Germs In Jared Diamond's Blood Diamond

Diamond describes the early parts of human history in a broad scope towards the beginning of the book. He focuses on both the evolution and spread of human beings, arguing that some civilizations had a head start over other ones because of when the period of human evolution took place. He explains how different environments shaped human history through an a example of how populations which inhabited the Polynesian islands developed differently due to the different environments and then by telling the stories about what happened as populations with better geographical advantages encountered more disadvantaged populations in the Americas. Diamond explains the many factors that influenced the historical progression of different societies. Diamond argues how food production was very much a primary factor in the advancement of each society. Societies

From the early prehistoric society until now, we often heard the word “adaptation”, which means the process of changing something or changing our behavior to deal with new situations. The ways people adjust their natural environment varies according to time, place, and tribe. Foraging is common way of adaptation that people uses for most of human history; however because of the population pressure, some people adopt agriculture to fulfill their need. This essay, will discuss the positive and negative aspects of life in hunting and gathering societies compared to the agricultural societies based on Martin Harris’ article “Murders in Eden” and Jared Diamond’s article “The Worst Mistake in the History of Human Race.”

Throughout history, the circumstances that people were born into were not equal. While some people were born on hospitable lands where people and animals could flourish, others were born on desolate and isolated lands that proved unsuitable for livestock. These uncontrollable circumstances as well as others, such as climate, created the different types of lifestyles that people have adopted. Through the book Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond illustrates the five themes of world history by explaining how a chain of effects starting from the first people interacting with their given environments and resources led to how they live in the present. While for the world it may seem apparent that one group of people seems to have the upper hand in the social hierarchy, Diamond shows his view that, in actuality, it only became this way because of the conditions that different groups of people had to cope with in the past.

This shift from gathering berries and hunting wild animals to producing food by themselves was major because it resulted in the developement of permanent settlement, social classes, and technology. As mentioned once before, there was a great change in the way food was produced. Mankind shifted from being mere hunter-gatherers to complex and

Why were Europeans able to conquer most of the known world during the Age of Imperialism? Imagine a life without a proper education, without any technology, or even electricity, without there always being enough food, without much meat, without even a real home; this is how many people live in developing countries, such as New Guinea. Across the world,many people have civilizations have lived as hunters and gatherers for thousands of years. Then, some places experienced a evolution while others did not. In locations, such as the Fertile Crescent, people started taking back seeds and animals to their villages(Gachegua, Episode 1).

Disease was a major factor in the change of the Native American culture. When the Europeans came they brought diseases that the Native Americans immune systems had never faced before. These diseases wiped most of the Native Americans. Some of the diseases were Smallpox, measles, malaria, yellow fever. However there was one disease that was taken back to Europe, and that was Syphilis. The diseases brought to the New World weakened the Native American population so they were easier to conquer by people like Pizarro and Cortes.

The societal levels of organization clearly identify the transitioning of institutions from: bands, small nomadic herds of people, to tribes, a stable village of hundreds, to chiefdoms, when centralized governments prevail, and states, large productive societies. Stages will find that as they move up the ladder, progress is indirectly related to food production. Food production goes hand-in-hand with our ever increasing population and is responsible for turning bands into states. The domestication of plants and animals lead to complex societies where sedentary living and dense populations encouraged germs, with the interaction of farm species, and technological innovations, in the form of guns and steel.

The Natives were very foreign to these new diseases, which made it easier for them to catch it and die. “Native Americans suffered immensely from disease that were foreign to them.” The traveling and exchange was definitely a big cause to the killing of Native Americans. Some Europeans and animals lived close to sewages that carried a lot of nasty things, which caused the people and animals to get a nasty disease, which also spread throughout

Much like natural selection whatever civilisation had animals got stronger over time. An example of this system of natural selection working is the Spain and Inca war as the spanish developed getting all of their supplies and techniques from the diseased civilisation of the Fertile Crescent they ventured to south america where the Inca territory was sending very little people and the Incas who had also developed a civilization with thousands of warriors ready to fight but the spaniards won. The spaniards won because of disease, they brought disease not knowing they had done so because they had built an immunity of it giving the disease to the Incas. The Incas only had one domesticable animals the llama which wasn’t very much use to them so they did not live in close proximity to them not passing germs and not building an immunity to the

Humans have used hunting and gathering for many years, it did the job to feed family's. As population grew humans evolved and switched to agriculture. Some may argue that “Agriculture came with the gross and sexual inequality, the disease and despotism, that curse our existence.” This causes some to argue that, switching

It is possible that a social hierarchy was created when such densely packed communities were created, as now human interaction became all the more important, as the relationships between neighbors, and social groups would most likely create tension in the situation. It was also during the time of the Early neolithic in which the first clues of plant domestication began to appear. Though it was the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B period in which domesticated crops including wheat, barley, lentil, peas, and legumes were found. These domesticated grains showed an increase in size and durability . Animal domestication was quick to follow, as Sheep were found to be domesticated in Turkey, Iraw, and Iran, while the reduction in size of the animals, and the discovery of the animals outside their habitat became common finds. Finally, it was during the Late Neolithic period in which a reduction in the number of large villages across the Middle East began. We can see the shift toward a way of life focused on the grazing of domesticated animals, as villages began to shrink, and the population became once again scattered across the land. It was also during this period in which a decline in the role of hunting for subsistence became apparant, as well as Late Neolithic societies reliance on plants that were domesticated during the Early Neolithic periods. We can see from this that the origin of agriculture in Europe came from the usage of Middle Eastern

One of the greatest revolutions in the history of homo sapiens was the adoption of agriculture, which changed the face of communities at every level of class. Though this change was built upon new ideas and allowed us to provide more food for more people, was it in fact a positive change at the time? Today in 2017, we can all look around and see where the agricultural revolution has gotten us in the long run, but authors such as Yuval Noah Harari (2011) claim that during the infancy of the agricultural revolution, life for the average citizen was often a worse one than that of the common forager. A change in food production created many other changes, such as permanent human settlement, biologically unconventional labor, and a larger population density. This paper explores the pros and cons of the agricultural society and the hunter-gatherer society

The transition from the Paleolithic to the Neolithic Age, could be viewed as evolutionary and straight-forward advancements in lifestyle (nomadic to sedentary), subsistence (constantly hunting for food to domesticating animals and farming), governance (primitive to complex government), but this over simplification would have vastly have understated the exploration and ingenuity of the people in these times. They moved society forward in the face of the challenges of their

When societies change it is primairly due to technology developing and changing. The very first social revoultion was what allowed hunting-gathering societies to begin to develop into horticultiral and pastoral socieities, which was then followed by the second social revoultion due to the invention of the plow that allowed for the agricultrial society to flurish (Henslin., 2013. , p. 450). The steam engine triggered the third social revoultion and the fourth was begun by the invention of the microchip (Henslin., 2013.

Prior to living in homes build to with stand the test of time, growing food their food source, and raising animals, humans were nomads who followed their food source around and were hunters and gathers. Although it took many years, from 8000B.C. to 3000B.C. for humans to go from hunters and gathers to a more common day life as we now know it, the result is referred to as the Neolithic Revolution the begins of human civilization. As the people of this time began to settle down and they began to both farm the land and domesticate animals for the better of the community. Along with the development of these communities as for the first time began to create social class among the many different roles they played in their community. Because