Guns, Germs and Steel

Guns, Germs and Steel

Introduction

Guns, Germs and Steel is based on Jared Diamond's Pulitzer Prize winning literature of the same name; famed for tracing the journey humanity has taken over a span of 13,000 years. This time span includes the initiation of farming, following the Ice Age all the way to the twentieth century. It is often heard that the inspiration of the book came from simple questions posed to him in Papua New Guinea some thirty years before the book was published. The purpose of this paper is to provide a review of the very work and look into some of the strong and similarly weak points in the literature and three part motion pictures.

Discussion

The movie adequately attempts to describe how individuals from various geographical locations progressed in a manner that is different from each other, leading up to the variations we recognize in society. Jared Diamond has been known to sum up his own book with the following words, “History followed different courses for different peoples because of differences among peoples' environments, not because of biological differences among peoples themselves," (Diamond, 1997). Throughout the course of the book, the author goes on to argue that economy is not the only factor that distinguishes society and how we have progressed to be the civilized societies we recognize ourselves to be today.

He believes that factors such as the ability to domesticate specific animals and with time genetically enhance certain plant breeds, was crucial in giving certain civilizations a sizeable advantage over others in different parts of the world. These very basic differences were important in distinguishing which civilization survived the test of time and which did not.

Keeping the above in mind, one can rightly question the fact why Europeans were the ones that conquered much of our planet. Similarly, could the Incas have managed a similar accomplishment? Additionally, why cities were originally found in the Middle East and not South America, or why did Australia not become the first nation to master the art of farming and domesticating animals. Throughout the contents of the literature, Diamond continually challenges his own theories and his own questions, often providing more of a philosophical approach as compared to an analytical answer framed around fact or scientific evidence (Diamond, 1997).

Diamond's endurance can be seen to be tested in the picturization of his ideas across four different continents, aided by computer ...