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Book Review of

Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (W.W. Norton &

Company Inc., 1999).

When first contact was made between the Arawak tribe and Christopher Columbus in 1492 why were the Indigenous people so easily subjugated? Why were the Iroquois eager to trade Samuel de Champlain valuable furs for metal pots and guns? Throughout human history, Eurasian societies appear to have developed advanced food production and technology in the form of ships and weapons sooner than others. Why? In his ambitious and multidimensional work, Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond is asked a similar question and sets about a wide range discussion of the history of human evolution, migration, and cultural adaptation to environmental conditions.

The first chapter recounts a conversation taken place in New Guinea, 1972 between the author and a local politician named Yali. Biologist by trade, Diamond was studying bird evolution at the time when Yali asked, “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?” (Diamond 1999). Yali’s question becomes the central focus of Diamond’s enquiry, why Europeans had become imperial powers and wealthy nations where others had not (Antrosio 2011).

Diamond begins this impressive project with a survey of pre-history of what occurred on the continents since the Pleistocene age up to 11000 B.C. Following that, the exploration of Polynesia is introduced as a natural experiment to illustrate the author’s thesis on a smaller scale. People from the same cultural background explored and settled in vastly different areas, some developing into hunter gatherer societies while others became substantially more sophisticated.

An example of the consequence of differently developed societies is detailed by Diamond as the Inca Atahuallpa and Spanish conquistador, Pizarro, make contact in Cajamarca in 1532. This interaction demonstrates the Spanish advantage of developing agriculture, domesticated animals, and technology in the form of guns and steel weapons, and the immunity to the diseases carried by their domesticated animals. These cultural advantages resulted in Pizarro’s victory despite having significant numerical disadvantage.

What follows is a comprehensive account of the origins of agriculture, how food production resulted from a very fertile patch of land called the Fertile Crescent. The optimum environmental conditions in this area allowed for self-pollinating grasses, food production and expansion across similar geographic latitudes.

The prevalent underlying argument throughout the book is Diamond’s rejection of the notion that the failure of some societies to develop agriculture in the same way is in any way due to intellectual defect of certain races. Diamond’s research suggests that there is no difference in intelligence between races. The author extends that those with superior survival skills are likely to be even more intelligent than those living a sheltered existence as a greater intelligence is required to adapt and survive in any given environment (Diamond 1999). Photographic illustrations are used in evidence to Diamond’s argument to demonstrate how humans have adapted to their environmental circumstances.

Diamond insists that the fundamental difference in development between the continents is due to the East-West axis of the Fertile Crescent region of southwestern Asia allowing for expansion of food production and animal domestication more easily than the North-South axes of Africa and the Americas.

In a chain of causation, the earlier establishment of food procurement in certain areas supported denser populations which in turn allowed for the establishment of hierarchical societies with more sophisticated forms of government as they were available to carry out societal functions other than food gathering. Singularly, the most important consequence of food production was that it created a reliable food surplus that allowed large, dense, sedentary and stratified societies to originate.

The question of disease and contagion is approached as Diamond explains that most of the deadly human pathogens originated in animal hosts. As the domestication of animals spread by 8000 B.C., Europeans had already been living in close proximity to these animals long enough to have developed a genetic resistance to their diseases. The author demonstrates that most of the animals suitable for domestication in the Americas had been hunted to extinction and therefore were not subject to the same circumstances in which to develop the same genetic resistance. When Europeans made contact with the indigenous people of the New World, they were unknowingly carrying an invisible arsenal of microbe soldiers. The advantage of guns, germs, and steel afforded Europeans the upper hand, ensuring the subjugation of local populations unable to contest them.

Guns, Germs, and Steel is as enjoyable to read as it is comprehensive. As such, the eclectic magnitude of Diamond’s work results in a certain vulnerability that subjects him to the objective critique of his peers. Jason Antrosio, Associate Professor of Anthropology at Hartwick College and co-editor of Open Anthropology, condemns Diamond’s work as, “a distorting disservice to the real historical record.” Antrosio argues that claiming cultural differential success is only due to an agricultural accident except where societies “choose to fail”, does not withstand historical and academic scrutiny (Antrosio 2011). Professor Antrosio’s central argument against Diamond’s work is that it lacks any account of human agency in regard to decision making and the consequences of alliances with other native groups. Further, the necessity of human agency in the development of imperialism of the Eurasians was such that, “there could be no empire without these collaborations and the pre-existing mechanism these empires have established,” (Antrosio 2011).

In a response to more criticism of underemphasizing the probability of propagated cultural developments independent of environmental differences, Diamond defends his analysis explaining that over the generations and across thousands of societies, “cultural differences become sifted to approach limits imposed by environmental constraints” (McNeill 1997). Diamond responds by asserting that in order to understand why early peoples made the decisions they did, there needs to be an understanding of the realms of biogeography, animal and human behaviour, and a variety of other fields outside the realm of historian’s training (McNeill 1997). This very argument has been the source of criticism that assert that Diamond’s work attempts to do too much. His multilayered analysis and breadth of his study requires the author to, “(…) ‘wear the hats’ of anthropologist, archeologist, plant geneticist, epidemiologist and social, military and technological historian, as well as his own academic headgear” (Shreeve 1997). Jared Diamond admits that no one person can be the single authority on every discipline and acknowledges the numerous scholars that have contributed to the overall outstanding achievement of Guns, Germs, and Steel.

Jared Diamond’s work is an impressive synthesis of history, agriculture, anthropology and many other fields. The history of human societies is brilliantly spelled out as the reader is guided from one link in a chain of causation to the other. Diamond’s persuasive writing style facilitates an appreciation of the in-depth analysis of 13,000 years of history and does justice to the question Yali posed many years ago.

Bibliography

Antrosio, Jason. 2011. "Real History versus Guns Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond." Living Anthropologically. Accessed February 2016. http://www.livinganthropologically.com.

Diamond, Jared. 1999. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.

McNeill, William H. 1997. "History Upside Down." The New York Review of Books.

Shreeve, James. 1997. "Dominance and Submission." The New York Times.