Guns, Germs, and Steel Essay
The Guns, Germs, and Steel movie was an epic detective story that explained the causes of inequalities in the world. Professor Jared Diamond had to travel across the world to seek answers to the causes of these inequalities. He found out that history depended on the availability of guns, germs, and steel. Therefore, the story explains why history unfolded differently and why Western European culture has dominated the modern world due to varying geographical locations.
Jared Diamond argued that the answer to the domination of Western European culture in the modern world was due to the difference in geographical locations. The epic movie highlighted scenes showing how several physical locations with different cultures affected the societies’ establishment development abilities, such as agriculture and animal domestication, in achieving specific abilities like immunity to diseases. The end of the last ice age made the people survive hunting and gathering the available plants and wild animals. This act was advantageous when the resources were in plenty. However, scarcity of the resources later led to population decrease as there was no enough food for everyone and the people had to find food from wherever possible. Therefore, the difference in geographical location led to some continents lagging in development, especially those that did not invest in agriculture and animal domestication.
The climatic change caused the scarcity of plants and animals that were the primary sources of food. This impact was highly experienced by people in the fertile crescent area of the Modern Middle East, who then had to start cultivating wild plants and animals for survival. However, not all the wild plants and animals were suitable for cultivation and domestication. When comparing agriculture to hunting and gathering, the fertile crescent fed more people due to agricultural development. They also established settlements in villages near their farms, unlike hunting and gathering where there was no settlement. Therefore, food surplus was provided through proper farming practices and new skills were developed, such as trading activities and politics.
The agricultural technology and ideas spread quickly through the Middle East due to Eurasia’s simple geography. However, the technology did not move quickly due to changing climatic temperatures and habitats that depended on latitudes. Plants were adapted to specific climatic conditions and could not do well in some areas. The technology also promoted war, especially to the Spaniards, who used this weapon to their advantage to defeat the Incas. Unlike the Incas, who used wood clubs, the Spaniards utilized steel swords, which showed military technology’s power due to agricultural development. The Spaniards also used diseases such as smallpox that were spread through domestic animals. Therefore, Jared Diamond highlighted that global inequality lay on the geographical location, the crops, and animals and that agriculture had a link to wars and defeat.
Gun, Germs, and Steel was an epic movie highlighting the importance of agriculture. Initially, human beings were hunters and gatherers, and they depended on wild animals and plants as their food sources. However, the climatic change led to a reduction in the available wild plants and animals and, therefore, had to start cultivation of the wild plants and animal domestication. This model made them experience new technologies that eventually led to war, especially as shown by the Spaniards. Notably, the agricultural development first started in the Middle East then moved to China before spreading to other parts of the world.
