GUNS,GERMS,AND STEEL (1997) JaredDiamond

I. Introduction

insteadof on othercontinents, conquernativepopulations Why did WestemEuropeans are spokenall over in South America, but the other way around? Spanishand Portuguese not Aztecand Inca in Spain and Portugal. Why? Why were native populationsin Africa led to the different paths not? What circumstances taken as slavesand white Europeans andratesof humanhistory over the past 13,000years? JaredDiamond attemptsto establishthe ultimate gausssof racial and cultural differences that might account for this. In Diamond's argument,it is the Environment that is responsible, specihcallythe plantsand animalsnative to a regionthat influenced evolution. He states: of "History followed different coursesfor different peoplesbecause of biological not because differences amongpeople'senvironments, themselves." differences amongpeoples in regionsthat had domesticable lifestyle farming could only be developed Sedentary plants and animals. Those without them remainedin largely primitive hunter gatherer and progressed toward the rise of towns, languages, societies.In the former, societies and of other lands technologies-and ultimately toward the exploration and conquest theirpeoples. to spread species After aboutsix million yearsof evolutionin Africa, the Homo erectus Crotools and artifacts. with their crude Eurasia,evolving into the Neanderthals Maqnonsappearedabout 50,000 yearsago-the "Great Leap Forw31d"-sqs6rding to Diamond. had populatedall of the world's major continents, By the end of the last Ice Age, humans and at that point, sometimearound11,0008.C., the "playing field was even," i.e., it would havebeenimpossibleto predictwhere"civilization" would develEl first. and this influencedtheir development. But humanslived in vastly differentenvironments, the "experiment"in which the Maoris conquered Diamondoffers the Polynesian Island'sMorioris in 1835-the farmerMaoris versusthe hunter-gatherer Chatham by different environments. separated Morioris. The samepeopleby ancestry, of the approximately80,000 killed thousands Anotherexample: In 1532,168 Spaniards their emperor,Atahuallpa Inca soldiers,chased the othersaway,and captured assembled (swords, etc.),armor,versusclubsand ... all in a singleday. How? Guns,steelweapons handaxes. Horses(speedand protection) that frightenedthe Indians,who'd never encountered them before. Smallpox,introducedearlierby previousSpanishsettlers, which led to the deathof the previousemperorand a civil war over the succession.

that and a written language in the form of ships,political organization, Technology, allowedthem to learn of and from previousencounters. animals,nastygerms,shipbuildingtechnology, In sum, guns,steel,domesticated and a written language-these factors led to the dominanceof the Europeans. But why have thesethings andthe nativesnot? Food production! did the Europeans 2. The Rise and Spreadof Food Production

is food production. "Guns, germs,and Accordingto Diamond,the ultimatecause plantsand animals. And that had domesticable by societies were first developed steel" that, of course,is what allowed them to conqueror dominate other societies. Farming and herding yield significantly more food per squareacre than hunting and gathering. This allows farmers to settle in higher densitiesand support a higher birthrate than can nomadicpeople who have to carry their children with them. In addition to sheer numbers,farmers also benefit in that they can producefood surplusesthat permit specializationin more than food production,i.e., they can support inventors, scribes,or for example. soldiers, Food production apparentlybeganindependentlyin only a few placesin the world and then spreadto other areas. Five suchplaceshave been identified by carbon dating the Andes, and the easternUnited methods: the Fertile Crescent.China. Mesoamerica, States. The choice to farm was made gradually. Once farming techniqueswere developed by others,they diffused to neighboringsocieties.Farmingled to largerand denserpopulations,that required more food and, thereby, a push for better techniques, more cultivatable land, and more food, which in turn led to larger and denserpopulations, and so on. 'lab' availableto early farmers, "... the latrine may have beenthe greatest offering accidental discoveriesas the seedsand berries hunter-gatherers ate subsequentlygerminatedand grew from their feces." (Barnes and Noble Reader'sCompanion,p. 8). plantsnecessary for farming. But many areassimply lackedthe domesticable plants and only a few hundredof 200,000 wild are some Diamondpoints out that there of them havebeendomesticated.Only twelve of thesehave good enoughsources nutrientsand calories,and they accountfor over eighty percentof the world's agriculture. to choosefarming. for huntersand gatherers And they had to be availablein "packages" large animalssuchas Analogousremarksfollow for animals. Domesticable, few regionsof the world, and goats, were in only a cows,horses, and sheep, fowrd oxen, like plants,only a small fraction of them were domesticable.Diamond points out that of domesticated. the 148largeherbivorous mammals, only l4 haveeverbeensuccessfully

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Germswere an important"big idea" of Diamond's. The animalsbroughtthem of animalsbecamesick into contactwith humans,and many of the first domesticators (e.g.,to immunitiesto thesediseases developed anddied. But graduallydomesticators havoc wreaked and smallpox). But they then infected thosewithout such immunities amongaboriginalpeoples. Finally, Diamond arguesthat the orientationsof the large continentsdetermined both their suitability for farming and the likelihood that farming techniqueswould spread. East-Westixes were much more favorableto the latter than were North-South axes. Thus farming diffused to Europe from the Fertile Crescent,but not to South America axis along an East-West from Mexico. The reasonfor this surelyis that most societies would be at about the samelatitude, and thereforehave similar climates and rainfall. The samewould not be true along a North-Southaxis. 3. From Food to Guns.Germs.and Steel

Diamond then moves from describingthe ultimate cause,food, to proximate lifestyle associated causes such as guns, gerrns,and steel. He arguesthat the sedentary and technologY, language, also to but with farming gave rise not only to diseases, centralizedgovernment. of humans(smallpox,malaria, Germs. Nearly all of the major epidemicdiseases etc.) have come throughcontactwith animals,evenAIDS. The dense measles, possible. madepossibleby the rise of farm-fedcities madeepidemics settlements Immunities developedover time in Eurasia,but nativesof the New World, although they animalsand thus didn't develop alsolived in cities, did not havethe samedomesticated many died, in somecases to thesediseases, the sameimmunities. Thus when exposed virtually entiretribes. Writing. The spreadof a written languagecamewith the developmentof farming, as that collectedtaxesand were called upon to keeprecordsfor bureaucracies scribes food. controlledand managedsurplus Technology. With the developmentof sedentary,stratified societieswith surplus food, it and inventorswho were free to invent tools and possibleto supportcraftsmen became broughtaboutby suchtools and ideas(e.g.,guns) ideas. Thoselacking the advantages and usuallyassimilated.But somecultureswere lessreceptive oftenwere conquered gunsas early as the middle 1500s, thanothers. Japan,for example,was manufacturing but lessthan a century later, the Samuraielite managedto ban gun manufacturing and to they were an islandnation, this eliminatenearly all gunsin the country. Because to take advantage. abandonment didn't lead other societies to organizations requiredmore complicated Government.Large and densesettlements led andultimatelyto states, govern them. The evolutionof bandsto tribesto chiefdoms, such public works, formalizedlaws, a division of labor,taxes,and to largebureaucracies, as inigationsystems.

and this in turn allows for higher requiremore complexorganization Densepopulations more populationgrowth and denser levelsof food production. This then generates production allow for more non-food-producers food levels of the higher and settlements, pursuits. This pattern to devotetheir time to soldiering,inventing,and bureaucratic forms the foundationof societaldevelopment. 4. l) Ouestions and influential Is environmenteverything? How aboutreligions,ideologies, products environment? of the producers or (Are latter the individuals? always pushesback from "Diamond's focus on environmentsand ultimate causes preconditions.") its to the singularevent Why did the Fertile Crescentoriginate so many important developmentsand yet why did Europe end up spreadingits culture to the rest of the world? Climate? Mammals? (Ecologically fragile environmentthat collapsed. Europe acquired the plants, animals, and techniquesand had a hardier climate and more rainfall and was able to "sustain intensive farming and herding without significant erosion." Also the importantrole of competitivestates.) Why is diffusion more likely to happenacrosseast-westaxesrather than across north-south? Barriers? (Being on the samelatitude allows neighborsto learn and adopt the sametechniquessincethe climate is likely to be the same. And this also allows the sameanimals and plants to thrive.) Why were animals so important? Large ones servedas beastsof burden (oxen mobility and an edgein battle (horses). pulling plows) or as providersof speedy and, ultimately, immunities. This led to the They brought germs and diseases massdevastationof native populationsthat did not domesticatethose particular animals that carried the diseases-influenza from pigs, measlesand tuberculosis from cattle, and so on. Animal manurefor fertilizing, milk and eggs for food, and offered by domesticated pelts for clothing were other important advantages animals. What was the importanceof China being politically unified at the sametime that Europeremaineda collectionof competingstates?(". . . one voice could speak for all of China, for betteror worse." Europe'sdisunity fosteredcompetition,and innovation. "No one voice could speakfor all of Europe,so no new technological could ever be put down completely.") development

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