Robert Lynch
Dom Manna
Mr. Noyes
Global
24 March 2014
Jared Diamond Essay
According to Jared Diamond’s thesis, global inequity is not determined by cultural differences, or race, but instead, attributed to geography. The conclusion to be drawn from this thesis is, why do specific tactics only work in specific places? Furthermore, how come Western civilization tactics were effective in the Western countries such as Europe, but not effective in countries such as Egypt? All in all, the reason for this is due to the natural geographic disadvantages Egypt had dealt with in comparison to Europe. These two countries differ in plant and animal domestication, and also size as well as population. In addition to that, the terrain and environment of different regions throughout the world have a major impact on the success of civilizations.
Egypt is a country located in Northwestern Africa which sits right beside the Nile River. Egypt also borders the coastlines of the Mediterranean and Red Sea; therefore the Egyptians rely heavily on the nearby waterways. Egypt’s size is approximately four times the size of the United Kingdom or about the size of Texas and New Mexico combined. As for the land, Egypt is predominantly desert; only about 3.5% of the total land is cultivated and harvested upon. Due to that, 99% of the Egyptian population resides along the Nile Valley and Nile Delta. As a result of the arid, dry weather, Egyptians view the Nile as sacred territory where they can grow their crops such as cotton, rice, corn, wheat, beans, fruits, vegetables cattle, water buffalo, sheep and goats.
Jared Diamond, in his movie “ Germs, Guns, and Steel” explained that civilizations that were able to domesticate animals and plants, were mor...
... middle of paper ...
...ation resides along the Nile and in France the people are scattered about due to a more favorable geography.
Jared diamond reiterated, time and time again, that global inequity coincided with geography. Egypt, in comparison to France, had the natural disadvantage of being dealt with a desert climate, as opposed to France’s favorable cultivating climate. This allowed for France to naturally be more skilled in areas such as planting crops; having the adverse effect for Egypt. The lack of water also contributed to the inequality, as animals were able to thrive in environments that offered a surplus of water. Lastly, a more favorable geography in developed countries plays a major role as to why developing countries are not quite developed. Jared Diamond’s thesis thoroughly explains this as geography is reason for the unequal distribution of wealth in the world today.
The reason Jared Diamond wrote this book was to answer the question of his politician friend Yali that why did some societies like Eurasia was able to develop Guns, Germs, and
After reading Guns, Germs, and Steel, the five main points are domestication of plants and animals, food production, government, innovation, and germs. The domestication of plants and animals helped determine a society's supply of food. First of all, there is the domestication of plants. Domesticated plants were used for food, clothing, and traction. There is about 200,000 wild plant species, but human only eat only a few thousands of those wild plant species, and on top of that, only a few hundred are even domesticated. Many wild plant species do not quality because the vast majority of wild plants are unsuitable for domestication: they have a woody structure, they are unable to produce edible food, and roots and leaves are also inedible. The Fertile Cresent, containing comparatively moist and fertile soil, had the olive, fig, and grape. These plants were among the easiest to cultivate out of all the wild fruit species. The Fertile Cresent was the center of food production in the world, the rise of agriculture, and one of the earliest places of independent domestication. It was the site of origin of many of the world's major crops and most of the major domesticated animals. Thoughout the world, there are only 14 species of big terrestrial mammals that were domesticated. For instance, the Fertile Cresent had four species: the goat, sheep, pig, and cow. These four species happened to be four out of the five major species of large domestic mammals. Domesticated animals were used for food, clothing, and transportation. The domestication of plants and animals held food supplies to maintain the food supplies, large sedentary societies, and technology. These things further progressed into food production, political organizations, ideas...
Historical developments are connected across time and culture by recurring historical themes. Reoccurring themes are interactions between human and the environment, development of culture, expansion of hierarchy, and creation of economical and social structures. In Guns, Germs, and Steel, by Jared Diamond he researches why and how people in different regions were more fortunate than people in other regions of the world. Diamond credits the inequalities of the people to the differences in the environment not biological reasons. Most of the advantages the Europeans had were a direct result of geography. Although the growth and development of human society have greatly shaped and advanced civilization, ecological and geographic factors are where
All of our history can be dated down to some place anywhere in the world and the time, now just imagine if that history could still be affecting you to this day. In Jared Diamonds Guns, Gems, and Steel he explores the idea, the theory that geographic could determine the differences between societies and social development. The book is framed upon a question that Yali, a New Guinean politician, asked him as they were chatting the question being “Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people had little cargo of our own?” Diamond concludes that geography has ultimately affected the differences between peoples of the world.
Jared Diamond's bestseller Guns, Germs, and Steel (GG&S) is an attempt to explain why some parts of the world are currently powerful and prosperous while others are poor. Diamond is both a physiologist and a linguist who spends a good deal of his time living with hunter gathers in Papua New Guinea. As a researcher and as a human being, he is convinced that all people have the same potential. Hunter gatherers are just as intelligent, resourceful, and diligent as anybody else. Yet material "success" isn't equally distributed across the globe. Civilization sprung up in relatively few places and spread in a defined pattern. I should emphasize that Diamond doesn't equate material prosperity with well-being or virtue. He's just curious about the global distribution of bling bling.
Then by some chance, the river Nile formed and allowed Egypt to fructify into a populous civilization. Evidently, the river Nile affected a number of factors in Egypt’s development. Agriculture became widespread and possible due to the stable periodic inundation of the Nile, while the art and culture of the Egyptians became much more sophisticated and refined by the influences of the Nile. Commerce was manifest by the Nile when foreign countries sailed by the Nile to make their trades. Despite the Nile not being the only factor in affecting ancient Egypt’s trade and culture, the river itself is satisfactory enough, in that removing it from Egypt’s geography will significantly change the course of Egyptian trade and culture. Therefore, it is certain to declare that the Nile river has indeed substantially affected the agriculture, trade, and culture of ancient
Egypt is situated in the Nile valley in the north east of Africa. Ancient Egypt included two regions a southern region, and northern region. The southern region is called Upper Egypt, and the northern region was called Lower Egypt. The life around Ancient Egypt centers on the Nile River and the fertile land around the banks of the river. Farmers created an irrigation system to control the water flow, so the crops can grow in both the rainy and dry seasons. This irrigation system made a surplus in crops.
During the years of 3500 BC to 2500 BC, the geography of a land often impacted a civilizations development in great measures. Depending on the resources available or the detriments present due to certain topographical characteristics like rivers or deserts, a civilization could flourish or collapse. By studying the geographic features of growing societies like the Nile, Euphrates, and Tigris Rivers as well as the Mediterranean Sea of Egypt and Mesopotamia, the link between developing cultures and geography will be examined through sources, including Egypt: Ancient Culture, Modern Land edited by Jaromir Malek and Babylon: Mesopotamia and the Birth of Civilization by Paul Kriwaczek. To determine the extent of its influence, this investigation will attempt to compare and contrast the role of geography in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, focusing on the civilizations’ various periods of development and settlement.
Why is the world so unequal? Many have pondered this question before, but no one has yet to come to a conclusion. For one man, Jared Diamond, a curious American scientist, has traveled the world to figure out what makes the world so unequal. Jared Diamond believes that the equality of the world isn’t fair because of the advantages and disadvantages geographic luck provides for us.
Every civilization encounters many tragedies, but some were smart enough to take their homeland’s geography into consideration. The smartest and largest group of people from Western civilization was the Egypt...
Both Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond and The Geography of Thought by Richard Nisbett are eye-opening works that discuss the underlying reasons the societies of the modern world exist as they do today. However, the multi-disciplined Diamond 's reasoning for our current global societal landscape is based on a number of factors. However, Nisbett 's sole field of psychology limits his explanation to but one limited reason. Ultimately, the way in which Diamond uses geography and ecology amongst other fields to illustrate how the world developed its colonial– and now post-colonial social structure is much more satisfactory than Nisbett 's mere observation of cognitive differences between East Asian and Western people.
Jared Diamond’s Theory of Geographic Luck explains the reason why some countries, such as Iraq, were able to develop more rapidly than other countries, such as New Guinea. Their ability to become modernized and gain power, wealth, and strength are based on various factors, such as the climate they lived in, the plants found in their surrounding environment, and the animal species found in the region that could be domesticated. Ultimately, it came down to one thing—geographic luck.
In Ancient Egypt they use the Nile River and the Sahara Desert in some many ways that benefited them. Ancient Egypt was divided into two land different land, the black land and red land. The black land was the fertile land that the Nile River made and the red land was the desert of Egypt. They use the Nile River for the fertile soil that was left after the river was not flooded, so that they could use that fertile soil for growing crops. They would also use the Nile River for fishing, washing their clothes, and sometimes they would trade with others for resources that they needed. The Sahara Desert was used for protection against other invading armies. The climate was always hot and very dry; this is what made it really hard for farming if you lived in the desert area.
With bad geographic location you can have trouble feeding yourself and others also if you can domesticate animals to help that food production grow significantly faster and also if you can provide germs to prevent immunity to smallpox and provide steel to develop resources to build resources and weapons to conquer in war. For agriculture civilizations need the right climate to grow the right crops such as wheat and being able to provide food for others. When civilizations are able to provide food for all others you can develop specialist to try to get domesticated animals to provide faster crop production also domesticated animals can provide food and milk and can use plows. Having domesticated animals can help with germs. A civilization can benefit from immunity because when a civilization is around animals they can build immunity from those animals while other civilizations don't, they can not develop immunity to smallpox. Having steel can benefit a civilization because you can make resources and weapons to conquer a civilization. Why all these topics matter to the question “why is the world so unequal?” because if you do not have all these topics you can’t build a strong civilization and will not advance in the world. For a while people thought is was just race that caused why the world is
Providing extremely fertile soil is one, if not the most important, roles the Nile River played in the life of the ancient Egyptians. By providing fertile soil, the Nile made it easy for cities and civilizations to grow alongside the banks of the river. This fertile soil comes from the annual flooding of the Nile. This replenishes the top soil with silt deposits that hold much needed nutrients for crops to grow. Ancient Egyptians developed highly complex irrigation methods to maximize the effect of the Nile waters. When the Nile overflows in mid summer, Egyptians divert the waters through the use of canals and dams. As the water seeped into the farm land, rich deposits of silt ensured a good harvest for the year. This allows the civilizations of Egyptians to grow enough food to feed the community. Without the annual flooding of the Nile, Egyptians would have a very difficult time growing necessary amount food to sustain life. Most of the land in the Egyptian nation is dry desert. Very little rain falls year round here. The river provides the needed water to grow the crops as well as provide drinking water for the people. Th...