Diamond, Jared. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human
Societies. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1997. 480 ppg.
Two decades
ago when I served in the Missouri National Guard we had an extended drill
weekend at Ft. Leonard Wood for a live fire artillery exercise. This was a
three day drill and I remember it clearly because it was the same weekend as
Princess Diana’s funeral on September 6, 1997. I had been at the local library
the day before we rolled out and saw an interesting book that promised to
explain why western civilization had been the one to colonize the New World and
rise to ascendancy over much of the world for a long period of time. That had
always been an interesting question for me and one which many people do not
know the answer to. I checked out the book and during some downtime I began to
read. To say that the book grabbed my attention is an understatement. I started
it on Friday and finished it on Saturday. My whole conception of how history
had seen the rise of Western Civilization was fundamentally altered and would
never be the same.
At the time
I thought that using Guns, Germs, and
Steel as an educational tool would be a great idea. My dream of teaching
history had never been realized and in 1997 seemed like it would never happen.
However, history is full of strange things and in 2009 I got the chance to
return to college and pick up my degrees. I began teaching American History in
2013 and was then asked to teach World Regional Geography for the Spring 2014
semester. They handed me a textbook and said, “Good luck.” As I drove back home
I considered how I would teach this course and my mind recalled Jared Diamond
and his Pulitzer Prize winning book. To make the story short, I built a course
that used the textbook, Diamond’s book, and the National Geographic series
based on the book. 
Obviously I
take what Diamond said in Guns, Germs,
and Steel seriously. I think Diamond did some outstanding work in doing
three decades of research and then writing a book which to me is resonates with
readers. For many years the idea that Western Civilization was superior to any
other form has been the dominant world view. Diamond rejects that completely by
saying Western Civilization had advantages that others did not have due to
geography, or literally where it was. When you stop and think about it, why
were the Europeans so superior to others for so long? Was it their race, their
ideals, or what? Diamond said it was because of where they started that they
developed into the world spanning civilization we know.
What
advantages did the Europeans have over others? They arrived with technology
superior to all others, were better organized, and had the lethal gift of germs
which in the Americas killed over half the population and was the biggest reason
as to why the Europeans took those lands over. When Diamond explored the germ
theory he realized that these germs came from contact with domesticated mammals
such as horses, cows, pigs, chickens, sheep, and goats. These same mammals were
what enabled Europeans to transport materials as well as have a convenient food
supply and a power source such as horses pulling plows.
This idea
works when you look at the Americas and Australia, but not when you look at
Africa and Asia. The lethality of germs did not affect the people in those
regions like it did the Americas. In fact, some of the diseases in Africa
killed the Europeans and prevented them for exploiting Sub-Saharan Africa for
centuries. Some of these germs are now known to have come from Asia as well
along with domestic animals that came from there. Many of the larger mammals
Europe had were also found in Asia. In fact, some of the technology such as
gunpowder came from Asia as well. Diamond acknowledged this in his book and
sought to explain why Europe was able to expand while Asia did not.
This is
something I really stress in my class and it is something which the book and
National Geographic series does not explore as deeply as it should. Diamond saw
a decision made in the 15th century by a Chinese emperor as being
the decisive event that altered human history. At that point China was the
leading power in the world. It had a great navy, the largest country,
gunpowder, advanced technology and far more people thanks to its agricultural
practices than any other nation at that time. The decision by emperors in
China’s Ming dynasty led to China losing its technological advantage over
Europe although no one had any idea that this was happening. These decisions or
orders are called Haijin.
Diamond did
not explore this in any depth other than to point to it and say that China’s
inward looking policies which had existed for centuries were the result of its
location, its geography. Its singular form of government used Haijin to build
up its power at the expense of expanding China’s culture and boundaries. There
is a lot here to work with, but Diamond seems to casually bring it up in the
book’s epilogue. Instead he focuses heavily on the Americas where his theory of
environmental determinism is the strongest. I think he gets the theory right,
but in the case of Asia he needed to go deeper. 
Since
Diamond is an ornithologist by education, and his world journey’s focused on
New Guinea, I think his point of view was heavily influenced through his
contact with hunter-gatherers. His theory is at its weakest in Asia and
specifically China. That again reflects his preference for focusing on one type
of people versus another. This does not mean his theory is wrong. It just needs
expansion and I do not think Diamond will be doing that any time soon. His
recent works have dealt with different ideas. 
Even with
this glaring problem, I think this book is outstanding. It does answer the
question of why Western Civilization dominated the world for the most part. For
my geography class it is a wonderful tool. I focus heavily on how man
domesticated two grains from the Middle East, wheat and barley, and built
Western Civilization upon them. Coupled with the domestication of large
mammals, the forerunners of Western Civilization spread through Europe.
Geography played a huge role in why it went west and why there are so many
differences between East and West on a cultural level. It also explains why
there are such huge differences between North Africa and the lands to the south
of the Sahara. 
The role of
geography in shaping mankind is without a doubt the single underlying reason as
to why history occurred like it did. This is really hard for students to
understand because they seem to have been taught a much different concept prior
to taking a geography course. Only by
explaining the human-environment interaction do students begin to realize that
geography caused man to make decisions which would reverberate for millennia.
The people of the Middle East followed the Tigris and Euphrates rivers
northwest into Anatolia and out of the desert. Man’s movement west, north, and
south with the crops and animals of the Middle East were shaped by geographical
barriers.
Diamond
points out how man overcame these barriers over time. The civilization that was
able to do so developed greater technologies than others. He points to both
European and Chinese naval developments in this regard. China’s need to
continue to build its naval forces was negligible due to a lack of naval
enemies while in Europe those enemies were often themselves as nations competed
for resources and trade. Since China controlled all of its trade which was
mostly internal or land based, its need for a navy was reduced. Europe surged
ahead while China languished. 
In my classes
I point to the barriers as we explore the world’s regions. I show how these
barriers played such big roles. We play a board game by Avalon Hill that helps
to illustrate this as well. Diamond’s book plays a big role in my class and so
do his theories. I find it really helps students take the principles and ideas
from the first part of the class and begin to apply them to the world regions
we study. They are able to make the mental leap to the realization that the
people of the world are different for many reasons, the foremost being the
place in which they live more than anything else. It helps them to break down
and discard the erroneous belief which many of them have regarding their place
in the world. Using Diamond’s Guns,
Germs, and Steel I am able to use Transformative Learning Theory to
overcome the disorientating dilemma they find themselves in at the beginning of
class. 
I could
build a new class out of Diamond’s book that encompasses geography, history,
and sociology if my school would let me. In fact, I could build two classes out
of it. One would focus on why Western Civilization developed like it did and
expanded to the Americas while the second one would focus on the development of
Eastern Civilization and its failure to expand beyond Asia itself. While
courses exist that dive into those ideas, they are built around history more
than anything else. Few instructors use environmental determinism in explaining
how early mankind developed in the places it did. The ultimate objectives of
these courses would be why they developed like they did, not just their
history.
Diamond has
written several other books such as Collapse,
The Third Chimpanzee, and The World
Until Yesterday. He is Professor of Geography at the University of
California, Los Angeles. He has been awarded all kinds of prizes and awards for
his research and work in multiple fields. I find it interesting that he began
to study environmental history in his fifties which led to this book and many
others. This to me is proof that you are not bound by formal rules regarding
your education, but rather by using your interests coupled with the research
capabilities your education has provided you new careers beckon. This book is a
testament to following one’s interests and using one’s intellect. I highly
recommend it to all readers. It is one of my favorite books and I have read
through it multiple times.
No comments:
Post a Comment