Guns Germs And Steel Book Report

10th grade Advanced Placement World History II Summer Reading Assignment
Since the last ice age, civilizations have progressed at different rates. Some developed literate societies with metal tools and innovative farming societies, while others developed illiterate hunting-gathering societies with improvised rock tools. But why has society advanced at such unlike proportions? This question, also known as Yali’s question, is the main focus of the book Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. The book attempts to answer this question by comparing the historical developments of different continents over the last 13,000 years. During Jared Diamond’s study of bird evolution in New Guinea, he met a local politician named Yali. Yali was interested

Thus the subcontinent can only support low numbers of people. 10,000 years ago, New Guinea and Australia were connected by a land bridge. This allowed travel between the continents but because of melting glaciers raising the water level, travel by foot today is impossible. New Guineas climate is moister than Australia’s but does not support a lot of protein rich foods. Australia did not learn most of the complex technologies from the New Guinea as one would have thought. Due to malaria, dysentery etc. and European crops and cattle not faring well, penetration of Europeans in New Guinea was slow. Australia was easier to settle. This allowed Europeans to slaughter the aboriginal population import their technologies and culture.
China was once diverse but developed to be very uniform. This occurred because of forced unification under the Qin dynasty in the year 221 BC. The Sino-Tibetan family of languages dominates so much today because of the Northern Chinese invasion of South China. The takeovers were aided by overpowering of the indigenous culture, food production, and animal domestication, etc. It has been also thought that the Austronesian relocation may have been of peoples displaced from