In Praise of Jared Diamonds Guns, Germs, and Steel Essay -- Wealth En

In Praise of J ard rhombuss Guns, Germs, and markJared Diamonds bestseller Guns, Germs, and Steel (GG&S) is an attempt to explain why around parts of the foundation are currently powerful and prosperous while others are poor. Diamond is both a physiologist and a linguist who spends a good dish up of his time living with hunter gathers in Papua cutting Guinea. As a researcher and as a human being, he is convinced that each people have the same potential. Hunter gatherers are just as intelligent, resourceful, and diligent as anybody else. Yet satisfying success isnt every bit distributed across the globe. Civilization sprung up in relatively few places and spread in a defined pattern. I should emphasize that Diamond doesnt equate material prosperity with well-being or virtue. Hes just curious about the spherical distribution of bling bling. Diamonds hypothesis is that geography gave certain groups big initial advantages. Specifically, some places are more conducive to domesti cation of plants and animals. Most people moot that domestication is just a matter of capturing animals and breeding them in captivity. This is a misconception. Domesticated species of plants and animals have undergone major genetic changes through years of selective breeding. Compared to their wild ancestors, the major cereal crops are more nutritious, quicker to germinate, and easier to pose and harvest. Domestic animals are more docile, easier to train, and generally more suited to tone in captivity. Diamonds key point is that not every wild species is equally susceptible to domestication and that domesticable species are not evenly distributed across the globe. fruity horses and camels had the right stuff, reindeer not so much. As modern attempts to domesticat... ...ccupied with gathering and child rearing. In other societies, some people can feed their time to science, technology, philosophy, politics, finance and the other cultural roles that define state societies. The res nought in Diamonds book to suggest that he is anything but a wiz of the Enlightenment. Hes a practicing scientist who attempts to analyze historical trends in scientific terms. He is too a sympathetic interpreter who respects and admires human diversity. He believes in progress, but he doesnt assume that technologically advanced people are superior or even uniformly better off. Finally, he affirms the set of the Enlightenment by suggesting how we can use history and science to get up more prosperous, stable, and just societies. Source CitedDiamond, Jared M. Guns, Germs, and Steel The Fate of Human Societies. New York Norton, 1997.