Guns, Germs and Steel

A short History of Everybody for the last 13000 years.

http://www.pbs.org/gunsgermssteel/index.html

Student Activities - go to Shared/Modern History/Thesis/Diamond/Lessons/index.htm

Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (New York: W.W. Norton: 0393038912).

In 1972, Yali, a local politician in New Guinea asked Jarred Diamond, "Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people had little cargo of our own?"

In other words - Why did wealth and power become distributed as they are, rather than in some other way?

OR

Why were Europeans, rather than Africans or Native Americans, the ones to end up with guns, the nastiest germs, and steel?

OR

One sentence summary: "History followed different courses for different peoples because of differences among people's environments, not because of biological differences among peoples themselves."

Diamond believes that to answer these questions, "you must explore the different biological and physical environments within which human cultures operate. Alas, the answers depend critically on biogeography, crop cytogenetics, microbial evolution, animal behaviour, and other fields remote from historians' training." (http://nybooks.com/articles/1132 Vol 44, No 11 june26 1990) Jarred Diamond responds to comments made by William H. McNeill about his book.

His thesis: Geography is destiny. Those early humans who settled in geographically advantageous areas produced agricultural surpluses that permitted their societies to support specialists. This specialization enabled some peoples to develop technologies, bureaucracies, and the guns, germs, and steel which allowed them to establish hegemony.

"Diamond spends more than 400 pages in a quest to answer Yali's question. In recent publications, as well as in the past, many people believed that Europeans developed better societies (meaning technology, writing, and weapons) based on their innate superiority. It was believed, by some, that Europeans were more intelligent, had the Lord's support to conquer new territories and thus spread the Christian faith, and were physically stronger that the peoples of Africa, the Americans or Australia and New Guinea. Diamond, after an elaborate research, dares to oppose all of these prejudiced statements, and prove them wrong." ..........http://www.essaytown.net/lib/essay/8_15.html

Jarred Diamond claims that,in the absence of other convincing explanations many (most) people resort, consciously or unconsciously, to racist assumptions: the conquerors supposedly had superior IQ or culture." (http://nybooks.com/articles/1132 Vol 44, No 11 june26 1990)

After 1500 A.D. many Europeans assumed the wide differences among the world's people in technology and political organisation arose from differences in innate ability. The Darwinian theories of the day set out explanations in terms of natural selection and evolution.

With the later rise in genetics, the explanations were recast once again, where Europeans considered themselves genetically more intelligent than Africans and especially more so than Australian Aboriginal Australians.

While Western society publicly repudiates racism many continue to accept racist explanations privately and subconscious. It was assumed that the environment offered the same opportunities and that the significant difference was in the people themselves. (p.19)

Student Task :

Critically analyse and evaluate Jarred Diamond’s thesis as a response to Yali’s question, "Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people had little cargo of our own?"

Note: You have not been asked to describe, explain or paraphrase Jarred Diamond's thesis.

Links for you to start your investigation

Maps - Hyperhistory - Last Glacial Period - World Literacy - World Infancy

intranet link to Cornell site

http://www.isteve.com/diamond.htm

The Clash of Continents by Steve Sailer .....www.iSteve.com.

Published in National Review, 5/19/97, as "Why Nations Conquer"

intranet link

http://www.bluecorncomics.com/gunsgerm.htm

intranet link

http://www.mindspring.com/~kimall/Reviews/GGS.html

Kim Allen 2000 ..."One can't help but wonder to what degree books like this are driven by Western guilt." intraweb link

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1132

Reply by William H. McNeill ..In response to History Upside Down

(May 15, 1997) intranet link

http://www.samizdat.com/isyn/diamond.html

Transforming history from narrative to science -- Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond reviewed by Richard Seltzer - intranet link

http://www.cix.co.uk/~acampbell/bookreviews/r/diamond-2.html

link not working last effort

http://www.eh.net/bookreviews/library/0095.shtml

Citation: Joel Mokyr, "Review of Jared Diamond Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" intranet link

Economic History Services, May 28, 1998,

http://www.acypher.com/BookNotes/diamond.html

Review by Allan Cypher - intranet link

Guns, Germs, and Steel - The Fates of Human Societies
Reading Group Guide - 24 questions to consider

Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
by Jared Diamond W.W. Norton & Company.........http://www.kokogiak.com/amazon

Review by Baja Books.. BajaDestinations.com

Browse a book excerpt & book reviews from 'Guns, Germs & Steel' by Jared Diamond. Plus, book club reading guide and author biography, at BookBrowse.com.

Reviewed:02-May-00 Grade: (C+)

Review

ttp://www.brothersjudd.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/reviews.detail/book_id/529

intranet link

http://www.essaytown.net/lib/essay/8_15.html

Examines why the long-supported thesis that different races have different capabilities and that white people are superior to colored people is not true. Intranet link

An interview with author Jared Diamond ..search ...familyhaven

http://www.familyhaven.com

intranet link

April 17, 1998 ...............The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer Transcript

http://www.pbs.org/newshour

A conversation with Jared Diamond, author of Guns, Germs & Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. Diamond won this year's Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction.

Intranet link

Fetch Books.info review sample below - intranet link

http://www.fetchbook.info/

"I don't believe for a second that Mr. Diamond can be considered even remotely objective; political correctness and an unfair judgment of Europeans is a large part of this book, which is unfortunate.The positive aspects of this book are numerous."

January 03, 2003 From the desk of Jane Galt

http://www.janegalt.net/blog/archives/001615.html
How the West was Begun?...........intranet link

Like the Elusive Quest for Growth, this book ultimately asks the question of why some nations are better off than others. But while Easterly focuses on the economic structures that prevent or enhance prosperity, Diamond goes further back, to the dawn of agriculture, to ask how some countries ended up with Starbucks and MP3 players, while others stayed in the stone age.

An ingenious attempt to explain racial differences in achievement.

Reviewed by Michael Levin

The gaps in achievement among world cultures are an obvious problem for racial egalitarians. If no group is more talented than any other, why did Eurasians rather than Africans split the atom? Why didn’t indigenous Americans invent arithmetic?

intranet link

Return to the NeoEugenics' Home Page

http://www.neoeugenics.com/

Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond is one of those books by the racial egalitarians that tries to disprove theories that do not exist in the first place. Written by Matt Nuenke August 2000.

Intranet link

J. Bradford DeLong - delong@econ.berkeley.edu - November 1999

http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/

Intranet link

I put this book on my website as book-of-the-month a while ago, but I never wrote up why I thought it was worth reading. I think it is very much worth reading: it may well be the best book I read in the 1990s. It is truly a work of complete and total genius.

Sierra Sacramento Valley Medical Society ...........intranet link

Diamond, Jared. Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
(Review by Claude Welch, 10/3/98).

http://wings.buffalo.edu/cas/world-civ/reviews.html#reviews

intranet link

China 1405 -

China engaged a large fleet of ships some 317 ships with 27,500 men, five times the size of anything in Europe to bring "all under heaven" to be civilized in Confucian harmony. The Chinese had the technology to sail and circle the world. China had a fleet of 6,500 ships that previously are not allowed to put out to sea. China at this time is the richest, technically most advanced Empire on earth. It is stable and at relative peace and did not want to change this tranquility for the barbaric influence of the Middle East and Europe. It seems inconceivable that China didn't sail to America at this time. Admiral Zheng He aka Ma He (Cheng Ho) (1371-1435) was in command of the ocean going armada. It is claimed he personally made seven voyages and was ordered each time to go further than the last both to the east and west. He was to collect tribute from the barbarians from beyond the seas. The first voyage of discovery (1405-1406) is to the western sea with Wang Ching-Hung to find traces of the previous Emperor Jianwen Hue who had fled to the East. This fleet consisted of 62 ships. Some ships were diverted to trade and tribute while the others continued in exploration. Some believe this or later expeditions reached America and established colonies likely as a result of ship wreck. Sanbao created 24 maps of Admiral Zheng He aka Ma He (Cheng Ho) (1371-1435) explorations. Those who did not offer homage or pay tribute were taken back to China in chains. Others suggest Admiral Zheug He (1371-1435) only sailed as far west as Africa.

Go to Web pages on China and the world Fleet

The History of the World

ozhistorybytes - Issue Eleven: 1421 - How can we tell fact from fiction in history? Robert Lewis

http://www.hyperhistory.org/index.php?option=displaypage&Itemid=776&op=page