Why Did Human History Unfold Differently On Different Continents For the Last 13000 Years? By Jared Diamond
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/diamond/diamond_p2.html
Major themes and key points
Jared Diamond talks about the beginning of human kind. He first begins discussing the issues of racism and how people of different skin color used this concept to degrade each other and to use it as an excuse simply because there are no other reasons. Diamond shifts into the history of different countries and specially talks about Africa and Australia. Jared also talks about animals having to live in a certain area because it cannot spread to other areas, because it cannot adapt easily to another region. For example, turkey never was able to spread into Mexico.
What does he identify as the most important determinants to a society’s success?
The most important determinants to a society’s success is to become a well developed country having guns, ships, steel and ect. “The proximate factors were the same familiar ones of guns, steel, oceangoing ships, political organization, and writing. But again, we can ask why guns and ships and so on ended up being developed in Europe rather than in sub-Saharan Africa.” Jared states that developed country have the advantage to overthrow another country and this is why being advance in technology and possessing goods can help benefit one own country. For example how the Europeans overthrow the Native Americans was because the Native Americans lack supplies and weapons. “The resulting advantages of Europeans in guns, ships, political organization, and writing permitted Europeans to colonize Africa, rather than Africans to colonize Europe.”
How can these ideas be applied to today’s global economy?
These ideas can be applied to today’s global economy by first understanding that history plays an important part in shaping one own society. When we look at an individual country, we can determine if the country is successful or if they have a high GDP, base on how modern the society is. Technology places an important role in advancing the countries and allowing the country to produce more, increasing the goods and services and contributing to having a higher GDP. The economy is mostly relied on consumption, investment, government spending and export/imports, which meant that in order for a country to become successful, they must have goods such as well-built ship, guns, and steel. Along with goods, the country must also have intellectuals or people who specialized in making these advanced goods having the government invest into education and spending money on the supplies to build the goods. This will then increase the country’s GDP and allow the country to have power.
Work Cited
"Edge: Jared Diamond Talk [page 2]."Edge : Conversations on the edge of human knowledge. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Apr. 2012. <
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/diamond/diamond_p2.html>
