Guns, Germs, and Steel Flashcards
Guns, Germs, and Steel
What conquistador / conquered-emperor duo does Jared Diamond use in the beginning of Guns, Germs, and Steel to illustrate the European headstart and power over even the richest, largest, most populous, and technologically/administratively advanced of all South American empires?
Pizarro (Spaniard) capturing Atahuallpa (Incan)
Guns, Germs, and Steel
What are the four fertile river systems associated with valleys known as ‘cradles of civilization’ where the earliest civilizations developed?
1. Tigris and Euphrates
2. The Nile
3. The Indus
4. The Yangtze and Yellow
Guns, Germs, and Steel
Approximately when did the first large-scale human civilizations appear in Egypt and lower Mesopotamia?
3,000 B.C.E.
Guns, Germs, and Steel
What was the earliest factor that decided which of our ancestors could most easily spread domesticated species (and later: guns, germs, and steel) and thus who would end up being the ‘dominant’ contemporary civilizations?
The East-West axis of continents
- (Continents that are spread out in an east-west direction, such as Eurasia, had a developmental advantage because of the ease with which crops, animals, ideas and technologies could spread between areas of similar latitude.*
- Continents that spread out in a north-south direction, such as the Americas, had an inherent climatic disadvantage. Any crops, animals, ideas and technologies had to travel through dramatically changing climatic conditions to spread from one extreme to the other.)*
Guns, Germs, and Steel
Summarizing the beginning of Guns, Germs, and Steel, what aspects of Eurasia gave it a developmental headstart over the rest of the world?
- A high number of climates (increasing diversity) spanning a wide East-West axis (facilitating transport and trade along stable latitudes)
- A high number of large-seeded grasses and other fauna
- A high number of domesticable, large mammals
Guns, Germs, and Steel
Describe the East-West differentiation as the ultimate causal factor of which civilizations developed guns, germs, and steel (as explained by Jared Diamond).
See image.
Continents that are spread out in an east-west direction, such as Eurasia, had a developmental advantage because of the ease with which crops, animals, ideas and technologies could spread between areas of similar latitude.
Continents that spread out in a north-south direction, such as the Americas, had an inherent climatic disadvantage. Any crops, animals, ideas and technologies had to travel through dramatically changing climatic conditions to spread from one extreme to the other.
Guns, Germs, and Steel
What area of the globe is where we find the earliest evidence of both plant domestication (8500 B.C.E.) and animal domestication (8000 B.C.E)?
Southwest Asia
Guns, Germs, and Steel
Why did large, complex civilizations arise in the Fertile Crescent and not in other locals with rich soil and moderate rainfall (e.g. New Guinea or the Eastern United States)?
A lack of appropriate flora (and fauna) in the less successful locations
- (The Fertile Crescent had wheat, barley, and other high-yield, nutrient-rich crops;*
- the populations of the Eastern U.S. and New Guinea regions didn’t begin to really boom until the arrival of sweet potato in New Guinea and the ‘Mexican trinity’ in the Eastern U.S.)*
Guns, Germs, and Steel
How many large, domesticable mammals did Eurasia ‘begin’ with at agricultural revolution and start of major civilizations?
And sub-Saharan Africa?
And the Americas?
And Australia?
13
0
1
0
Guns, Germs, and Steel
What is the one large, domesticable mammal which originated outside Eurasia?
The alpaca
(which is still not useful for carrying riders, pulling carts, driving machinery, producing milk for human consumption, etc.)
Guns, Germs, and Steel
What aspects of the fauna in Eurasia gave Eurasia such a massive developmental advantage over the rest of the world?
- The presence of a high number of large mammals
- The high rate of those mammals that were domesticable
Guns, Germs, and Steel
Name the most recent hunter-gatherer societies that persisted to modern days due to their geographic isolation and poor farming climes.
Some Australian Aborigines;
some northwestern Californian Native Americans;
some South African Khoisans
Guns, Germs, and Steel
Due to what three main reasons did hunter-gatherers first start transitioning to agricultural societies within the last 10,000 years (and not, say, 20,000 or 30,000 or 100,000 years ago)?
- Climate change (and subsequent decline in wild game options {e.g. North American large mammals} and increase in domesticable wild plants)
- Cumulative food storage technology advancements
- Autocatalysis of increasing food production and increasing population density (and thus increasing food production… displacing smaller hunter-gatherer societies)
Guns, Germs, and Steel
The three-age history of human development follows the progression of more and more complex tools. The three components are the _______ age, the _______ age, and the _______ age.
The three-age history of human development follows the progression of more and more complex tools. The three components are the Stone age, the Bronze age, and the Iron age.
Guns, Germs, and Steel
The stone age began 3 million years ago and ended when?
3,000 B.C.E.
Guns, Germs, and Steel
The bronze age began 3,000 B.C.E and ended when?
1,200 B.C.E.
Guns, Germs, and Steel
In Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond makes the case that Eurasia’s massive landmass (and thus, increased diversity of biomes and domesticable flora and fauna) and predominantly East-West axis (as contrasted with the Americas’ and Africa’s North-South axis and all the difficulty of traveling/trading between different latitudes) led to an increase in the size and advancement of those civilizations.
How does this all relate to germs?
These larger populations with more domesticated fauna were exposed to a much higher amount of zoonotic diseases (and thus, their civilizations evolved higher rates of resistance) and their larger human populations allowed for epidemic disease development. These diseases could then be passed on to decimate smaller, isolated civilizations who were not primed against the same microorganisms.
Guns, Germs, and Steel
Name a few diseases that arose in the civilizations of Eurasia and then decimated the isolated American populations (and other aborigine groups around the globe) upon contact.
- Smallpox
- Measles
- Influenza
- Typhus
- Tuberculosis
- Yellow fever
- Plague
Guns, Germs, and Steel
Name a few reasons why Eurasia developed so many epidemic diseases which were then transmitted to unprepared, non-resistant populations around the world upon first contacts.
- High population densities
- High number of large, domesticated mammals
- High connectivity throughout Europe, Asia, and North Africa
Guns, Germs, and Steel
The percentage of indigenous Americans (and other aborigne groups around the globe) which were decimated by Eurasian diseases may reach as high as ____%.
The percentage of indigenous Americans (and other aborigne groups around the globe) which were decimated by Eurasian diseases may reach as high as 95%.
Guns, Germs, and Steel
What reasons does Jared Diamond speculate may have favored west Europe’s rise to power, despite its relative late-start in the civilization/technology game?
1. Europe is geographically divided by hills and mountain ranges into a multitude of smaller states; there are also not as extensive river systems as those found somewhere like China (this leads to political disunity, which actually encourages technological development as the states compete with one another and are each willing to try different things)
2. The European coastline is massive compared with other leaders like China
3. The Mediterranean Sea and Ural mountains provide natural protective barriers to invasion (not to mention, the variety of geographic barriers within Europe)
