Essay topic

Mason Freburger
11/25/19


1. According to Jared Diamond, what are the three major elements that separate the world’s  “haves” from the “have nots”?

Guns, germs, and steel.

2. Jared Diamond refers to the people of New Guinea as “among the world’s most culturally diverse and adaptable people in the world”, yet they have much less than modern Americans.Diamond has developed a theory about what has caused these huge discrepancies among different countries, and he says it boils down to geographic luck. Give several examples from the film to support Diamond’s theory.

Discussion of people dwelling in the Middle East and all of their resources compared to the enormously small amount of assets provided the jungle areas of New Guinea, and how having more food sources and the ability to store them led humans to become more agrarian and less reliant on being hunter-gatherers. This, in turn, allowed societies to increaseprofessionals who may want to improve and boost technologies in a range of areas. Societies that have been not blessed with growing prerequisites that assist nutrient prosperous vegetation or enable for their easy, long-term storage are truely no longer as profitable at farming, thus have to continue to rely on.

 3. For thousands of years, people have been cultivating crops. Describe the process used to domesticate crops and create plants that yielded bigger, tastier harvests.

By domesticating crops, we suggest that people interfere with what surely occurs in nature through planting and harvesting at specific times, choosing only the biggest, tastiest, easiest to harvest seeds from the crops, and selecting character vegetation for use in breeding the subsequent year's crops to increase the harvest.

4. According to Diamond, livestock also plays a significant role in a civilization’s ability to 

 become rich and powerful. How did the domestication of animals help people? Give several examples.

Breeding animals for use as meat and for their milk as well as imparting other resources such as skins for clothing, the use of the animals as beasts of burden/plowing, and using the animals for transportation or warfare. In addition, animals have been necessary to farming due to the fact they should devour the stubble from the fields and furnish the fields with fertilizer at the identical time. 

5. List the animals that can be domesticated and where they can be found.

Llama-South America, Asia, North Africa, and Europe had the others: goats, sheep, pigs, cows, horses, donkeys, camels, water buffalo, reindeer, yaks, nithans, and cattle. 

6. Looking at the list of animals and locations from question 5, discuss how Diamond’s theory about geographic luck applies here.

Concept that domesticated animals led to larger productivity, and the majority of these domesticable animals had been native to the temperate climates of the world the place the most effective civilizations developed.

7. How did the movement of the early civilizations of the Fertile Crescent (Middle East) further support Diamond’s idea that geography played a key role in the success of a civilization?

The Fertile Crescent had a dry local weather and a fragile environment. The humans of the time did now not have conservation methods. Instead, they over-exploited the land and environment. Over time, the land should no longer support them. The truth that the Fertile Crescent shared the identical latitude with Europe and Asia allowed them to pass their plants and animals to these areas and continue to thrive. Had they not lived adjoining to land loads that ought to assist their crops and animals, they might also have died out. 

8. Do you agree with Jared Diamond when he says of a civilization's ability to gain power, 

 wealth, and strength, “…what’s far more important is the hand that people have been dealt, the raw materials they’ve had at their disposal.” Why or why not?


Yes I believe that the hand they have been dealt is one of the if not the most important things when considering a civilizations ability to grow and gain wealth and power. I agree because if you didn't have any natural benefits such as fertile land and good pack animals now matter how determined or smart your people are you wouldn't be able to survive in the arctic circle.