GUNS,GERMS,AND STEEL (1997)

JaredDiamond
I.

Introduction

Why did WestemEuropeansconquernativepopulationson othercontinents,insteadof

the other way around? Spanishand Portugueseare spokenall over in South America, but
not Aztecand Inca in Spain and Portugal. Why? Why were native populationsin Africa
taken as slavesand white Europeansnot? What circumstancesled to the different paths
andratesof humanhistory over the past 13,000years?
JaredDiamond attemptsto establishthe ultimate gausssof racial and cultural differences
that might account for this. In Diamond's argument,it is the Environment that is
responsible,specihcallythe plantsand animalsnative to a regionthat influenced
evolution. He states:
"History followed different coursesfor different peoplesbecauseof
differencesamongpeople'senvironments,not becauseof biological
differencesamongpeoplesthemselves."
Sedentarylifestyle farming could only be developedin regionsthat had domesticable
plants and animals. Those without them remainedin largely primitive hunter gatherer
toward the rise of towns, languages,and
societies.In the former, societiesprogressed
technologies-and ultimately toward the exploration and conquestof other lands and
theirpeoples.
After aboutsix million yearsof evolutionin Africa, the Homo erectusspeciesspreadto
Eurasia,evolving into the Neanderthalswith their crude tools and artifacts. CroMaqnonsappearedabout 50,000 yearsago-the "Great Leap Forw31d"-sqs6rding to
Diamond.
By the end of the last Ice Age, humanshad populatedall of the world's major continents,
and at that point, sometimearound11,0008.C., the "playing field was even," i.e., it
would havebeenimpossibleto predictwhere"civilization" would develEl first.
But humanslived in vastly differentenvironments,and this influencedtheir development.
Diamondoffers the Polynesian"experiment"in which the Maoris conqueredthe
ChathamIsland'sMorioris in 1835-the farmerMaoris versusthe hunter-gatherer
Morioris. The samepeopleby ancestry,separatedby different environments.
Anotherexample: In 1532,168 Spaniardskilled thousandsof the approximately80,000
assembledInca soldiers,chasedthe othersaway,and capturedtheir emperor,Atahuallpa
... all in a singleday. How? Guns,steelweapons(swords,etc.),armor,versusclubsand
handaxes. Horses(speedand protection)that frightenedthe Indians,who'd never
encountered
them before. Smallpox,introducedearlierby previousSpanishsettlers,
which led to the deathof the previousemperorand a civil war over the succession.

Technology,in the form of ships,political organization,and a written languagethat

allowedthem to learn of and from previousencounters.
In sum, guns,steel,domesticatedanimals,nastygerms,shipbuildingtechnology,
and a written language-these factors led to the dominanceof the Europeans. But why
did the Europeanshave thesethings andthe nativesnot? Food production!
2.

The Rise and Spreadof Food Production

Accordingto Diamond,the ultimatecauseis food production. "Guns, germs,and

were
first developedby societiesthat had domesticableplantsand animals. And
steel"
that, of course,is what allowed them to conqueror dominate other societies. Farming
and herding yield significantly more food per squareacre than hunting and gathering.
This allows farmers to settle in higher densitiesand support a higher birthrate than can
nomadicpeople who have to carry their children with them. In addition to sheer
numbers,farmers also benefit in that they can producefood surplusesthat permit
specializationin more than food production,i.e., they can support inventors, scribes,or
soldiers,for example.
Food production apparentlybeganindependentlyin only a few placesin the world
and then spreadto other areas. Five suchplaceshave been identified by carbon dating
methods: the Fertile Crescent.China. Mesoamerica,the Andes, and the easternUnited
States.
The choice to farm was made gradually. Once farming techniqueswere
developedby others,they diffused to neighboringsocieties.Farmingled to largerand
denserpopulations,that required more food and, thereby, a push for better techniques,
more cultivatable land, and more food, which in turn led to larger and denserpopulations,
and so on.
'lab' availableto early farmers,
"... the latrine may have beenthe greatest
offering accidental discoveriesas the seedsand berries hunter-gatherers
ate subsequentlygerminatedand grew from their feces." (Barnes and
Noble Reader'sCompanion,p. 8).
But many areassimply lackedthe domesticableplantsnecessaryfor farming.
Diamondpoints out that there are some200,000wild plantsand only a few hundredof
them havebeendomesticated.Only twelve of thesehave good enoughsourcesof
nutrientsand calories,and they accountfor over eighty percentof the world's agriculture.
And they had to be availablein "packages"for huntersand gatherersto choosefarming.
Analogousremarksfollow for animals. Domesticable,large animalssuchas
cows,horses,oxen, goats,and sheep,were fowrd in only a few regionsof the world, and
like plants,only a small fraction of them were domesticable.Diamond points out that of
domesticated.
the 148largeherbivorousmammals,only l4 haveeverbeensuccessfully

..

Germswere an important"big idea" of Diamond's. The animalsbroughtthem

of animalsbecamesick
into contactwith humans,and many of the first domesticators
developedimmunitiesto thesediseases(e.g.,to
anddied. But graduallydomesticators
smallpox). But they then infected thosewithout such immunities and wreakedhavoc
amongaboriginalpeoples.
Finally, Diamond arguesthat the orientationsof the large continentsdetermined
both their suitability for farming and the likelihood that farming techniqueswould spread.
East-Westixes were much more favorableto the latter than were North-South axes.
Thus farming diffused to Europe from the Fertile Crescent,but not to South America
from Mexico. The reasonfor this surelyis that most societiesalong an East-Westaxis
would be at about the samelatitude, and thereforehave similar climates and rainfall. The
samewould not be true along a North-Southaxis.
3.

From Food to Guns.Germs.and Steel

Diamond then moves from describingthe ultimate cause,food, to proximate

causessuch as guns, gerrns,and steel. He arguesthat the sedentarylifestyle associated
with farming gave rise not only to diseases,but also to language,technologY,and
centralizedgovernment.
Germs. Nearly all of the major epidemicdiseasesof humans(smallpox,malaria,
measles,etc.) have come throughcontactwith animals,evenAIDS. The dense
madepossibleby the rise of farm-fedcities madeepidemicspossible.
settlements
Immunities developedover time in Eurasia,but nativesof the New World, although they
alsolived in cities, did not havethe samedomesticatedanimalsand thus didn't develop
many died, in somecases
the sameimmunities. Thus when exposedto thesediseases,
virtually entiretribes.
Writing. The spreadof a written languagecamewith the developmentof farming, as
that collectedtaxesand
scribeswere called upon to keeprecordsfor bureaucracies
food.
controlledand managedsurplus
Technology. With the developmentof sedentary,stratified societieswith surplus food, it
becamepossibleto supportcraftsmenand inventorswho were free to invent tools and
broughtaboutby suchtools and ideas(e.g.,guns)
ideas. Thoselacking the advantages
oftenwere conqueredand usuallyassimilated.But somecultureswere lessreceptive
thanothers. Japan,for example,was manufacturinggunsas early as the middle 1500s,
but lessthan a century later, the Samuraielite managedto ban gun manufacturing and to
eliminatenearly all gunsin the country. Becausethey were an islandnation, this
abandonment
didn't lead other societiesto take advantage.
Government.Large and densesettlementsrequiredmore complicatedorganizationsto
governthem. The evolutionof bandsto tribesto chiefdoms,andultimatelyto states,led
formalizedlaws, a division of labor,taxes,and public works, such
to largebureaucracies,
as inigationsystems.

Densepopulationsrequiremore complexorganizationand this in turn allows for higher

levelsof food production. This then generatesmore populationgrowth and denser
and the higher levelsof food productionallow for more non-food-producers
settlements,
to devotetheir time to soldiering,inventing,and bureaucraticpursuits. This pattern
forms the foundationof societaldevelopment.
4.

Ouestions

l)

Is environmenteverything? How aboutreligions,ideologies,and influential

individuals? (Are the latter producersor productsof the environment?
"Diamond's focus on environmentsand ultimate causesalways pushesback from
the singulareventto its preconditions.")

2)

Why did the Fertile Crescentoriginate so many important developmentsand yet

why did Europe end up spreadingits culture to the rest of the world? Climate?
Mammals? (Ecologically fragile environmentthat collapsed. Europe acquired
the plants, animals, and techniquesand had a hardier climate and more rainfall
and was able to "sustain intensive farming and herding without significant
erosion." Also the importantrole of competitivestates.)

3)

Why is diffusion more likely to happenacrosseast-westaxesrather than across

north-south? Barriers? (Being on the samelatitude allows neighborsto learn and
adopt the sametechniquessincethe climate is likely to be the same. And this also
allows the sameanimals and plants to thrive.)

4)

Why were animals so important? Large ones servedas beastsof burden (oxen
pulling plows) or as providersof speedymobility and an edgein battle (horses).
They brought germs and diseasesand, ultimately, immunities. This led to the
massdevastationof native populationsthat did not domesticatethose particular
animals that carried the diseases-influenza from pigs, measlesand tuberculosis
from cattle, and so on. Animal manurefor fertilizing, milk and eggs for food, and
pelts for clothing were other important advantagesoffered by domesticated
animals.

5.

What was the importanceof China being politically unified at the sametime that
Europeremaineda collectionof competingstates?(". . . one voice could speak
for all of China, for betteror worse." Europe'sdisunity fosteredcompetition,and
technologicalinnovation. "No one voice could speakfor all of Europe,so no new
developmentcould ever be put down completely.")