“History followed different courses for different peoples because of differences among peoples’ environments, not because of biological differences among people themselves.”(Diamond 25) This statement is the thesis for Jared Diamond’s book Guns Germs and Steel the Fates of Human Societies. Diamond wrote this book to answer the question of a New Guinean politician, Yali. He asked “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 set out to find the answer to this question, to find out why history unfolded like it did. Diamond credits the inequalities in history to differences in environments not biological differences as so many people like to say. Most of the advantages the Europeans had were a direct result of geography. The main points that Diamond attributes to European dominance are early plant and animal domestication and as a result of close contact to animals the deadliest germs were given to the Europeans. As result of its East-West axis the diffusion of food production, technologies, humans and ideas were easily spread throughout Europe. The axis mean that there were similar climatic, geographic, and disease conditions to migrants and no barriers. So anything that could be grown in one area was sure to quickly spread and thrive in the neighboring locations. Moreover, political administration, economic exchanges, incentive for exploration and conquest, and making information available to every individual were facilitated after the development of writing. Jared Diamond is a professor of geography at UCLA. He has a PhD in physiology and has spent his time since then researching molecular physiology and evolutio... ... middle of paper ... ...int he had before elaborating on his main idea. One thing that I really liked in the book was the beginning of the chapter Zebras and Unhappy Marriages. Diamond starts the chapter with “Domesticable animals are all alike; every undomesticable animal is undomesticable in its own way.”(Diamond 157) This sentence is based of off the famous first sentence of Tolstoy’s novel Ana Karenina. I thought that this was a clever way to start the passage and catch the reader’s attention. However, the issue I had with the book was that it was repetitive. Jared Diamond would reiterate what he had already stated earlier in the book or passage. Overall the book was well organized and well written. Jared Diamond clearly stated his thesis more than once throughout the book. He elaborated on every point he made and did a good job in convincing the reader of his standing on the topic.
I read the book Soldier X by Don L. Wulffson that takes place during the world war II period. The main character of the book is a 16 year old German boy named Erik Brandt. Although Erik lives in Germany he is also half Russian and speaks Russian very well. Erik does not want to be a part of Hilters Nazi army during world war II but he is forced to fight on the side of the Nazis. During one battle of the war is he forced under a tank during a large scale battle with the Russians. He has no choice but to change clothes and gear with the Russian soldier and be now becomes part of the Russian army. He spends some time in the Russian army and then he gets wounded. He gets send to a Russian hospital and meets a nurse named Tamara. He falls in love with her but then one day the hospital is bombed and he has to escape with her and out of Russia. The story comes to an end with Erik and Tamara escaping Europe and making to over the Atlantic ocean to the United States to have kids and live the rest of there lives.
“History followed different courses for different peoples because of differences among peoples ' environments, not because of biological differences among peoples themselves” (Jared Diamond). In the book Guns Germs and Steel he accounted a conversation with Yali, a New Guinean politician that had asked “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 tries to answer this by describing the difference in use of government throughout history by bands, tribes, chiefdoms, and states.
David W. Blight's book Beyond the Battlefield: Race, Memory and the American Civil War, is an intriguing look back into the Civil War era which is very heavily studied but misunderstood according to Blight. Blight focuses on how memory shapes history Blight feels, while the Civil War accomplished it goal of abolishing slavery, it fell short of its ultimate potential to pave the way for equality. Blight attempts to prove that the Civil War does little to bring equality to blacks. This book is a composite of twelve essays which are spilt into three parts. The Preludes describe blacks during the era before the Civil War and their struggle to over come slavery and describes the causes, course and consequences of the war. Problems in Civil War memory describes black history and deals with how during and after the war Americans seemed to forget the true meaning of the war which was race. And the postludes describes some for the leaders of black society and how they are attempting to keep the memory and the real meaning of the Civil War alive and explains the purpose of studying historical memory.
This is my personal reflection about this book. First and foremost, I would like to say that this book is very thick and long to read. There are about nineteen chapters and 278 pages altogether. As a slow reader, it is a quite hard for me to finish reading it within time. It took me weeks to finish reading it as a whole. Furthermore, it is written in English version. My English is just in average so sometimes I need to refer to dictionary for certain words. Sometimes I use google translate and ask my friends to explain the meaning of certain terms.
I first read Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel in the Fall 2003 based on a recommendation from a friend. Many chapters of the book are truly fascinating, but I had criticisms of the book back then and hold even more now. Chief among these is the preponderance of analysis devoted to Papua New Guinea, as opposed to, say, an explanation of the greatly disparate levels of wealth and development among Eurasian nations. I will therefore attempt to confine this review on the "meat and potatoes" of his book: the dramatic Spanish conquest of the Incas; the impact of continental geography on food production; and finally, the origins of the Eurasian development of guns, germs, and steel. In terms of structure, I will first summarize the book's arguments, then critically assess the book's evidentiary base, and conclude with an analysis of how Guns, Germs, and Steel ultimately helps to address the wealth question.
Many people say that the metal of a man is found in his ability to keep his ideals in spite of anything that life can through at you. If a man is found to have done these things he can be called a hero. Through a lifelong need to accept responsibility for all living things, Robert Ross defines his heroism by keeping faith with his ideals despite the betrayal, despair and tragedy he suffers throughout the course of The Wars by Timothy Findley.
“Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo [goods] and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people had little cargo of our own?” [p. 14]. This question: Yali’s question, is the centerpiece of Jared Diamond’s book Guns, Germs, and Steel. Diamond’s claim is that the evolution of technology and overall differences of the advancement of society are due to the factors of geographical location, plants, and animals . “Technology may have developed most rapidly in regions with moderate connectedness [Europe], neither too high [China], nor too low [India]” [p. 416] says Diamond in the epilogue of his book hoping to provide further proof for his argument. Diamond’s view of history is not the conventional every-day view a student who is reading the book may have but he successfully brings the reader to, at the very least, consider his ideas. His book is said to be “An ingenious attempt to explain racial differences in achievement.” [Michael Levin]
Coming from my background of not knowing an excessive amount on the development of society, Diamond does a fantastic job of explaining key features throughout the book and how they ultimately led to Yali’s answer. The issue of intellectual racism and how some societies are more successful than others is still a very relevant issue in today’s world. Diamond also explains his thoughts by using objective facts, then explaining them in his thoughts. Guns, Germs, and Steel can summarize historical events for the past 13,000 years and still have them be relevant to today. In conclusion, the differences in societies on different continents can be traced back to the ecology. This contradictory statement can be explained by how complex societies have organized politics, advanced technology, and successful food
Elisabeth Gaynor, Ellis, and Anthony Esler. "The First Global Age: Europe, the Americas and Africa ." In World history connections to today. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2003.
In the book Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies the author Jared Diamond covers a vast array of historical and geographic events. Diamond compares and describes many developments that are occurring in different geographic areas around the world. What was his purpose for writing and comparing this vast amount of information? What did he want the reader to get out of it? His purpose for writing this text is to explain why certain cultures developed faster and what circumstances left the others at a disadvantage. The overall goal of the book is to explain how certain cultures became dominate and succeeded and how others didn’t develop as much. Diamonds summarization of the book gives you an insight to the meaning the book has.
In conclusion, during the 15th and 16th centuries Europeans visited the Atlantic Coast in the African states to observe for gold and silvers. They took advantage of the Africans to get their desires when the Africans acknowledged them to be equal which drove into Africa’s downfall.
In the first segment of his film series, Different but Equal, Basil Davidson sets out to disprove the fictitious and degrading assumptions about African civilization made by various Western scholars and explorers. Whether it is the notion that Africans are “savage and crude in nature” or the presumed inability of Africans to advance technologically, these stereotypes are damaging to the image and history of Africa. Although European Renaissance art depicts the races of white and black in equal dignity, there was a drastic shift of European attitudes toward Africa that placed Africans in a much lower standing than people of any other culture. The continent of Africa quickly became ravished by the inhuman slave trade and any traditional civilization
Another reason for Europeans to colonize Africa was to become even more powerful than they already were.... ... middle of paper ... ... Works Cited The DBQ Project. Chart.
When pressed with explaining the progression of human society to its current state and, more broadly, the historical process in general, one has several possible options. Three of the most compelling views, however, can be attributed to Jared Diamond, William McNeill, and Hans Zinsser. Although each offers a distinct model of how to understand chance and how history explains evolution, they all take radically different approaches. Diamond proposes that everything is explicable by a few simple laws and principles, and even goes so far as to suggest that there are no alternatives in history. McNeill argues that although there are loose, regulated principles at work, they do not dictate or explain everything; instead, he suggests that they create broad general patterns but adds that while there is pattern, there is also a fair amount of chance. Zinsser suggests simply that historians have largely disregarded disease as an agent of change. While all seem to be sound, when examining these three views on a more fundamental level, while focusing specifically on the role disease has played throughout history, it is evident that Zinsser’s stands as the most well-reasoned.
Africa’s struggle to maintain their sovereignty amidst the encroaching Europeans is as much a psychological battle as it is an economic and political one. The spillover effects the system of racial superiority had on the African continent fractured ...