Guns, Germs, and Steel

There are a lot of things in life that when finished one thinks to themselves "need to do that again". Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel is one of those things for me. I didn't space the whole thing off, but I found myself straying from the page quite a bit. Most of this was inspired by Diamond. The book is thought provoking, and a lot of my random wanderings were inspired by the books contents. It is an incredibly well constructed work on this history of human civilization. It starts with one question and breaks off into dozens more, all the while Diamond weaves you through human history. The question being "why do some societies develop so much "cargo" while others have so little?"

In the context of the question, which was presented to Diamond by a New Guinea man, "cargo" refers to goods or what boils down to technology. The answer, it's complicated. The title is indicative of what many people contribute to the conquering of one group of people over another. Guns, germs, and steel played large roles in the conquering of the America's. Still, that is a few steps down the road. How is that the European nations were able to acquire those good before the Incas or other civilizations of the Americas. It seems that where you end is very dependent on you start.

Geography has played a big part in human evolution. This is something we probably all take for granted. The environment around us is a contributor to the needs for innovation, and how we live our lives. Diamond shows that the development of food production drove many groups of people forward. Still, others stayed behind. This is greatly dependent on the environment people lived in. The animals that lived around them also contributed to the equation. Many of the domesticated animals that we have today originated in a few areas. These areas are places like the fertile crescent and China. Areas that have developed more quickly than places like Australia, or Southern Africa where many of the animals are not easily domesticated.

Aside from food production many places on earth are easier to travel than others. Travel by peoples results in the dissemination of information. Societies are built by information, and the control of it. Technology is developed communally by the tinkering of persons piggy-backing off of others. In areas of the world where it is hard to travel and interact with other people information did not spread the same way that it did where people could connect with other groups.

Diamond conveys the fact that every human society is smart. So racist beliefs about the development of peoples don't really hold through. People are as smart as they need to be. Much of the development of human societies is circumstance. "What is the best way to survive in my circumstance?" Based on that question people and societies evolved at different rates because of the world around them mixed with human instinct.


In summation-read again.