Through out Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond attempts to explain the dominance of certain ethnicities. The backbone to this book and the questions that Diamond asks and answers, stem from a question asked of him in 1972 by a local politician in New Guinea named Yali. "Our conversation began with a subject then on every New Guinean's mind - the rapid pace of political developments." What Yali wanted to know was why New Guinea and other cultures around the world seemed behind in technology. Why were the Europeans the dominant force in the world? "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?" As Diamond puts it, Yalis question can be stretched out to not just the whites and New Guineans, but most of the world and whites. "Why did wealth and power become distributed as they now are, rather than in some other way? For instance, why weren't native Americans, Africans, and Aboriginal Australians the ones who decimated, subjugated, or exterminated Europeans and Asians?" In the next 400 pages, Diamond does everything to convince the reader of all t

"Egalitarians usually dodge such questions, citing America "racism" to explain black and Hispanic failures in the United States despite its irrelevance to the "developing (i.e. undeveloped) world." To his credit, Jared Diamond has confronted this issue head-on. He hopes to explain the attainments of each race - he reluctantly accepts the concept of race - wholly in terms of geography and ecology rather than differences in innate abilities."

he agricultural and environmental reasons for this, while trying to bury the old theory of intellectual racism. That is, the belief that Europeans and Asians have a naturally higher intellect. After reading I found that his theory of environment and agriculture had a very strong base to it and made a lot of sense. He makes his points clear and very factual, using examples throughout history and his own personal life in some instances to hammer his point home. However I'm a little skeptic of him disregarding at all the possibility of a certain race being inherently smarter than another. Although he makes a few points towards his theory, he dodges it for the most part. Many people in review of the book find this to be unacceptable, and some are even angered by it.

"Food production was indirectly a prerequisite for the development of guns, germs, and steel." The change from hunter gatherer to farmer also increased population density in the areas. What cannot be forgotten in all this talk of farming, is the domestication of animals. Before we explore the germs and illnesses and death they caused, let us look at the positive force they had. These animals were new sources of protein, and some animals were more valuable for the food they produced, like milk and eggs. Some of the larger animals also helped till the land by hooking large plows to them. This increased the amount of land tilled in less time. "These chapters convincingly show how Eurasia, the combined continents of Europe and Asia, outstripped Africa, America, Australia, and all the lesser Islands of the Earth, partly because domesticable plants and animals in Eurasia were better suited to human needs than those anywhere else." All this time saved is a major reason creations like steel weapons, guns, steel mesh armor, etc were created. However the animals served more of a purpose than just producing food and tilling farm land.

How could this happen? What appears to be a blatant mismatch of force, ends up a lopsided victory for what many may have considered an underdog. 8,000 Indians vs 162 Spaniards, one would think that the Indians would brutally wipe the floor with them. However the Spaniards were better equipped by far, with better weaponry and armor. Their chain link armor provided excellent protection against the clubs of the Indians, while their swords and guns easily penetrated the cloth armor covering their Indian foes. The Guns, Germs, and Steel had very little to do with the massacre that day, and the subsequent extermination of the Inca, Maya, and Aztec civilizations. As Diamond puts it, the warriors mounted on their horses and the communication between Pizarro and his people and lack of it between Atahualpa and his is what spelled the end for the Indians. Pizarro looked back in history and devised plans for his attack, where Atahualpa had never even heard of the Spaniards.

"Immediate reasons for Pizarro's success included military technology based on Guns, steel weapons, and horses; infectious diseases epidemic in Eurasia; European maritime technology; the centralized political organization of European states; and writing."

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2427
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page double spaced)