Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond
I have finished reading Guns, Germs, and Steel years ago but procrastinated on the review as this book is an ambitious project, and I would like to do it justice. Recently due to a series of unfortunate events, I’m on medical leave from work… ironically, I finally got some quiet time to put pen to paper.
Guns, Germs, and Steel is a stunning refutation of genetic superiority or racist ideas of human development and a thorough global account of the rise of civilization. The author Jared Diamond convincingly advocates the theory of geographic/environmental determinism, the idea that the differences between societal development arise primarily from geographical and environmental factors.
The book attempts to explain why Eurasian and North African civilizations have survived and conquered others, while arguing against the idea that Eurasian hegemony is due to any form of Eurasian intellectual, moral, or inherent genetic superiority. The author brought forth the central thesis that it is not racial biology that determines the victors in history but rather a complex combination of agriculture, geography, population density, and continental orientation. Societies that had a head start in food production advanced beyond the hunter-gatherer stage, and then developed writing, technology, government, and organized religion—as well as nasty germs and potent weapons of war—and adventured on sea and land to conquer and decimate preliterate cultures. Throughout the book, Diamond showed us how history is not just “one damn fact after another” as cynic put it. There really are broad patterns to history, and the search for their explanation is as productive as it is fascinating.
Sometimes it is difficult to resist suspecting that history’s pattern reflects innate differences among people themselves and races. Of course, people are all taught that it is racist and impolite to express that. There are studies claiming to demonstrate inborn differences and there are also rebuttals claiming that these studies are flawed. However, people continue to witness the glaring difference in social status and that that some groups of people continue to form an underclass, centuries after conquests or slave import took place. Until people have some convincing, detailed, agreed-upon explanation for the broad pattern of history, some people will continue to suspect that the racist biological explanation is the case. This is Jared Diamond’s strongest motive to write this book.
The book can be broken down into four parts.
In the first part of the book, Diamond illustrates the course of recent human history, circling out the differences between civilizations. Beginning about half a million years ago, the first human beings emerged in Africa, and eventually migrated around the rest of the world in search of game and other sources of food. Roughly 11,000 years ago, certain human beings developed agriculture—a major milestone in human history. By the fifteenth century A.D., enormous differences had arisen between civilizations. For example, when Francisco Pizarro led a Spanish expedition to the Inca Empire in the early sixteenth century, he was able to defeat the Incan Emperor, Atahuallpa, easily. Why did the Europeans colonize the New World, and not the other way around?
In the second part of the book, Diamond shed light on the dawn of agriculture and explains why it arose in certain parts of the world, but not others. Using carbon-dating technology, archaeologists have determined that the first sites of agriculture were Mesopotamia followed by Mesoamerica and China. Agriculture arose in certain areas due to environmental qualities like soil fertility, availability of domesticable animals, and availability of edible crops, however, it took a longer time for agriculture to supplant hunter-gatherer culture in most other regions. By and large, Diamond argues, it is easier for ideas, goods, and foods to spread from east to west than it is for them to spread north and south—this is because the Earth spins east-west, meaning that areas with the same latitude share a similar climate and environment. Archaeological data indicates that agricultural innovations diffused east and west far sooner than they diffused north and south.
In the third part, Diamond demonstrates how basic agricultural differences between early societies magnified over time, leading to immense differences between societies’ health, technology, and social structure. First, he shows that agricultural societies developed immunities to deadly diseases like smallpox. Constant proximity to domesticated animals, combined with increased population density, meant that new germs were constantly circulating in agricultural societies. As a result, these societies became resistant to many epidemics. Another important development in the history of agricultural societies was the invention of written language. While it’s difficult to show exactly why writing emerged in certain agricultural societies but not others, it’s clear that the structure of agriculture society (which requires lots of record-keeping for crops) put a high premium on a writing system. Furthermore, east-west diffusion patterns ensured that, once one society developed language, it diffused, along with agriculture itself, to surrounding areas, particularly those with similar latitude.
The history of language acts as a case study for the history of technology in general. While it’s again difficult to explain why certain inventors develop certain inventions, the structure of agricultural societies favored the invention of new technologies. Agricultural societies lead to the creation of leisure time, since crops can be stored for long periods—citizens of early agricultural societies experimented with the resources and raw materials around them. Additionally, agricultural societies were denser than hunter-gatherer societies, increasing the velocity with which people exchanged ideas. As a result, agricultural societies developed more new technologies and passed on their innovations to neighboring societies. Ancient agricultural societies tend to develop into large, complex states. While the earliest agricultural societies were small tribes, these small tribes gradually merged into larger societies, either through conquering or mutual agreement. As societies became larger and denser, they tended to develop centralized structures of power. States ruled through a balance of kleptocracy and religion or patriotic fervor. By the 16th century—not coincidentally, the time when Europe was beginning its conquest of the New World—the state had become the dominant mode of society.
In Part Four, Diamond looks at a series of case studies that support his theory. Some interesting arguments include how China was able to become the world’s first large, centralized state for environmental reasons—the temperate climate and homogeneous geography enabled easy communication and political unification between the states of China. Another fascinating examples includes how Bantu peoples of North Africa were more militarily successful than their sub-Saharan neighbors because they developed some limited forms of agriculture. In conclusion, Diamond argues, the differences between different peoples and societies of the world are largely attributable to geographic differences between different regions of the world. In certain parts of the world, humans began pursuing agriculture because the fertile soil and temperate climate made agriculture a good use of time and resources. Agricultural societies then gained tremendous advantages over non-agricultural societies, because the increase in leisure time enabled people to develop technologies and centralized political structures, and the proximity to animals gave people immunities to deadly diseases. As a result, some societies were able to conquer others.
One of the most common feedbacks I read about this book is that the book oversimplifies things. However, I’d like to defend the author by stressing that Diamond harbor no illusions that these chapters have succeeded in explaining the histories of all the continents for the past 13,000 years. Obviously, that would be impossible to accomplish in a single book, not to mention we don’t have the answers. The author emphasizes that at best, this book identifies several constellations of environmental factors that he believes provide some answers to the important questions. Recognition of those factors emphasizes the unexplained residue, whose understanding will be a task for the future.
