Guns, Germs and Steel - Review

In the book Guns Germs and Steel Jared Diamond attempts to answer a question put to him by his New Guinean friend, "Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people has little cargo of our own?"

In New Guineas 'cargo' is the term used to refer to goods, such as metal, guns, mirrors, axes, matches, clothing etc. The question is basically, 'What factors led to one land having more technology advancement while another did not.

IQ tests have been shown to be culturally based. Decades of tests trying to prove an intelligence difference between races have failed. (as the "Flyn Effect" has shown - post upcoming)

If intelligence is not a factor is there another factor.

The answer that Jared Diamond provides is simple and easily observed.

It's the environment that encourages the developments that lead to material advancement and with it the development of towns and cities.

First explanation he provides answers the question, ' what are the factors needed for one people to conquer another people'.

Here is an extract from his after word that concludes the main thesis of the book.

"My main conclusion was that societies developed differently on different continents because of differences in continental environments, not in human biology. Advanced technology, centralized political organization, and other features of complex societies could emerge only in dense sedentary populations capable of accumulating food surpluses - populations that depended for their food on the rise of agriculture that began around 8,500 BC But the domesticable wild plant and animal species essential for that rise of agriculture were evenly distributed very unevenly over the continents. The most valuable domesticable wild species were concentrated in only nine small areas of the globe, which thus became the earliest homelands of agriculture. The original inhabitants of those homelands thereby gained a head start towards developing guns, germs (ex. smallpox) and steel. The Language and genes of those homeland inhabitants, as well as their livestock, crops, technologies and writing systems became dominant in the ancient and modern world."

In other words, it is not that one group of people is more 'fitter' for survival than another, it is the environment on which they depend and draw from that lead to their success or loss in conquering their neighbors.

The early 19th century Maori are a great example of how a technological and cultural advancement led to a cultural destabilization which in turn led to massive conquering (and death).

One tribe, which was closer to the point of contact with the first colonial ships to New Zealand (land of the Maori), was able to acquire muskets before other tribes. Muskets gave them a definitive advantage over other tribes still using bow and arrows. In addition to this they were the first to get potatoes, which provided more nutrition than the sweet potatoes than they grew. Now they could travel long distances because of an advantage in food supply. With the two advantages in food and weapons they began exterminating other tribes around them. Conquering territory. The tribes that delayed acquiring their own muskets and potatoes were completely wiped out. Those that did acquire were able to stay alive till a new balance of power was reached. By that time a quarter of the population had been wiped out.

The lucky tribe that happened to be where the colonials first landed saw themselves as divinely chosen to conquer the rest of the island. Primitive people tend to see good luck as divinely provided and bad luck as the result of evil spirit. (ex. the devil).

If a land lacks a technological advancement of another then it desperately seeks to gain it for one reason only. Balance of power. So they are not exterminated themselves.

Jared Diamond is the author of the book 'Guns, Germs and Steel', which explains how some cultures can advance faster than others, how some civilizations just crumble and how one civilization can become the dominant civilization on the planet, all without using a cultures beliefs as the reason for it's rise or fall.

National Geographic put together a 3 part documentary outlining the essentials of Jared Diamond's theory in the book Guns, Germs and Steel. This post outlines some of the ideas presented in the videos of the documentary as an introduction to Jared's book.

Episode 1 - Out of Eden - Summary of show and transcript

The research that led to the book Guns, Germs and Steel began because of a question posed to him by a native New Guinean while Jared was on one of his bird watching expeditions.

He was asked, "Why you white men have so much cargo and New Guineans so little?".

Cargo represents 'things' or more accurately 'wealth' which is held in high esteem in almost every culture. The ability to come up with new technology and greater wealth is respected by New Guineans and is the essential difference between a native New Guinean and a native European. So by answering this question you can explain the whole of modern civilization.

The questions are basically, 'Why did the Europeans dominate most of the world and not some other culture or civilization?' - 'What is the root cause of economic inequality across cultures?' - 'Why have some societies advanced faster than others?'.

Jared notes that the European beliefs for their world wide dominance (i.e. racial superiority or higher intelligence for whites than other races) is not supported by his observations so he begins to look at history, geography and other factors that could explain the economic inequality at the root of the question posed to him.

After living amongst the New Guineans Jared noted that a great deal of time goes into producing the food that they need to survive. Even with all the effort put into food production by the whole community there was still a very low amount of protein in their diet which is essential for health. On top of that, none of the food could be stored for very long so there was no time for people to relax and pursue other activities. There could be no specialization as the entire community was almost constantly involved in food production.

First settlements were in the Fertile Crescent 10,000 years ago - stored wheat and barley-could be stored for years

In selecting what to grow (biggest and tastiest seeds) changed plants-i.e. domesticated them

Within 1000 years most of the new villages of the fertile crescent were abandoned as the ecology of that area was too fragile to support extensive farming

People were destroying the environment, cutting trees, using up soil nutrition and over grazing.

Crops and animals from the Fertile Crescent could prosper to the east and west because of similar climate and vegetation---that latitude was suitable for expansion

High yielding crops are an advantage in farming- leads to more productive farmers

As the scale of villages increased farming became more productive

Herding begins around this time

Animals supplement grains - eat leftover grains and provide fertilizer- a package of efficiency

With large domesticated animals such as horses and ox's productivity in farming increased tremendously. It also helped in transport making controlling larger territories easier.

Most species can't be herded

The best animals for domestication are large plant eaters but all of these cant be domesticated -Africans were never able to domesticate their elephants

South Asia - Each elephant is caught in the wild, tamed and used as a work animal--in doesn't make sense to farm an animal that takes 15 years to mature and produce

Animals good for domestication usually give birth within a year and every year after that =high productivity

The animals need to be social both between sexes and working as a group/herd plus they have to have a hierarchal social structure so by controlling the leader you can control the herd

Animals need to get along with humans but some animals can't be controlled in a farm environment - ex. zebras are skittish and unpredictable ...maybe that's why they didn't get domesticated

Out of the 148 large plant eaters of animal species available on our planet only 14 have been domesticated%u2026 13 of the 14 animals were all from Asia, North Africa and Europe.

South America only had the Lama - North America had none/neither did New Guinea, Australia or Sub-Saharan Africa

In these next episodes Jared Diamond explains why the New World was conquered so easily by the Europeans. He begins with why a few hundred Spaniards were able to conquer the massive Inca civilization and walks through the various reasons from guns, to animals to the germs carried by Old Worlders for which the New Worlders had no immunity. Then he shows how expansion worked very differently in Africa for the same reasons (i.e. guns, germs and steel).

Quick overview with notes;

Conquest - Summary of show and transcript

All livestock animals in Europe came from the Fertile Crescent and this eastward expansion gave the Europeans the resources to grow on land that was more productive

In the new world there were no horses or cattle so all farming had to be done by hand-so their productivity was lower

Lamas had never been harnessed and existed only in the south

Horses, besides beats of burden, provided faster transport and thus better control of their territory and were objects of awe in the new world%u2026an intimidating/supernatural experience for the new worlders

The real power of the conquistadors were their swords, the rapier. Guns were inaccurate though intimidating to the new worlders

[ Note: The longitude argument holds as a reason for the lack of spread of livestock and farming technique ]

12 years before Pizzaro arrived a slave with small pox was aboard a Spanish vessel that arrived in Mexico. Within days thousands were infected.

The germs decimated the local population making conquest much easier

Our diseases evolved from animals so we developed a kind of tolerance- (i.e. over the many 'plagues' in the old world, natural selection had improved the overall immunity of the old world population) new worlders had never come into contact with these germs so were extremely vulnerable

There is some debate as to how many natives were killed in the early conquest, experts estimate the new world had a population of over 20 million and up to 95% dies from old world diseases - that's why the continent was virtually empty when the expansion inland finally began

Tropics - Summary of show and transcript

Cities and kingdoms once spread across the African continent

Europeans conquered and transplanted their cities and systems - agriculture- used railroads-

South Africa - the cape - had similar climate to Europe making it possible for comfortable colonization

Germs are the biggest killers in history- Europeans took these germs with them wherever they went which decimated populations and made colonization seem easier than it would have otherwise been

1830s thousands of Dutch farmers began to settle into Africa like in the Americas - guns had advanced by then and every settler had 2-3 guns

You couldn't go around without your rifle - guns were a part of life and everyone had one
When they had gotten about 800 miles inland they entered the land of the zulus - a 'mighty African kingdom' who wiped out settlers nearby stopping the advance of the Europeans further inland

In a large war the Zulu were defeated by a smaller European force because of their guns

Eventually settlement continued to expand as technology grew and was implemented in Africa and the machine gun was invented - now one man could decimate a less technologically advanced civilization easily

Eventually the settlers were stopped by geography - land became impossible to plow, crops wouldn't grow, their shoes fell apart in the mud-[their technology was not adapted to that particular geographic region]-

The settler's livestock also started dying and they picked up malaria. The Europeans had come up against a disease that they were not immune to.

All of these reasons combined put the Europeans at a disadvantage in the same way that was previously their reason for success. Their culture had simply not evolved to survive in this environment

Small pox decimated populations in South Africa and the Americas but not further north in Africa

The imported animals had no immunity to indigenous germs

African cattle had immunity to tropical diseases and since small pox originated with cattle, and may even have originated in Africa, the population had a greater immunity but more importantly they had medicine to bestow immunity to small pox for life! So this was a problem they had encountered before

Africans had antibodies against malaria, a tropical disease that was deadly for Europeans

Africans had even evolved a culture in high and dry areas which kept them away from the wet areas where mosquitoes breed plus they lived in small communities which limits the spread of Malaria.

The Europeans did not know this and settled next to rivers where mosquitoes bred

Here guns were effective but germs were the deciding factor in holding back European expansion. [ Question: Are germs more powerful than guns in expansion of culture/civilization]

With settlement out of the question the Europeans turned instead to harvesting natural resources.