Gus germs and steel Essay -- English Literature

Gus germs and steel 1. Yali asks Diamond, â€Å"Why is it that you white people developed sp much cargo and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people had little cargo of our own.† 2. Jared Diamond’s thesis seems to be that external factors such as geography can affect the fate of human societies. In other words, what separates the winners from the losers is geography. Chapter 1 1. â€Å"The Great Leap Forward† is when human history developed about 50,000 years ago. 2. The giant moas in New Zealand and the giant lemurs in Madagascar were exterminated by humans. 3. 15,000 years ago the American West looked like Africa’s Serengeti Plains. It was filled with elephants, giraffes, zebras, and other African animals. All of these animals living in the American West were either killed off by Clovis hunters or died due to drought. 4. All of the giant animals residing in Africa were able to survive because there were no extreme weather conditions and there were not nearly as many deadly hunters in Africa as there were in America. Chapter 3 1. Pizzaro’s capture of Atahuallpa â€Å"offers a broad window onto modern history† because it has happened many times since then. 2. Technology, or the guns and the steel, was used in exterminating the Incas. The germs that the Spaniards brought over on their horses produced small pox. 3. Diamond refers to the battle at Cajamarca a collision because two of the greatest empires â€Å"collided† in a huge fight. Chapter 4 1. Societies with successful food production would grow because there was enough food for everyone. The greatest food producers became the world conquerors because they were a big society with big ideas for technology. 2. The development of diseas... ...teel, I would have to say that the most decisive factor would be the germs. A good example is Smallpox; the virus alone killed more people than either guns or steel. 4. The East lost its enormous lead to the West (Europe) because Europe developed a merchant system, capitalism, and patent protection for invertors. Europe also did not have a dictatorship like China, so inventors in Europe were worry free. 5. China lost its technological lead to Europe because they were a dictatorship and had high taxations. 6. China’s connectedness became a disadvantage for them because their fertile crescent had no other geographical advantages other than domesticating wild plants and animals. China also had an absolute despot that was controlling the country. 7. The histories of the Fertile Crescent and China hold important lessons for the modern world including.