Analysis of Jared Diamond’s “Guns, Germs, and Steel”
When reading about human history, there are patterns surrounding certain parts of the world, while other places don’t fit into these patterns; hunters and gatherers became farmers, spoken words became written language, villages became cities, etc. Most history books published in past decades contain a perspective that focuses on Europe when talking about the development of human societies. In the very same history books, it becomes obvious that the people of Europe and Asia were some of the first in the development of technology and their economy, but sometimes they were invaders and attacked others. This makes a person question why it is that the people of Europe, the Middle East, and Asia have been able to gain so much power so early on in human history and managed to stay that way ever since. In Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel, the author spends most of his book answering this question, starting with a description of a conversation he had with a politician from New Guinea named Yali who was asking this question (Diamond, pg.13). It was during his conversation with Yali that Jared was suddenly surprised as to how Europeans had so much power over Yali’s people for the last two centuries in that he did not have a clear answer as to why or how the Europeans did this aside from the obvious details (weapons, ships, etc.). But in order to gain a more complete picture of how some civilizations became powerful while others were created and destroyed so often, Jared later analyzed the roots of this pattern and decided to answer the question of how Eurasian societies were able to advance as well as they did.
In his research, Jared Diamond figured out that the dominance of Eurasian civilizations was not caused by any physical or mental advantage possessed by the people of Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa. Instead, Diamond explains that this dominance can be traced back to simple geography and control over to the three categories mentioned in the title: guns (in other words, better weapons leads to more powerful armies), germs (gaining immunity to disease, the invention of germ warfare), and steel (for armor, construction, better transportation, which was good for developing empires). Eurasian cultures have created many of the most significant inventions, such as metal crafting, the invention of gunpowder, the domestication of animals, written language, paper, and the idea of being able to produce things on a massive scale. It comes as no surprise to anyone that the societies that accomplished these feats became the most powerful nations on earth. The process of development begins with the most basic need: food. People cannot always hunt animals for meat, so protein-rich vegetables become an important resource. Such plants must also be easy to plant in large numbers, and harvesters must be able to store them. Wheat and barley are good examples of this because they are easy to store and easy to plant. In comparison, new-world plants like corn and bananas cannot grow everywhere, which is why they are a less reliable source of food (Diamond, Ch.8). Another important source of food is meat from domesticated animals. This is important because it gives farmers an advantage over hunters; domesticated animals are a reliable source of meat that people can have on-hand, using much less energy to collect the meat and freeing up time and physical strength for other activities. Eurasian ecosystems have an advantage in this area as well, since various donkeys, horses, cows, goats, pigs and chickens are easily bred and raised by humans as opposed to the Zebras and Elephants of Africa, which are too aggressive and difficult to breed in captivity (Diamond, Ch.9). Pigs in particular were a key source of food for migrating Polynesians in the Pacific due to their small size which made them easy to travel with (Diamond, Ch.17). Diamond points out that even though some South American tribes were keeping llamas and alpacas, these animals are only one example (since they are one species) from the new world, while Eurasian societies were keeping thirteen different species of animals. Aside from meat, animals kept by Eurasians served as sources of clothing from wool, leather from pelts, milk and dairy, and even labor when it comes to larger, stronger animals, while camels and horses served as good military animals. The east to west direction of land from Europe in the west to Asia in the east meant that the majority of nations within these areas shared many similar climates, the only big difference being between temperate zones and the deserts, and mountain ranges that are spread out enough to not completely change the difference in landscape from region to region. This means that most places in these areas share similar, stable climates and many of the same plants and animals, which means that trade was made possible between these countries in Europe and Asia. Trade means shared ideas and similar technology. In contrast, the African continent has a north to south-based stretch of land with very big differences in crops and soil as well as very wild animals that get wilder the closer you get to the equator. This is also true in north and south America also, and even people living the temperate forests in North America have the trouble of not being able to grow the same crops from east to west coast due to great mountain ranges (such as the Rockies) in very inconvenient locations for the people living there, which also causes huge weather changes depending on which part of north America you are in (Diamond, Ch.8). The last most important factor in Eurasian development is the immunity to disease. This happened completely by accident; the introduction of animal domestication resulted in the spread of animal-based diseases to humans. Living in cities attracted rats, and contact between humans and rats caused the worst plagues in history, which killed off large portions of the human race in Europe and Asia. Those who survived the diseases, either inherited or developed immunities to them, and were unaware of the fact that they brought some of these diseases with them wherever they traveled. The only diseases that Europeans, for example, had no natural immunity to were yellow fever and malaria, which only show up in specific climates, which meant that most of the new world was still accessible to European explorers (Diamond, Ch.11). The spread of European diseases, like smallpox, severely damaged Native American populations, which was sometimes by accident, but germ warfare was used during this time as well, since colonial forces became aware of its effectiveness as a weapon. All of these were factors in the development of Eurasian civilizations, and perhaps the most important.
However, the one thing that Diamond considers to be the most important is geography. It proved to be very good for Eurasians in general, but it was western Europe that benefitted the most. For example, with mountain ranges like the Balkans of Eastern Europe and the Caucasus mountain range of southern Russia, people who are surrounded by this terrain are given natural defense from invaders and therefore less time and resources are required to build structures to protect their home regions. And sharing similar climates, once again, meant sharing stable sources of food. Having such large and healthy populations with plenty of food meant that division of labor was made possible; not everyone needed to be farmers anymore. The concept of assigning different jobs to different people was invented as a result of this. The time to come up with new ideas led to new discoveries and new technology such as crafting metal and solving problems with construction and other new inventions. Such stable societies now had the possibility of making new changes, while other societies in other parts of the world were more focused on basic survival and where to find food at whichever time of year (like all hunters and gatherers).
Given all of the evidence presented throughout Guns, Germs, and Steel, the dominance of Eurasia might have nothing to do with the people who are supposed to be “superior”, but has everything to do with the geographical and environmental factors. This is an important to think about because, besides answering the question of how some cultures had more power than others, Diamond had another goal all along; proving that dominance does not take place because one race is superior to another. This is related to the conversation with Yali at the beginning of the book, where Diamond recognizes the fact that, today, many white Europeans, Americans and Australians reject racism on the outside, but secretly believe that something must be wrong or different about non-while tribal people who did not live in Europe or Asia (Diamond, pg. 19). This means that racism still exists today, but is usually ignored and kept secret. Eurasians in the past used this opinion to justify the horrible things they did to other, less advanced nations in other parts of the world. Having control over guns, germs, and steel provided Eurasians with the tools to be successful, but it was racism that encouraged them to use this power. It seems like it is also Diamond’s goal to change people’s opinions that some cultures can destroy others because one is superior over the other. This is not true, since all a society needs is control over “guns”, “germs” and “steel”.
Reference:
Diamond, Jared. Guns, Germs, and Steel: the Fates of Human Societies. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1997. Print.
