Chapter Summary Of Guns Germs And Steel By Jared Diamond

In this chapter, Jared Diamond recalls the greatest collision in modern history. Atahualpa’s, Incan emperor, capture by Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro was known as the biggest population shift in modern history. When he Europeans colonized the Americas, Native Americans were nearly wiped out as the biggest population shift occurred. As Diamond depicts the story, he includes eyewitness writings to describe the fight at Cajamarca. The Spaniards were able to win the fight due to weapons, and not to anything other considering they had fewer soldiers than the Incans. Steel swords and chainmail armor played a colossal part in the defeat of Native Americans. The sight of horses confused many Native Americans, as they had never seen one. The

In the beginning of this book Yali asked Jared Diamond a question, “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?”, and in the epilogue Diamond answers. The answer to Yali’s question is that the geography and environment of Europe was an advantage which they used to dominate and conquer people of New Guinea and other remote areas. The difference in animal and plant domestication, rates of diffusion, and migration due to ecological barriers between continents has contributed to Europe as an advanced continent. Europe also came to dictate the Fertile Crescent and China which were the first to develop the earliest food production. The Fertile Crescent underwent

Entry Ten - Page Numbers 88-90 - Court Martials At the conclusion of chapter five, a trial is held for the insubordination that Tjaden and Kropp showed against Himmelstoss earlier in the chapter. Lieutenant Bertink presides over the trails and hears the testimony of Paul, his friends, and Himmelstoss. He then sentences Tjaden to three days open arrest and Kropp is handed down one-day open arrest. Paul considers these punishments reasonable, and Paul feels that open arrest is very humane.

In this part he explains how the increase in food production enabled people to increase in population and create specialized jobs while the domestication of animals helped them with the production of tools, animal labor during farming (pulling wagons) and war (horses used for battle), warmth (leather and wool), transportation, food (meat and milk), and fertilizer. Then he explains the decision of people to move to farming. This decision was influenced by different factors in different parts of the world such a decrease in wild games’ population, more domestic plants, development of technologies for food producing, and human population vs food production. Then he explains how the environmental advantages such as biological, ecological, and geographical diversity allowed for a variety of crops. For example, the plants in the Fertile Crescent were self-pollinating which allowed an increase in crop production. He further explains how geography contributed to the domestication of animals. He states that “the wild ancestors of 13 of the Ancient Fourteen… were confined to Eurasia,” (Diamond 161) which shows the geographic advantage Eurasians had since most of the ancient 14 domestic animals were in Eurasia. Additionally, Eurasia had the least amount of extinction in the last 40,000 years along with more readily domestic animals who has a faster growth rate, diet, no problem breeding in captivity, and etc. Another geographical advantage Eurasians had was the axes of the continents. Since Eurasia has west-east axes, it was easier for Eurasians to transport food production such as crops due to the same latitude which resulted in the same climate, same day length and diseases. However, Africa and the Americas has a north-south axes which made transportation of food production difficult due to

According to anthropologists the first human beings lived in Ethiopia, Africa around 2 million years ago for example: Lucy known as the oldest human found there. The most probable reason why the first human left Africa is because of the Ice Age. The cold made life so difficult to survive and somehow reduced in their population. They went through a land bridge, which existed to connect North America and Asia during the Ice Age.

1. Humans first appeared on Earth during the Paleolithic Era. The evidence of burial grounds, stone tools, and other items shows a general migration path of humans out of Africa, and support the theory that these groups were nomadic hunters and foragers. Early humans were mobile and could adapt to different geographical settings from savannah to Ice Age tundra. Anthropologists infer that these bands were relatively egalitarian.

“Ender did not hesitate. He stepped on the head of the snake and crushed it under his foot. It writhed and twisted under him and in response he twisted and ground it deeper into the stone floor… And in the mirror he saw a face that he easily recognized. It was Peter.” (117)

Hey! No large domestic animals, so there's your excuse for a failure in the Americas. But there was a domestic mammal throughout the two continents:

In the video “Guns, Germs and Steel: Episode 3.” The overall summary of the episode is how Europe dominated Africa, how they fought through diseases and land wars with local tribes. During this adventure major diseases spread across Africa, affecting Europeans and Africans, causing thousands to die. The main two diseases were smallpox and Malaria, for example in the video it stated that, “It was believed Smallpox originated in the tropical region of Africa, Africans were certainly similar with the disease, they had even developed methods of immunity for life.” This was the advantage they had over the europeans, they were able to protect themselves from Smallpox; avoiding such a dramatic incline their population. Not only did they develop immunization to Smallpox, they tried to fight off Malaria. For example in the video it says, “Native Africans had also developed antibodies against one of the most virulent diseases on the earth, Malaria.” This was because they settled and live in high or dry locations, away from wet and humid areas, which is where mosquitos are generally found, hence why thousands of Europeans died to this disease due to living by rivers and swamps. However, Malaria isn’t the most common disease in Africa now, the most common disease is “Pneumonia and Other Lower Respiratory Tract Infections….Pneumonia alone is responsible for 90% of all lower respiratory tract infections and is one of the most deadly diseases in

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, by Jared Diamond, attempts to explain why history progressed differently for people from various geographical regions. Diamond introduces his book by pointing out that history followed different courses for different people because of differences among peoples’ environments, not because of biological differences among people themselves. Through his convincing explanation for how civilizations were created and evolved throughout the course of history, he argues that environmental factors gave some societies advantages over others, allowing them to conquer the disadvantaged societies. While I agree with Diamond’s argument that the orientation of continental axis, availability of potential

In the book Guns, Germs and Steel Jared Diamond who is a biophysics scientist and a psychologist, set out on a journey to find out the reason behind great achievements and conquest of the Europeans. What is the secret of success of Europeans? His hypothesis was very original and at first looked very simple, it was guns, germs and steel. The journey of Diamond took over 30 years and helped him answer the main questions of human history and what is it that separates humans today from "rich and poor" and from "haves and have not’s." To do this he had to go back when everyone was equal.

From the beginning of the book, Diamond focuses on answering Yali’s question. Yali is a New Guinean, who out of curiosity would ask Diamond questions, one of which was hard for Diamond to answer. That question was, "Why is it that you white people developed so much

Yes, if there is a lot of resources around it can support a large group of people instead of a small group of gatherers

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

According to physical evidence, and theories, scholars have concluded upon a whole hypothesis. Based on their knowledge and belief, modern humans diverged from Homo sapiens between 200,000 and 150,000 years ago specifically in Africa, that between 125,000 and 60,000 years ago members of Homo sapiens left Africa, and that these