SummaryPart 1Part 2Part 3Part 4AnalysisConclusionWorks citedThe book I had chosen for this very intense assignment was "Guns, germs and steel - The destiny of human societies", which was published in 2005 by “Norton” of New York. It has, including the index, 494 pages. The task was to choose any 6 chapters to read as long as I chose 1 from each section of the book. The chapters I chose were the Prologue, Chapter 1, Chapter 4, Chapter 11, Chapter 16, and Chapter 17. In this book, Jared Diamond explains how some places in the world are more advanced than others at because of the way they use steel, their immunity to germs, food production and animal domestication. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essayDiamond presented important questions for the education of human beings. “Why were property and power distributed as they exist today and not in any other way? “”Why did human processes have very different rhythms on different continents? ""Why were Europeans, rather than Africans or Native Americans, the people dealing with weapons, the most disgusting germs, and metal? In his award-winning novel, Diamond postulated the “unified synthesis” – a unified concept of history. Drawing on his vast knowledge of medicines, evolutionary life, biology, science and anthropology, as well as geography, he examined the past 13,000 ages and identified plausible answers to the questions he posed. He published what I believe is one of the most informative novels about the history of human beings. The prologue was like a summary of the book, it describes how the peoples of Eurasia conquered much of the world, due to not their genetic, but also geographical features. He became interested in human societies in July 1972, while studying the evolution of birds in New Guinea. After reading the 6 chapters I had pointed out before, I went back into the book to see what else could help me with this essay and saw some good points outside of the 6 chapters that helped me expand on what I thought was the complete summary . It's about life thousands of years ago and how people lived compared to how we live now. To start from the beginning, when Diamond was in New Guinea, his friend Yali asked him, "Why did you whites develop so much cargo... but we blacks had little cargo of our own?" Cargo had been called technology. He thought about how, even after 2 centuries, New Guinea was still using stone tools, and this was what sparked his interest in the gaps in progress between societies. Diamond then extends the question to also ask, “Why were wealth and power distributed as they are now, rather than in some other way?” He then said that when he began to answer this question, archaeological evidence suggests that all continents had the same technological point of view. SummaryPart 1The first chapter explains what the great leap was, which occurred about 50,000 years ago Great Leap” because of the revolutionary tools made in that era, for example, one was a fish hook made of bone and needles He refers to the first Europeans as “Cro-Magnons” and describes how they arrived in Europe and what they were like to make the advances I listed above. About 40,000 years ago, Cro-Magnons arrived in Europe and around the same time Australia and New Guinea were populated, demonstrating the first use of boats.Part 2Chapter 4 begins. with an anecdote about Diamond's experience as a teenager running on a farm in the West. Explain how the Blackfoot farmhand, Matthew, once didhe became furious with the boss of the job, the Swiss immigrant, and shouted: “; damn Fred Hirschy, and damn the ship that brought you from Switzerland! Diamond uses this anecdote to investigate how cultivation occurs. Some people, for example the Swiss, or Europeans in general, would continue to have the land of the Blackfeet, the ferocious, nomadic group of hunter-gatherers of the Great Plains. The complex, domesticated food industry is the foundation on which the rest of his claim rests, and Diamond explains why some people developed agriculture and others did not. Land allows people to create food surpluses and therefore dramatically increase their population. Larger populations mean greater numerical power in battle. Part 3 In Chapter 11 Diamond discussed how environmental factors in food production have led to changes, spreading at specific rates around the world. Diamond recalls meeting a farmer who attempted to have intercourse with a sheep and contracted a terrible disease from the animal. Even if few people try to imitate the farmer, the truth remains that people live near livestock and contract diseases from them. Part 4 For part 4, I had chosen 2 chapters, chapter 16 and 17. Chapter 16 was based on how China remained as culturally active as it has been for centuries. Eight major languages are spoken in China, all commonly associated with Mandarin. But there are also hundreds of small languages, spoken by thousands of individuals, or tens of thousands. He then goes on to talk about how China's climate was the climate needed for agriculture. Thanks to China's unique organization of large rivers, different areas of China could connect and allow for a simpler mode of transportation. This set of large rivers also helped sustain large areas used for farming and other agricultural activities. Chapter 17 is the part of the book where Diamond talks about the Austronesian expansion. About six thousand years ago, the expansion of Austronesia was called demographic change. Austronesia covers Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia, and many Pacific islands. In China and Southeast Asia, the ancients moved further south to explore Java, New Guinea, and today Indonesia. And that's it for the summaries of the 6 chapters I had read for this book. I didn't cover all the basics in this book because I had only read 6 chapters of it. This was an amazing read and I'm surprised at how in-depth it went into some of the topics discussed. He went to the roots of each society and explained how each of them progressed in its own way. It must have taken a lot of research to complete it, and it was an honor to read it. Analysis What was the author's goal? - The author wanted to inform the reader about how different societies have developed over time. The prologue explains how it sparked the interest of several companies that developed over time. Chapter 1 describes the progress each company made during the “Great Leap.” Chapter 4 explains why agriculture was an important issue and how it contributed to the future. He also explains that agriculture was discovered around 11,000 years ago and how it is one of the most efficient ways of producing food. The rest of the chapters simply explain how each society has grown over the centuries of humanity. The one universal lesson I learned from this incredible book is that all groups of people, regardless of race, ethnicity, or any group of people, can be classified as equal to each other. They have the same level of intelligence to begin with. What really matters in the progression of different societies are the geographical characteristics of the place where they are located.., 30(2), 380-381.
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