Guns Germs and Steel – Out of Eden

Watch the video and offer a 275+ word critique of Jared Diamond’s argument about

 Why inequalities among human societies around the world have existed across history.

What are the strengths of his argument?

What weaknesses or flaws does it have?

Are there aspects his analysis overlooked?

Are there any contradictions in it?

Here is the video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwZ4s8Fsv94

Solution

Diamond’s quest to answer “Yalis” Question of why some societies are advanced and some are not, led him to look at the time when there was not any inequality among the societies. After studying the historical records of 13000 years ago, Diamond has proposed the answer by saying that the reason that some societies lagged behind and some moved forward lies in the geography of the places they lived. He argued that the inequality has nothing to do with the racial difference or ingenuity. Rather, it was more about the geographical advantages or disadvantages which one place offered to one society while became a challenge for another. According to him, the pre-agricultural and pro-domestication-of-animal lands were the ones where civilizations prospered and gave the humans the opportunity to be more productive in feeding themselves. It led these societies to live in larger communities and work as groups with all having specialties in different fields of work. He argues that the increased productivity in feeding themselves led them to have extra time for development and grooming of other skills in making tools, making houses, and etc.

The argument that Diamond put forward is very strong in this respect that it answers how Eurasia became the central point of technology and advancement and how Australasia, Africa, and America lagged behind. It answers the doubts of those racists who think Europeans have greater ingenuity than the ones who have not developed such technologies.

Another fact which is overlooked is that humans have not accounted for any of the success or failure of the civilizations. The decisions that humans took or did not take were not given any contribution. Moreover, the culture, religion, leadership and many other factors are also overlooked in this study.