Guns Germs and steel by Jared Diamond
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fate of Human Societies is a nonfiction book written by Jared Diamond that won the Pulitzer Prize in 1998 and has also been a national bestseller. This book presents a thorough as well as coercive study to show the reasons that has made some cultures to be more dominant over others in the history of mankind. Despite the author, Diamond, being a professor of Physiology, he is also fine in the area of biogeography and evolutionary biology. One of the successful areas the book has managed to convince the reader is when it offer a much better persuasive explanation to show the racial and ethnical differences in human history that cannot be matched to racist theories that exist. He goes ahead to declare that racist theories are not only "loathsome but also...wrong" (p. 19). The scope of Diamond's approach is very wide because he covers the entire world. However, there is no particular society or continent that has been covered wholly. New Guinea, New Zealand, and Australia are some of the countries he spent several years doing some scientific study. This is where his work mostly covers.
Diamond started to think about this book when he had visited New Guinea in 1972 when he was studying birds' evolution as a biologist. While walking on the beach, he had a lengthy conversation with a local politician, Yali, who was organizing his nation to have self-government. Yali's inquired the way white people came to their country with a lot of cargo yet the black people had no such cargo. Cargo here is the material that explorers and colonizers came with. This question makes Professor Diamond to inquire about the history of all people in the last 13,000 years. He does this well and comes up with the conclusion that the reason Eurasians managed to conquer Africans, Native Americans, and the Aboriginal Australians and not the other way was because of four essential sets of intrinsic variations in the environment from which diverse people came up. Actually, he seeks to justify that history was not different because of biological divergence but rather environment made people to follow different courses. He explores this through the study of cultural and socio-economic adaptations, migration, technological advancement, and environmental conditions. This makes him to go back to the Pleistocene age in an effort to account for human history. This ends in an outline for future scientific foundation for studying human history that will carry the same weight as the present scientific studies accounting for other natural observable facts such as glaciers and dinosaurs.
However, Diamond falls short of explaining some of his theories for one to fully understand the human inequalities. He does not show why the Spanish knowledge really helped them to colonize. The writer gives a reason that the Spanish people were not so naive like the natives in the way they understood their past human conquests and wars that helped them to defeat the Natives. On the other hand, he does not explain the reason why natives in the New World had no knowledge about war, capitalism, or greed. Moreover, Diamond does not explain the reason Europeans struggled for colonies this much. This is because he only shows how the Europeans had the ability to colonize. Furthermore, most of his assertions can only mostly be classified as an opinion but not as facts. He wraps up that people in New Guinea are smarter as compared to Europeans and Americans wholly because of natural selection. He also goes ahead to give a second reason. He says that many children in Europe and America use up much of their time sitting on couches watching televisions, radios, and movies. This is in fact a very bold hypothesis.
Diamond fails to explain the meaning of the word smart. Many of the IQ tests are blamed for bias and cannot be relied wholly to study intelligence. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) shows a correlation between brain size and IQ. Besides, there is also a claim that the perimeter of the head at birth considerably forecast the perimeter of the head at seven years where the perimeter at seven years foretells IQ. Consequently, there is another method one that measured intelligence through endocranial volume. All this studies show their descending order to be East Asians, Europeans, and African. He does not only ignore the disagreement about intelligence but also use his view point as a scientific fact. This is because there are no certain ways of measuring intelligence.
However, Diamond has shown logical claims that support some people in history of mankind to be superior to others. Geography made those living in Eurasian and Asia to be exposed to animals and plants which could be domesticated. Those in the Fertile Crescent had the biggest share in plants. For example, Mediterranean had thirty two plants to be domesticated while America had eleven plants. The surplus in food brought about intricate hierarchical societies that had a potential to advance. Therefore, this started from tribes to chiefdoms and eventually to states. Food surplus was a catalyst for specialization. This portrayal of states is similar to today's modern societies. This is because people with some sort of government had a higher chance of defeating others, a fact to date. Simply because they had a central decision making organ and also they had the patriotic commitment that made them "to fight suicidally" (p. 281). This is the fundamental advantage in conquering others.
The result of food surplus, domestication, and development of complex societies became constrained to the Latitudes of where they were situated. This argument about Latitude is very much believable and fascinating. For example, Europeans had all the military advantage but continually failed to inhabit the equatorial West Africa. This is because they did not have the malaria resistance that the natives had. Similarly, the whites were biologically disadvantaged and did not manage to overrun Andes. This shows that indigenous people are not in any way inferior. This is because many indigenous people appear to be in a way genetically superior as compared to those that are outsiders in their own territory. Diamond achieves to make environmental differences very compelling until one doubts that humans can never become adapted to their homelands by natural selection.
Guns, Germs and Steel in real sense represent weapons, diseases, and technologies. This book will fascinate anyone who is interested to know about the history of humankind. Despite many criticizing his work, one will realize that the equality of opportunity is growing. In this regard, there has been talent being nurtured in areas that countries never originally prospered in them. A good example is sports where Africans and African/Americans are greatly prospering. Moreover, China and the Middle East at large are greatly advancing while the economy of the Westerners is crumbling. Diamond has given a solid alternative to racist answer and makes the book more informative and enjoyable to the reader.
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