In Jared Diamond’s excerpt from his book, Guns, Germs, and Steel, he puts forward the historical narrative of how human evolution progresses at varying rates for different cultures due solely to the particular geographic region that people assimilate from. Diamond supports this thesis with specific evidence on the importance of food production, emphasizing that food is the main ingredient needed for a population to experience progress and growth, enabling that culture to expand around the world. I agree with Diamond’s dissertation and find it compelling due to his logical evidence and ethos on the topic. Diamond addresses his narrative by discussing the general overview on why the rise of food production had such a significant impact on the …show more content…
Diamond addresses this when he writes, “Another [explanation], popular with inhabitants of northern Eurasian continent versus African continent Europe, invokes the supposed stimulatory effects of their homeland’s cold climate and the inhibitory effects of hot, humid, tropical climates on human creativity and energy. Perhaps the seasonally variable climate at high latitudes poses more diverse challenges than does a seasonally constant tropical climate”(22). This hypothesis raises the questions of climate and its effect on the human psyche. For example, people living in high latitudes with freezing temperatures are forced to spend valuable time and resources building shelter to stay warm, while additionally dealing with the issues of growing sustainable food sources in less than ideal temperatures. This presents the obstacle of cultivating a prosperous population while having a non-arable atmosphere, or with little to no rainfall. In Diamond’s article from his website, he recounts the reasons as to why certain cultures evolve in the world. He states that “it’s not the people themselves”, but, “Instead, the reasons were continental differences in the available wild plant and animal species suitable for domestication, resulting in earlier domestication of a more productive suite of domesticates in Eurasia, plus Eurasia’s east/west axis that facilitated the spread of those domesticates throughout Eurasia” (Diamond). If the climate of a specific country isn’t arable, or has little rainfall, the growth of plants and crops becomes extremely difficult. Compounding the difficulties is a grueling climate and living environment. Conversely, a suitable climate benefits the inhabitants of places such as Eurasia. Having arable land and seasonable climate changes, countries within Eurasia have little difficulty in mass producing
Many Caucasian’s have thought and believed positively they were superior to many other races. Most of these people were from a geographic area that had advanced technology, large populations, and a large workforce. This area started in the Middle East and spread laterally within a similar environment that provided a fertile habitat for farmer gatherers. Jared Diamond discovered that approximately 13,000 years ago man started out as hunter-gatherers following seasonal game migration to provide food for their survival. Man would find whatever food that grew in that area to supplement the game animals for sustenance, but this activity would take a majority of his time and would be conditional to the regions environment and his own skills. Man’s desire and ability to find innovative ways to make his life easier prompted them to plant larger open areas with some of the first edible grass seeds. They began to stay near the water and planted areas establishing more permanent shelters, which they would return to from following game. In addition, they learned to store grains for planting and future consumption, which led to a healthier lifestyle for the growing population. The first cultivated grains were wheat, barley, rice, corn, beans, millet, sorghum, squash, and yams. This farming facilitated larger production with less manpower for a growing populous. This provided time for the inventors and engineering people to find better and faster ways of production, and inventing tools. These people moved and spread east and west and began to domesticate larger indigenous animals and control breeding of goats, sheep, and pigs first, which provided meat, milk, hair, and skins. The animals best suited for domestication needed to ...
Crops can kill thousands and build millions. During the Potato Famine, an infamous crop failure, “1845 to 1947, more than one million people died of starvation or emigrated. Additionally, over 50,000 people died of diseases: typhus, scurvy, dysentery” (American University). For thousands of years crops have fueled large societies allowing for mass population growth and human expansion. But the transition from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to an agricultural reliance bered many consequences along with its pros. Switching to an agricultural way of life provided health issues among humans, drastic changes socially and culturally, as well as ecological implications. This paper examines the changes accumulated by this transition including its enduring
The book tells the history of human civilization through the development of our food production and culture. A highly relevant book to present although food is a special type of natural resource or products hereof and history is a wider subject than conflict. The gradual transition towards hierarchical social order is described. Especially the significance of irrigation is compelling.
Before agriculture, human populations relied heavily on the foods that they found, scavenged or hunted in their area of occupation. (Higman 2011) This form of subsistence generally led to a nutritionally balanced diet. Their diets did, on occasion, become lacking of certain nutrients because some food sources are only available seasonally. (Duncan and Scott 2004, Ingold 2002, Jochim 2012) The shift to agriculture led to substantial changes not only in subsistence but also in all other aspects of life. Agriculturalists worked harder; spending most of their day in the fields cultivating the land. This made a nomadic lifestyle, like most hunter—gatherers were accustomed to, virtually impossible. By becoming sedentary populations, humans have exposed themselves to higher instances of viruses, bacteria and parasitic diseases typically carried by the homo genus. (Stein 2010) When agriculture took hold, approximately 10,000 years ago, there was a massive shift to high carbohydrate based subsistence. Higher carbohydrate intakes combined with the added stresses of malnutrition, di...
64-66), author Jared Diamond claims that agriculture as opposed to popular belief, didn’t help civilization bloom, but instead proved detrimental to human lives ever since its introduction. He states that the progressives believe agriculture was adopted due to its efficiency and how it complimented our race. He contradicts this view with multiple studies and expert sources. According to his research, modern day humans are much worse off than their hunter gatherer counterparts due to a variety of lifestyle changes ranging from greatly deteriorated nutritional quality to increased sexual discrimination. He gathers the support from various archaeological research conducted on various remains found in Chile, Greece, Turkey, etc. Archaeologists can further point out the date at which this switch (from Gathering to agriculture) took place. He further establishes that Hunter gatherers may have chosen to change ways with the preconceived idea that the capability to feed more people and reducing the burden on mothers (hence allowing them to bear a child every 2 years instead of 4) would in turn drastically improve quality of life. He concludes the article by emphasizing on how it created disparities between the elite and the commoners and by defending his own kind for having discovered mankind’s biggest mistake and the motive behind
In the book “Guns, Germs and steel” Jared Diamond shares his own theory which evolves around Yali’s (A politician in New Guinea) question: “Why did human development proceed at such different rates on different continents.”(p.16). In the prologue Diamond explains that “because of different for different peoples “not because of biological differences among people themselves.”(p.25).Diamond describes environmental factors that helped determine these rates, factors such as Guns, Germs and steel.
Jared Diamond's theory of Guns, Germs and Steel was that the foundation of agriculture was mainly based on geographical luck. He believed that if one didn’t have the good geographical location, one would not be able to develop in ways that other people with good location would. This was further divided into Guns, Germs, and Steel. His thesis applies to the British colonization of Australia in 1788. According to Australianmuseum.com.au, they believe the British have used guns against Aboriginals. As stated by Warren he hypothetically believes that smallpox was deliberately brought in by the British. Also stated by Pei he believes that the reason as to why Australia didn’t develop steel was because of their location and adverse climates.
Jared Diamond Argues that the worst mistake in Human History is the invention and widespread introduction of agriculture, because it has created a plethora of social, economic, and health problems for the word. One example of this is when the article states, “Hunter-Gatherers enjoyed a varied diet, while early farmers obtained most of their food from one or a few starchy crops. The farmers gained cheap calories at the cost of poor nutrition.” This illustrates that the author's main argument is that agriculture was the worst mistake in human history because it shows how agriculture has negatively impacted health of both early farmers and people today by creating mass produced bulk crops that are low in nutrition. Furthermore, another example
Jared Diamond makes the argument that when humans decided 10,000 years ago to no longer be hunter-gatherers and made the decision to become sedentary and start domesticating their animals and crops, the result is that the human race has experienced a steady downfall. Diamond makes the point that “with agriculture came the gross social and sexual inequality, the disease and despotism that curse our existence,” (Diamond). While the present system certainly is far from being perfected, Diamond’s various complaints and solutions certainly would not be of much use in the present time either.
In an agricultural society people started to farm and there were less to no hunting which changed their diets dramatically. When people were hunting and gathering they were getting a healthy and a well-balanced diet. Before agriculture people ate many various wild plants and animals therefore, they had better nutrition. For example, the Kalahari Bushmen’s daily intake was “2,140 calories and 93 grams of protein” (Diamond 2). Also when Diamond is comparing the two societies, he talks about the balance of nutrients and diet, also he states that the “Kalahari Bushmen eat a variety of 75 or so different wild plants” and receive more calories than needed. As the people switched over to agriculture, the amount of food they had become more plentiful and predictable but unhealthy. Nowadays, more people are overweight especially in the western area of the world. This proves that people before agriculture were healthy and had a decent
Any given person does not need a college degree to enjoy delicious, healthy, and sustainably produced food, and shouldn’t need one to be able to access such basic human pleasures. Since each culture has a different idea of what qualifies as “good food”, it makes more sense to equip all people with the economic prosperity to be able to access the tools needed to make these
At some point in time, human populations decided to settle down and harvest their own food instead of searching for it in the woods. In modern times, people tend to view this as a great advancement or revolution. Why would people want to search for food daily and forage for tubers or berries when they could just head to the supermarket or their own backyard? Scientist have determined, however, that this development brought many negative effects to the human population. The societies who adopted agriculture were malnourished and unhealthy, but they gained enough of an advantage over hunter/gatherer populations that the benefits outweighed the cost – at least in their eyes. Our society today has been shaped by this “revolution” and its effects,
Hillard, K. (2000). A theory of human life history evolution: diet, intelligence, and longevity. Evolutionary Anthropology Issues News and Reviews, 156-185.
Establishing an adequate supply of food is historically one of the fundamental challenges facing mankind. The modern food infrastructure employed by contemporary society is rooted in the creation and innovation of food production. Its effective utilization decreases the level of societal labor contribution required and discourages food shortage trepidation amongst individuals. It is hard to fathom given the current status of our society massive agricultural-industrial complex that the hunter-gatherer organization of society dominated for more than 99 percent of our existence (Fagan 2007: 126). The hunter-gatherer population was characterized by their primary subsistence method, which involved the direct procurement of edible plants and animals from the wild. The primary methods employed were foraging and hunting, which were conducted without any significant recourse to the domestication of either food source (Fagan 2007: 129). Food production is presumed to have emerged approximately 12,000 years ago as a system of “deliberate cultivation of cereal grasses, edible root plants, and animal domestication” (Fagan 2007: 126). The pronounced change from hunting and gathering to agriculture and domestication can be simplistically designated the Agricultural or Neolithic Revolution (Pringle 1998). The catalytic developments of the Neolithic Revolution mark a major turning point in the history of humankind. The resulting animal and plant domestication established the foundation on which modern civilization was built.
Agriculture has changed dramatically, especially since the end of World War II. Food and fibre productivity rose due to new technologies, mechanization, increased chemical use, specialization and government policies that favoured maximizing production. These changes allowed fewer farmers with reduced labour demands to produce the majority of the food and fibre.