Analysis Of Guns, Germs, And Steel By Jared Diamond

Jared Diamond, an anthropologist, known for his popular book Guns, Germs, and Steel, originally published in 1997 and updated last in 2005. Guns, Germs, and Steel received the Phi Beta Kappa Science Book Prize (1997), the Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction (1998), and many other awards throughout the years. Within roughly nineteen chapters, Jared Diamond uses his educational background in order to identify why societies are more materially successful than others. Many influential factors such as geography, germs, food production, animal domestication, and the use of advanced technology like steel Diamond claims to be the reasonable belief of why some societies are successful. Many praise Diamond for attempting such a controversial topic in Guns,

Yali’s question was “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?” The ultimate explanation for what cargo Yali was speaking of is the material good such as advanced technology, tools like axes, or anything type of good that the “black people” did not have (Diamond, page 1-32). In one of Diamond’s critics, Antrosio, blog, Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond: Against History, on the Living Anthropologically website that criticizes that Diamond answered Yali’s question completely wrong by explaining why Europeans were more developed than others. Diamond solely believes that by “geographical accident” agriculture was the only reason Europeans were powerful and wealthy whereas others were not. Diamond did not factor in the major influences such as a centralized government, intellectual nor genetics as possible reasons for the more advanced societies (Antrosio, 2017,

One example that Antrosio mentions, is how he answers Yali’s question by focusing on the advancements of the Europeans. With the longer availability of agriculture in the Eurasian regions, the people had a better opportunity to develop more advanced technologies. Along with the production of agriculture, the domestication of animals became a prominent resource and influential factor to the spread of diseases. Therefore, it is apparent that Diamond contradicts his article, “Worst Mistake,” with Guns, Germs, and Steel. However, Diamond could have conducted more research in relation to societies development and agriculture that influenced the shift in Guns, Germs, and Steel. Although, there is no evidence to support the possibility of more in-depth research as every story within the book always goes back to the same factors (Antrosio, 2017,