Guns, Germs, and Steel Review

Overview

Jared Diamond, attempts to explain the history of the world and why certain societies prevailed over others in Guns, Germs, and Steel. In the prologue of the book he describes the central thesis of Guns, Germs, and Steel as “history followed different courses for different people because of differences among peoples’ environments not because of biological differences among peoples themselves.” He goes on to say that geography has been dismissed in modern times but that the abundance of new science makes it a very plausible explanation. The framework through which he does this is self-described by him as seeking an ultimate cause rather than the proximate causes that or often used. The ultimate cause he is using as an overarching theme is geography and the variations which it naturally has. He feels that the proximate causes are all a result of this ultimate cause.

Geography caused one main variation between societies and this was differences in the time of when food production was adopted. Variations in the time of when a society adopted food production led to different proximate causes for explaining their speed of development. These include different speeds in getting germs, technology, political organizations, and writing. All of these causes explain why despite the fact that all societies were on a fairly level playing field in 11,000 BC, some came to dominate historically and contemporarily.

The adopting of food production over hunting and gathering is of the utmost importance to Diamond because it allows for larger population densities which allow for division of labor and creation of political organizations. Food production is dictated however by the accessibility of plants and animals for domestication. Food production worldwide is based on a few select species of plants and animals which were indigenous to Southeast Asia and the Fertile Crescent. The diffusion of food production was largely limited by the axes which the continents are on. Europe and Asia’s east-west orientation allows for a quick diffusion due to similar climates whereas the north-south orientation of the Americas and Africa proves much more difficult due to varying climates. Animals which were able to be domesticated furthered the usefulness of domesticated plants and this caused even greater population densities. The formation of higher population densities allowed populations to be exposed to the first proximate cause, germs. This allowed for the formation of diseases and subsequent immunities to them. These diseases were deadly when exposed to those not used to such diseases. Diamond says the possession of these germs is the true reason for Europe prevailing of the societies of the Americas.

The next proximate cause was then the development of technologies. Larger populations have more inventors and people whose sole focus isn’t just sustenance. Technologies that developed in Eurasia that provided significant advantage were metallurgy, various military technologies, technologies that provided power for operating larger machines, and technologies which enable quicker and more reliable movement over land and sea. Larger populations also had larger political organizations which created order and could raise armies. Lastly, they often more quickly adopted writing which allowed for enhanced communication and political organization.

Food production was entirely determined by geography. By geography, Diamond, specifically means the geographical differences in plants and animals which were able to be domesticated. This is what enabled societies to be able to develop guns, germs, and steel. Guns, germs, and steel enable the Eurasian societies to conquer the rest of the world. China was able to conquer all of Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands. Europe, on the other hand conquered the Americas. This is Jared’s explanation for the distribution of power in the world today.

The Relevance

Guns, Germs, and Steel is particularly relevant to the China portion of our trip. It for the most part omits India and thus is not relevant to that potential portion of our trip. It goes into a lot of detail about China in the Epilogue and Afterword. For the majority of the book, it is describing the dominance of Eurasia which includes China. The central ideas of this portion of the book are explained above.

In the epilogue, Diamond asks why China who had just as much of a lead from food production as Fertile Crescent did not reach the same level of development as Europe. His explanation is that China was too politically unified. China has been unified since 221 BC. He says that this has been the largest unified area through time worldwide. He explains that this led China to have early dominance of the world. This was seen in the Treasure Fleets of the 14^th century which were a huge armada of enormous ships. This fleet of ships even dwarfed the Spanish Armada. He explains that this huge fleet of ships was disbanded and seagoing trade made illegal as an act of retaliation when those that created the fleets were kicked out of power. Another example he gives is the Chinese dominance of clock-making in the 14^th century. Despite being the leader in making mechanical clocks, one emperor didn’t like technology and the whole country shied away from the technology until the late 15^th century.

Diamond explains that political unity causes a great number of people to be under one decision-maker. If this person has a certain preference, a tradition of innovation in a certain technology can be completely abandoned. Another example, Diamond gave of this is when the powers at be of the cultural revolution shut down all schools for five years after taking power. The centralized power of a single government in China is in contrast to Europe where there has always been a multitude of different rulers with different power systems. Diamond believes these dueling power centers were the drive behind lots of competition. If one ruler didn’t adopt a certain technology other rules still could. These rulers could then take over other technologically inferior rulers and technology would spread. The ability to make different decisions across the continent kept innovation moving along more continuously.

Diamond believes this unity, however, can be explained within his ultimate cause of geography. He explains that Europe has always been committed to disunity. He believe this caused by all the coastlines and natural divisions caused by mountains. He explains that historically China had always been split between only the two population centers of the Yangzi and Yellow Rivers. These rivers created unified areas east to west, and were connected by a short amount of coastline. This division was later overcome relatively early by the Grand Canal in the 7^th century. The fact that this connection was made early allowed trade to spread and a unified China to be easily created.

Praises and Criticisms

I think the greatest strength of Guns, Germs, and Steel is probably also one of its greatest weaknesses. The book strives to accomplish a very lofty goal of creating one synthesis of human history. I think it is able to accomplish this while remaining coherent. I think that analyzing world history through a very specific lens provides a new insight into a subject that has been written about many times. I think this is what makes the book worth reading.

Diamond’s use of geography as the ultimate explanation also has its downsides. He seems to disregard any evidence to the contrary. Diamond turns down these alternate explanations without fully refuting them. He does not go further than to say that they aren’t sufficient. I understand that he is trying to make a succinct explanation of a very complex subject from one perspective and that this is difficult to do without thousands of pages but I still felt that he could have discussed and explored alternative explanations further. The inclusion of these would have only served to strengthen his point and I felt this was one of the things he could have improved most.

I felt that one of the other biggest strengths of the book was that Diamond was aware of and addressed many of the weaknesses. He addressed most of the major things that others had felt warranted further explanation in the Afterword of the new edition. In the Afterword, he elaborated on why within Eurasia Europe became more developed than China. He went on to explain that in fact his explanation was oversimplified and it wasn’t really that Europe’s divisions made it more divided, but rather that China’s lack of divisions made it more conquerable. He also goes onto to say that there is a thing as too much division. He talks shortly about how India was even more divided than Europe and this proved debilitating to its development. He also addresses the fact that many have inquired about how his book would apply to businesses. He goes onto to briefly discuss how businesses in the same industry are different across different geographies. The fact that he was willing to add in the discussion his book has created kept his book contemporary and relevant.

I felt that one of the other glaring weaknesses of this book is that it doesn’t much touch upon development in more recent times. I kept wondering what the explanation was for China being behind the United States developmentally today. It mostly just goes into explaining the world up until the conquering of the Americas by Europe. No explanation is given for why Diamond stops his explanation of history at this point. It may be because geography no longer played much of a role after the Eurasian culture had overtaken the world. Nonetheless, I would have liked for him to have clarified why he chose his ending point.

Overall, the writing style was clear and easy to understand. This is worth noting because it is not often accomplished when writing on such a scholarly subject. It was engaging and kept my attention throughout its hundreds of pages. My only criticism on the writing style was that it seemed to try and drive some points home a little too hard and this made it come across as repetitive. It does seem to be very well researched and has an exhaustive list of citations.

Closing Thoughts

Guns, Germs, and Steel retells world history through the unique lens of strictly geographic factors. This makes it a refreshing read to better understand how the world came to be in its current distribution of power. I think it teaches on a broader level how different opportunities dictate different outcomes for different groups of people. I would recommend it to anyone reaching to understand the broader implications of why some cultures appear more advanced than others. Overall, Guns, Germs, and Steel shows the power that the insight of viewing a situation through a particular lens can provide and also the downsides to such an approach.