Book Review of "guns, Germs, and Steel"

The book, "Guns, Germs, and Steel", was written by Jared Diamond, a

professor of evolutionary biology at UCLA. Throughout the book,

Diamond explained why history evolved differently for people from

various geographical areas. He tried to prove his idea that it was

geographical and environmental factors that gave some civilizations an

advantage over others. He doesn't believe that some societies became

less advanced than others due to deficiencies in genes or

intelligence.

At the beginning of the book, Diamond discussed human evolution.

He mentioned that the history of humanity started approximately 7

million years ago, when a population of African apes diverged into

three separate populations, one of which evolved into modern humans.

For the first 5 or 8 million years after this separation, the human

population was confined to Africa. The earliest human ancestor to

spread beyond the realms of Africa was Homo erectus, who moved into

Southeast Asia around 1.8 million years ago. Approximately half a

million years ago, when human fossils started to bear similarities to

modern Homo sapiens, our race gave birth to an outburst of milestones

in technology and the arts, including standardized stone tools and the

earliest preserved jewelry in eastern Africa. This period, known as

the Great Leap Forward, was associated with the pioneer expansion of

the human geographical sphere. People started to colonize Australia

and Papua New Guinea around 35,000 years ago. This journey was

connected with our earliest use of watercraft as well as the first

extermination of large mammals. North and South America were the last

continents to be settled by modern humans. The occupation of the

Americas required either boats or the conquest of Siberia in order to

walk across the Bering land bridge. "The oldest unquestioned human

remains in the Americas are at sites in Alaska dated around 12,000 BC,

followed by a profusion of sites in the United States south of the

Canadian border and in Mexico in the centuries just before 11,000 BC"

(pg. 45). With the invasion of the Americans, most habitable regions

in the world supported humans except for remote islands in the Indian

and Pacific Oceans.

Then, Diamond talked about the effects of environmental and

climatic variation on the evolution of Polynesian societies. Polynesia

is an amalgamation of thousands of islands scattered across the

Pacific Ocean. Among these islands, there are huge differences in

climate, area, geological characteristics, terrain, and natural

resources. For example, the climate is tropical in Hawaii and Fiji,

temperate in northern New Zealand, and sub-Antarctic on the Chatham

islands and in the southern part of New Zealand. The geological

structures of the Polynesian islands range from coral atolls to raised

limestone and from volcanic islands to fragments of continents. "The

habitable terrain of some islands, notably the Marquesas, is

fragmented into steep-walled valleys by ridges, while other islands,

such as Tonga and Easter, consist of gently rolling terrain presenting

no obstacles to travel and communication (pg. 59). Also, the islands

vary strongly in area, from the 100 acres of Anuta to the 103,000 sq.

miles of New Zealand. Due to those differences, the peoples of various

Polynesian islands developed in isolation from each other, even though

they were all descended from a common ancestor.

Differences in geography and the environment was the major factor

that led to the massacre of the Moriori people. The environmental

conditions of New Zealand were poles apart from that of the Chatham

islands. Northern New Zealand had a temperate climate with an

abundance of tropical crops like taro and yams, while the Chatham

islands had a sub-Antarctic climate that didn't support the growth of

these plants. That's why the Maori and Moriori people formed societies

that were completely disconnected from each other. The Maori were

productive farmers, possessed sophisticated weapons and technology,

and engaged in violent, ferocious battles. In contrast, the Moriori

were peaceful people who lived by hunting and gathering, fed on fish

and shellfish, didn't have the tools to engage in war, and lacked an

organized government. Therefore, it was not suprising that in December

1835, the Maoris sailed to the Chatham islands, killing and enslaving

all of the Moriori. Using this example, Jared Diamond demonstrated

that in the course of history, technologically advanced societies

always