Guns Germs and Steel

Throughout history, people have always wondered why the Eurasians were so successful in dominating countries around the world. How despite times being quite ancient, the Eurasians were more ahead than most countries in technology, architecture, etc. Many factors played for the development of Eurasia’s status. Jared Diamond elucidates these factors in his book Guns, Germs, and Steel. The Eurasians had many advantages that led them to gain the agriculture and domestic lead in society. About many thousands of years ago, people had started to develop civilization. Eventually, people migrated around the world in search of better resources. In different areas, for some people, food was becoming scarcer. This conflict then pushed them to try out new ways; experimenting with crops, etc. With that flourished agriculture; a major milestone for humanity then, and what was to come. Even with agriculture spreading around the world, The Eurasians climate and experience had already given a head start against other countries, who were far too behind in society. Agriculture also pushed the Eurasians to develop a writing system. Since Europe and Asia were right next to each other, trading would be very frequent. Furthermore, with trading and selling, came a writing system. Diamond also states that it wasn’t the agriculture push that led the Eurasians to what they are now. He also thinks that isolation has to play in with this. Europe and Asia are right next to each other, meaning that both countries were introduced to different things by which each country had made. An example would be guns. The Chinese were the first to make gunpowder, but that didn’t mean they were only going to be the ones to prosper with it. Soon enough The Europeans were also acquainted with this new item. Unlike Europe and Asia, places like New Guinea, The North and South Americas, and perhaps Africa were far too away from each other and were isolated. The whole purpose of “Guns, Germs, and Steel” was this; History followed different courses for different people is because of the differences among people’s environments and where they were located, not because of the biological difference between different races of people themselves.

The first key reason that Diamond states in his book started off with the dawn of agriculture, and why it was in certain parts of the world, but not others. Archeologists have concluded that the first places agriculture started were in Mesopotamia, then continuing on with Mesoamerica and China. Diamond states few reasons of why agriculture arose in these specific areas, instead of others. In this era, most of the human beings either hunted animals or picked nuts and berries for food. Though in these parts of the world, game and fruits/vegetables were becoming scarcer. This motivated the people in those specific areas to experiment with the food in their area. In result, ancient humans used trial and error to learn how to