Guns,Germs, and Steel

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

The major elements are 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.

An example of geographic luck would be the Europeans being able to farm crops like wheat, while the people of papa new guinea are forced to gather sago witch is much less nutritious. Also with the animals they had, in new guinea they only had pigs witch could not be used for pelts, milk, nor could pull plows. On the other hand in Eurasiathey had a plethora of helpful animals.

 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.

They used a prosses called natural selection, this is where humans would take the most productive crops or the best-tasting crops, and breed them together. that way, the offspring of those plants would keep there parents geans.

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.

some examples of how animal domestication helped people are there meat, their milk, and their skins

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

goats, sheep-middle east, cows, ox, horses, chicken, pig-Asia camels-Africa

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

This is supported diamonds theory about geographic luck because in Eurasia they had a whole matter of animals, especially goats, sheep, and cows. This is because these three animals can be used for milk and clothing, as well as there meat. however in new guinea they only had pigs, pigs cannot be milked or have pelts for clothing nor can they pull plows.

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 movement of civilizations in the fertile crescent supported diamonds theory because the people there noticed that they had a very lucky area, from there nice animals and crops.  Since they had these advantages they did not see the need for the reason to move to a different location.

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 do agree with diamond because based on the other questions I have answered you can easily see that if a place has better crops or better animals for domestication then they would have a better society. Because new guinea never had these animals or crops they were already at a disadvantage from the start. and even still there are many people in new guinea who are still hunter-gatherers.  While in Eurasia the people there were able to build these massive civilizations on the backs of the animals and crops that they had in their places.