A Reflection on “Guns, Germs and Steel” by Jared Diamond

Human mind cannot perceive the things it has not experienced, at least easily. For a person who grew up in his/her native environment it would be hard to understand what other people eat on other parts of the world, or the thought would not go beyond a simple expectation of the similar customs. However, the World varies greatly in its geography and this reflects upon the

societies in an immense capacity. Jared Diamond starts the book with one simple question and finishes it with one simple deterministic answer to a this simple question:

Q: Why do Europeans possess the power they have now over other indigenous nations all around the world?
A: Geography or geographical advantage

Geography explained

When one thinks about the “innate” differences among the nations of the world, geography, or geographical luck might not strike one as the obvious reason for this variation. This simple deterministic explanation puts Diamond’s book in a special position.

Diamond dates back the “head start” that lead the current power difference among different nations, or even continents to first practices of agriculture. Agriculture, however, was nothing but nature’s blessing for certain geographical areas on earth, especially the Fertile Crescent. Having the right climate and seasonal changes, the people of this region was able find the grains that were nutritious and relatively easier to domesticate. During their agricultural endeavours, the people of the fertile crescent also helped the natural selection, by picking the bigger grains and eventually helping the grains evolve into the nutrient plants we have today.

So, being geographically lucky, these peoples switched to agriculture and started having food surpluses, which they eventually ended up storing, or giving to people who were not farming, but working on other things: inventions. Meanwhile, the advantageous geographical location also helped these people to easily carry their “modern” practices and food types with them in east-west direction. This was a blessing for west, as without any trouble they were able adopt the progressed oriental practices. Hence, Europe, being in the similar latitudes to the fertile crescent, made great use of this advantage and were able to grow the same plants and animals that gave them a head start over other continents. Meanwhile, in America and Africa, since the shape of the continents is wide in north-south direction, the nations could not take advantage of international knowledge exchange.

The switch from being hunter-gatherer to agrarian also brought animal domestication with it. Or, the “lucky” nations were also bestowed with the animal types that were suitable for domestication, unlike Africa, where the animals were fierce, or America, where native animals were small animals. Thus, Eurasian people were able to domesticate these animals, that helped them in many ways: farming, food, clothing and military power. Being in the same latitude, Europe was able to bring the same animals over to the continent without any problems, and take advantage of them.

Having mastered agriculture and domesticating animals, Eurasians had time to develop in other areas, like government organization, statehood, reading and writing and military organization. Increased population density also brought about another advantage that prepared the Europeans for their military advancements to different continents. The lack of isolation of any one nation in that part of the world led to many wars and these wars also had an impact on the development of military systems and weapons. Invention of the steel could be considered a result of agriculture and close contact with other nations, as agriculture gave the people to chance to think about new things and not worry about food, while close contact with other nations gave them inspiration, as well as fear, which led to invention of many weapons.

Finally, Diamond puts forward that living closely with animals and other people also helped the Eurasians build an immune system stronger than those of Africa and America. Close contact with pigs, sheep, goat and horses made the humans less prone to get sick from the the dormant germs they carried with them. Thus, when Eurasians stepped on American or African soil, the germs they carried were easily spreading among the indigenous people living there, and weakening their defense systems. In the case of Pizarro and his conquest of Inca Empire with only 170 men, we can talk about the military absurdity on the part of Atahualpa; however, there was a big impact of guns, germs and steel.

Globalization then and now

The nations that were founded in Eurasia and thrived there enjoyed their unique geopolitical advantage. The population density in that region also helped them, especially the stronger nations, get better at warfare and society organization. In addition, their constant contact in different capacities was the start of globalization. People in Europe was wearing silk clothes made in China, and riding horses that came from Arabia. Conquering other continents and colonizing nations overseas, these nations became wealthier and stronger. This, naturally (most of the time) led to inventions and new technology.

The current stage of globalization is happening at light speed, especially thanks to the Internet. Knowledge and cultures are being interchanged so easily and effortlessly. However, the strong nations still keep their power, still thanks to guns, germs and steel? Well, in a way, yes. The US did not have a geographic advantage to start with per se. However, as the colonies of Britain, the people who first arrived to this new land had the knowledge to build a new life, that was better than the one the Indians already had. This accumulated knowledge helped them make use of the resources that did not have the same perceived value for the Indians, like gold, iron, petroleum. So, geographical advantage needed some implementation of knowledge, but they finally got there.

Today, technology is mostly accessible by most people around the world. Here is an interesting thought: would software pirating change the faith of these poor nations? When you think about it, the rich nations create the software we use today, and they price them reasonably for themselves. $100 might not be a lot of money for a teacher in the US, but it sure is for a teacher in Turkey. So, in a normal world without pirating, the teacher in the US would have a “geographical advantage” over his/her counterpart in Turkey. However, with software pirating the teacher in Turkey can also learn and use the software that’s giving the teacher in US the innovative capabilities. Hence, the horrible pirating might actually not be as bad as people think. We can think of it as giving the people in New Guinea guns, germs and steel.

Sustainability

However, would giving those nations guns, germs and steel help them prosper? To this end, it should be noted that development of Eurasia was mostly progressive and gradual. Nations generally did not skip a step, for example, no one used a cannons before inventing gun powder. The US had already started building roads when they started mass-producing cars. When they started selling cars to other nations, the profit-driven-mind did not care about development level of the nations they are selling to, or the sustainability of the “innovation.” Hence, when the cars have arrived to Turkey, the roads were dirt-roads, and they stayed that way for a long while as the level of development of the country was not enough for her to starting building state of the art roads. People liked cars very much and needed them, too, but infrastructure was not ready for them to be used effectively from the start. They hurriedly built roads, then the infrastructure started being a problem, as they had to dig the roads every once in a while to fix something, and the roads got messed up.

Would guns, germs, and steel make a nation wealthy, if they were just given to them? Probably not, as one needs to follow the steps of development, as skipping one might be detrimental to the sustainability of it.