"Guns, Germs, Genes, and Steel," by John Engelman

[JohnEngelman]

Guns, Germs, and Steel is a history and prehistory of the human species. It purports to explain why Europeans and their descendants in other parts of the world came to dominate the rest of the human species after 1500, rather than other humans originating elsewhere in the world.

The author of Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond, tells us that prior to 1500, or at least 1492, an extraterrestrial explorer and observer would not have expected the European ascendancy. The Ottoman Empire threatened Western Europe. Western Europe had barely escaped conquest by the Mongols in the thirteenth century. China had just launched a sea voyage that had reached the western shore of Africa, and was experimenting with technologies that may have begun the industrial revolution four centuries before it began in England. Four centuries previous to 1500, the Arab world out shined Western Europe, which was mired in the European Dark Ages.

Diamond mentions the emergence of modern humans in Africa about 100,000 years ago, and their displacement of Neanderthals in Europe about 35,000 years ago. Nevertheless, his main interest is with the last 13,000 years. Prior to that time humans everywhere in the world were nomadic hunters and gatherers.

Agriculture began independently in various parts of the world. It began first and most successfully in the Fertile Crescent. The Fertile Crescent includes what is now Israel, and parts of Jordan, Lebanon, eastern Turkey, Syria, and Iraq. Agriculture began there because the area contained the largest number of plants that were edible and could be domesticated, and the largest number of animals that could be domesticated and used for food or transport.

A mammal cannot be domesticated unless that mammal in the wild recognizes some kind of status hierarchy. Animals that are used to submitting to animals of their species could learn to submit to humans. This is why wild sheep in the Fertile Crescent were domesticated, and why sheep in North America could not be. It is why horses and donkeys could be domesticated, and why zebras could not be.

The development of agriculture was gradual. As Paleolithic hunters in the Fertile Crescent followed herds of wild sheep and goats they would harvest wild wheat and barley. Eventually they learned that if they saved some of the wild wheat and barley that they harvested and planted it, when they returned to the area a year later there would be more wheat and barley to harvest. Eventually they learned that by protecting the sheep and goats from other predators there would be more sheep and goats for them to eat. From these insights and practices farming and herding developed.

Finally nascent agriculturalists learned that by encouraging reproduction among the most useful of the plants and animals they kept they could make those plants and animals even more useful.

However, the transition from hunting and gathering to planting and herding was more necessary than enjoyable. Forensic evidence indicates that with farming came lower adult heights, shorter lives, and more diseases. People did not adopt farming because they could but because they had to. Wild animals and plants could not feed growing populations. Once agriculture began populations grew even more. A square mile can usually provide over a hundred times as many calories through planting and herding than by hunting and gathering.

Greater population density led to larger tribes which could conquer and displace Paleolithic tribes. Paleolithic peoples had to adopt the ways of their Neolithic neighbors, or they would be annihilated by them. Some learned. Others died.

As agriculture became more productive it could support a group of people who did not need to spend their time producing food. Hierarchies developed along with divisions of labor.

 

[lazy_literotic]

uuuhhhh - the oldest civilization is Australian aborigines.
how come no mention of them?
o - this is shit that some white guy pulled out of his ass. or gal.
ok.

 

[JohnEngelman]

With the construction of temples for their gods, and palaces for their leaders civilization began. It is no accident that the first civilization was that of the Sumerians, who lived in part of the Fertile Crescent. Soon later the Egyptian civilization was formed by Neolithic peoples who had migrated to the Nile Delta from the Fertile Crescent.

The use of copper developed, followed by the use of bronze. The use of bronze resulted from an arms race. Weapons made from bronze could penetrate armor made of copper. Weapons made from copper could not penetrate armor made of bronze. Systems of writing were invented.

About three thousand years ago the Hittites, who lived in what is now Turkey, initiated the use of iron. Iron has the same advantage over bronze that bronze has over copper.

Once plants were domesticated into crops they could spread to the east and west easier than to the north and south. This is because to the east and west they would find similar growing seasons and climates.

This was a problem that affected the American Indians far more than the inhabitants of Europe and Asia. The domestication of corn began in what is now South America about five thousand years ago. As the use of corn moved north it had to be bred to grow in colder climates with shorter growing seasons. It only reached the Great Lakes region about one thousand years ago.

Another disadvantage the Indians had in their competition with the Europeans is that their ancestors had hunted to extinction native species of horses and camels. These were not available to be used militarily against European cavalries.

Also, serious diseases like small pox and measles originated with domesticated animals in Eurasia. Eventually people living in Eurasia developed partial resistances to these diseases. Thirty percent of whites who were infected with small pox died. Ninety percent of Indians died.

Because Eurasia was home to more peoples and civilizations, animals and plants that were domesticated in one area spread to other areas. Inventions made in one area spread to other areas. The Europeans learned the use of copper and bronze from Egypt, the use of iron and steel from the Hittites, the alphabet from the Phoenicians, who in turn probably learned it from an Egyptian scribe. They learned the use of gun powder, the compass, and paper form the Chinese. They learned of how gun powder could be used militarily from the Ottomans.

By contrast, when the Europeans arrived to the Americas the Aztecs and Incas did not even know the other civilization existed. The Aztecs had invented the wheel, but had little use for it because they had no pack animals. The Incas had domesticated the llamas as a pack animal, but they had no wheels for wagons the Llamas could have pulled. The Aztecs had a system of writing and mathematics. The Incas had neither. The Incas were beginning to experiment with bronze. The Aztecs could only use copper.

An advantage Europe had over China was that Europe was divided into various kingdoms that were independent of each other, but which could learn from each other. If one European country refused to adopt a technical advance its rivals would adopt it, forcing the laggards to catch up.

By contrast China was unified and ruled by an authoritarian government. Toward the end of the fifteenth century a Chinese emperor decreed that there would be no more overseas exploration. Similar decisions stopped or impeded other advances. The Chinese had recently liberated themselves from the Mongol conquest. The Chinese became xenophobic. They decided that they were the “Middle Kingdom” surrounded by barbarians who had nothing useful to teach them.

While this was happening in China the Italian Renaissance was beginning in Europe.

Guns, Germs, and Steel is a fascinating book which I found difficult to put down.

Unfortunately, for reasons that are due to ideology rather than evidence, Diamond maintains that the races are comparable in average intelligence. He even claims, “in mental ability New Guineans are probably genetically superior to Westerners.”

Diamond refuses to acknowledge that farming and civilization exert different evolutionary pressures than hunting and gathering. Paleolithic hunters only need to plan for the next hunt. Farmers need to plan for the next planting season, and for the next harvest. What Paleolithic hunters do not eat rots. Farmers need to defer gratification. No matter how hungry they get they cannot eat the grain they need to plant next spring. They cannot butcher all of their farm animals.

With the development of civilization there are even more evolutionary advantages to being of above average intelligence. Men with the intelligence to become merchants, government officials, scribes, and so on have usually become prosperous. Therefore they had more children who survived and reproduced.

With Paleolithic and even Neolithic societies the best warriors have more than one wife, and more sons who inherit their violent aptitudes and inclination. With civilization, criminal justice systems remove men who are unusually physically aggressive from the gene pool.

One can learn much from reading Guns, Germs, and Steel. To learn how agriculture and civilization effected human evolution and gave the Europeans an advantage Diamond does not acknowledge I recommend The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution, by Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending, and A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History, by Nicholas Wade.

 

[JohnEngelman]

uuuhhhh - the oldest civilization is Australian aborigines.
how come no mention of them?
o - this is shit that some white guy pulled out of his ass. or gal.
ok.

The Australian Aborigines never created a civilization. They never even developed agriculture.

 

[lazy_literotic]

how do you know in the neopaleolic and that other one - the best warriors had more than one wife?
were there church records or something hahaha.

 

[JohnEngelman]

how do you know in the neopaleolic and that other one - the best warriors had more than one wife?
were there church records or something hahaha.

This has been determined by studying Paleolithic and Neolithic peoples who preserved their ways of life long enough to be studied by scientists.

 

[lazy_literotic]

when you have a group of people that have language, division of labor etc etc -
that is a civilization.
that white guy just cherry picked shit for you guys to ethno center it in white people.
I have a garden, my next door neighbors don't - who is civilized here?

 

[ll74]

when you have a group of people that have language, division of labor etc etc -
that is a civilization.
that white guy just cherry picked shit for you guys to ethno center it in white people.
I have a garden, my next door neighbors don't - who is civilized here?

Well, did you math your garden?

 

[JohnEngelman]

when you have a group of people that have language, division of labor etc etc -
that is a civilization.
that white guy just cherry picked shit for you guys to ethno center it in white people.
I have a garden, my next door neighbors don't - who is civilized here?

I define a civilization as a city based culture where the government has the effective monopoly on the legitimate use of violence. That definition includes the ancient civilizations of Sumeria and the United States, while excluding Paleolithic and Neolithic peoples.

Nevertheless, the word "civilized" has additional connotations. I define a civilized person as one who is intelligent, well informed, and who can express his or her opinions without the use of insults, name calling, and obscene words.

 

[lazy_literotic]

so you have trump pushing control our population by violence-
with his acolytes smearing human excrement on cultural icons

and he can't speak without spewing out lies, name calling, insults, put downs -

how do you square all that?

 

[JohnEngelman]

so you have trump pushing control our population by violence-
with his acolytes smearing human excrement on cultural icons

and he can't speak without spewing out lies, name calling, insults, put downs -

how do you square all that?

Because I hate Trump I do not feel the need to justify or apologize for his behavior or the behavior of his followers. I certainly think Trump is less civilized than President Biden.

 

[astuffedshirt_perv]

It purports to explain why Europeans and their descendants in other parts of the world came to dominate the rest of the human species

Certainly not what I got out the book.

The author of Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond, tells us that prior to 1500, or at least 1492, an extraterrestrial explorer and observer would not have expected the European ascendancy.

This more the line. Someone was going to end up dominating the world. The Europeans just happened to peak at the right moment, the 1500s, to surge to the forefront.

 

[Sean Renaud]

Certainly not what I got out the book.

This more the line. Someone was going to end up dominating the world. The Europeans just happened to peak at the right moment, the 1500s, to surge to the forefront.

ITs actually quite a bit more complex than that however. The book really points out that Europeans got really, really lucky.

 

[phrodeau]

Northern Europeans had the genetic advantage of being able to digest milk as adults, or lactase persistence. That alone gave them an evolutionary edge, and that lucky break.

 

[Sean Renaud]

They got lucky with good iron, relatively few large predators. Mild climate all things considered.

 

[Fuzzy1975]

Because I hate Trump I do not feel the need to justify or apologize for his behavior or the behavior of his followers. I certainly think Trump is less civilized than President Biden.

True, he hates Trump, but admires Hitler....

 

[JohnEngelman]

Northern Europeans had the genetic advantage of being able to digest milk as adults, or lactase persistence. That alone gave them an evolutionary edge, and that lucky break.

Cold climates, agriculture, and civilization each select for higher intelligence. Agriculture comes several thousand years before civilization, and prepares people for the demands of civilization genetically.

Chinese, Koreans, and Japanese are rarely lactose tolerant after the age of about four or five. Nevertheless, they live in cold climates where temperatures dip below freezing in the winter. They have practiced civilization for three to four thousand years. That is why their average IQ is 106.

 

[JohnEngelman]

True, he hates Trump, but admires Hitler....

I admire Jews, respect Judaism, and love Israel. I think Hitler was more evil than Trump, but evil in the same ways.

 

[Fuzzy1975]

I think Hitler was more evil than Trump, but evil in the same ways.

You think? Hole E fuck, Trump's a con man,Hitler was responsible for millions of deaths, and you only think Hitler was "more evil"....

Why

We

Know

Why!!!!

 

[JohnEngelman]

They got lucky with good iron, relatively few large predators. Mild climate all things considered.

Agriculture and later on civilization originated in the Fertile Crescent, because there were more plants and animals that could be domesticated there in any other part of the world. A Neolithic way of life requires more intelligence than a Paleolithic way of life. Civilization requires even more intelligence to thrive. Men with the intelligence to become merchants, government officials, money lenders, tend to become more prosperous than men who lack the required intelligence, and become farm and industrial laborers. Until fairly recently prosperous people had more children who reached adulthood than poor people.

An additional advantage the Chinese had was that men who could pass the imperial examinations were selected for the Scholar Gentry. They were given generous incomes, and exected to have more than one wife and many children.

 

[stxjimmy]

Short read: geography begets economics begets politics.

 

[Chobham]

From the thumb nail synopsis you've given the author is fairly correct in the general trajectory of history. I had to look up the copyright date (1999) to get a sense of where the author was at WRT to general scientific thought and discovery due to the following sentence;

"Another disadvantage the Indians had in their competition with the Europeans is that their ancestors had hunted to extinction native species of horses and camels. These were not available to be used militarily against European cavalries."

The mega fauna of the America's were not "hunted to extinction" by the natives. All of the Mega Fauna of the America's went extinct about the time of the Younger-Dryas event some 10 - 12K years ago. All evidence of the Clovis Culture disappeared about the same time as well. There is a vigorous scientific debate taking place today as to the 'why' of it. The point being is that there is mounting evidence that even humans may have been brought to the brink of extinction by some as yet unresolved catastrophic event. Any budding civilization(s) that were advancing in the America's would have been set back to day one and you can't domesticate that which doesn't exist, hence no large beasts of burden.

 

[VinnyVeritas]

From the thumb nail synopsis you've given the author is fairly correct in the general trajectory of history. I had to look up the copyright date (1999) to get a sense of where the author was at WRT to general scientific thought and discovery due to the following sentence;

"Another disadvantage the Indians had in their competition with the Europeans is that their ancestors had hunted to extinction native species of horses and camels. These were not available to be used militarily against European cavalries."

The mega fauna of the America's were not "hunted to extinction" by the natives. All of the Mega Fauna of the America's went extinct about the time of the Younger-Dryas event some 10 - 12K years ago. All evidence of the Clovis Culture disappeared about the same time as well. There is a vigorous scientific debate taking place today as to the 'why' of it. The point being is that there is mounting evidence that even humans may have been brought to the brink of extinction by some as yet unresolved catastrophic event. Any budding civilization(s) that were advancing in the America's would have been set back to day one and you can't domesticate that which doesn't exist, hence no large beasts of burden.

It was man-made climate change. All those cook-fires that were never there before.

Of course, it was mainly consuming the dry, dead fuels for forest fires, but they're "natural" and man ain't.

 

[Chobham]

It was man-made climate change. All those cook-fires that were never there before.

Of course, it was mainly consuming the dry, dead fuels for forest fires, but they're "natural" and man ain't.

Yeah, starting in the late 1980's there was a growing trend to blame man for everything.

 

[VinnyVeritas]

I blame self-help books. They kind of pushed the individual back to the center of the universe.