jared Diamond

Anthropology is the study of humankind and how they have evolved and from where. Anthropology is also the main focus in Jared Diamond's Pulitzer Prize winning book, Guns, Germs, and Steel. Homo-sapiens have been around since the Paleolithic Era, but since that time much has changed and much has evolved. However, humans evolved in different places and different rates. Many things contributed to the evolution of humans, such as agriculture, domestication of animals, technology, invasions, formation of language, and migration. Some of the contributing factors are discussed as being more important than others in Diamond's book, but it still focuses on how the world today was shaped.

North America, South America, Asia, Europe, and Australia are all populated continents, and have been since earlier than 8,000 B.C. Although these continents are old and now more modernized than they were in such a year as 8,000 B.C., Jared Diamond believes they developed at a different pace. Why? There are many possibilities, but migration sounds unquestionably appropriate considering it means the movement and discovery of new lands by the human race. Diamond stresses that geography is the 'ultimate' reason for the development and spread of cultures. Migration and geography are closely related topics as migration leads to settlements in different places and opportunities, and different places meaning the geographical part of the theory. The opportunities part of the sentence is derived from Diamond's theory, "Geographic differences in the means by which food production arose are also puzzling."(pg. 94) Food production is the leading factor to the world being shaped and evolved in diverse cultures and societies. Food feeds people, and fed people stay alive and live on to make a difference. Diamond makes this clear, "A stored food surplus built up by taxation can support other full-time specialists besides kings and bureaucrats."(pg.90) However, food production was not an easy spread among the continents. "What was it about the Americas and Africa that made the spread of food production more difficult there than in Eurasia?"(pg.180) Diamond questions. Eurasia was the homeland of Mesopotamia, which was also known as The Fertile Crescent, and China, which was isolated but much advanced. Diamond provides his belief of why the world shaped this way due to the geographical closeness of many other parts of Eurasia near Mesopotamia, "...food production was initiated by some of the same suite of the domestic plants and animals that launched it in the Fertile Crescent."(pg.181) As the migration spread through Eurasia, Africa and the Americas did not know the ways of Europe and Asia, so they progressed slower in food production. Due to the river valley civilizations in Europe and Asia, they had an advantage in technology production, trade, and food production over the Americas and Africa. From these rivers, such as Tigris, Euphrates, Nile, and Yellow River, water transportation, exports and imports were helpful in the establishment