Critical Analysis of The Book Guns, Germs, and Steel

Jared Diamond’s book Guns, Germs, and Steel asks the question, “Why did Europe & Asia conquer other regions of the world instead of the other way around?” In the past, some scholars have taken the racist approach and implied that the answer lies in Eurasians having superior intelligence, moral law, and genetics. Diamond refutes this argument and develops the other reasons for Eurasia global dominance. He takes a very logical, syllogistic approach and ends with a compelling conclusion.

For example, in order to get to the answer of the above question he asks, “Why did Native Americans die from European contagions yet Europeans didn’t die from Native American ailments.” Diamond then goes to great length to develop a multi-faceted answer. First, any European who was up and about during the discovery and colonization of the New World had ancestors who’d already survived the Black Plague. This meant they had a genetic disposition to resisting, or recovering from, diseases as well as the actual antibodies that provided immunization. It was antibodies that protected them, not the DNA of the Europeans.

Secondly, over the centuries before the discovery of the Americas, Europe consisted of towns and cities (as well as rural environments) with a variety of domesticated animals. In the cities and towns, people interacted closely with each other. Many more animals were domesticated in Europe and Asia than in Africa and America. Horses were abundantly used for transportation and as such, their feces was abundant in the streets of towns and cities. Domesticated animals led to a variety of diseases spreading and, when the diseases were not fatal, antibodies built up in the survivors which led to resistance to other diseases which were passed on to other generations. Domesticated animals also led to more productivity in growing food which caused communities (towns and cities) to gather around the food source. There were fewer domesticated animals in the Americas, Africa, and other parts of the world which meant smaller and fewer communities.

The next step in Diamond’s logic involves why the conquered regions didn’t domesticate animals to the level of Europe and Asia. The short answer is that Eurasia had a higher population of large mammals that facilitated taming. The author points out that all animals can be domesticated but mankind hasn’t achieved this yet because of the time and danger involved with some savage animals. To domesticate the lion, one would have to gather up the most docile lions, destroy the rest, reproduce the docile ones, gather the most docile of the children, kill the rest, and repeat until several generations have gone by and the only lions left are peaceful. The risk involved has made this endeavor unrealistic. Elephants would be a very nice asset in building cities but the time and danger factors inhibit their domestication. 'Eurasian peoples happened to inherit many more species of domesticable large wild mammalian herbivores than did peoples of the other continents.' (Chapter 9, pg. 174.) That sentence means Europe started off lucky.

Also, some regions lend themselves to being more agricultural than others and some regions allow for the exchange of technology, new plants, food groups, etc. between communities within the region. One of Diamond’s main points is that Eurasia is more on an east-west alignment, yet the Americas and Africa are extended in a north-south alignment over many climate areas that makes the exchange of information and goods much harder. It is easier and more prevalent for information and new discoveries to travel east-west than north-south. This fact favors agriculture as new and more robust foods travel and sustain the inhabitants of lands that are in the same latitudinal region.

Papua New Guinea, for example, has many isolated regions; it is difficult to get from one tribe to another. Although they had very fertile soil and good crops, they didn’t have domesticated animals to do the work. They also had conflicts between tribes rather than a flow of information and goods that would strengthen a community. As an additional argument against the racist concept of superior intellect leading to dominating other cultures, Diamond stipulates that smart people tend to avoid war and figure out ways to avoid diseases. He then deduces that the people of Papua New Guinea are smarter than their European counterparts because Europeans survived diseases due to genetic resistance whereas the tribes of Papua New Guinea had to figure out (use their intellect) how to avoid contagious diseases. The various tribes of New Guinea have also done better at avoiding catastrophic wars than European nations. Regarding geographical intelligence favoring the northern regions over equatorial regions, Diamond points out that the only American group to develop writing was south of the tropic of cancer.

Implications for Education

Clearly this book can be used in a history class as a unit on the discovery of the western hemisphere. If I were teaching on this topic, I would reduce the book to the parts that pertained to the Americas. Also, in a section on anthropology, geography, or social studies, I would use parts of this book as a way of bringing the topic to life.

While this book is listed in the Project Read category of history, I can see using the precepts in a science class or any class that uses investigative techniques. I have always wondered why Native Americans died from European diseases and not the other way around. Diamond’s research and explanation can be used in science classes when a description of germs and immunizations is called for. Forging steel and developing guns involve science and technology but we often take natural resources for granted and do not consider the climate that permits a fire to melt steel. Sharing these parts in a chemistry class when studying metals could capture a student’s interest and improve the student’s understanding of the larger topic.

Challenges and Criticism

The author has been accused of being somewhat callous in excusing human atrocities, such as genocides, by saying germs and geography are the cause, not depraved leaders with societal approval. While I understand this criticism, I don’t agree with it 100%. Diamond did not set out to excuse any behavior, just to explain indisputable facts and how they led to a dominant and a dominated cultures. For example, even if the Spaniards were not aggressive after arriving to the Americas, Native Americans would have still died from the European diseases. He did not set out to write a book about how things should have been or to condemn genocide, just to explain some of the non-human factors that led up to the domination.

For the most part, I agree with Diamond’s explanation of Eurasian domination but there have been times in history when nomadic, hunter-societies realized it was more efficient to conquer the more peaceful gatherers. These situations are in complete contradiction to Diamond’s thesis.

Finally, Diamond’s theory did not play out in the Middle Eastern region called the Fertile Crescent, currently made up of Turkey, Syria, and Iraq, as none of these three countries have dominated any other societies for any measurable length of time. Diamond answers this criticism by saying the inhabitants of the Fertile Crescent abused agriculture and horticulture to an extreme which led to the Greeks dominating westward. 

Conclusion

The terms guns and steel in the title is a bit confusing as even Diamond points out that germs killed more indigenous people than either guns or steel weapons. None-the-less, steel and guns are partly responsible for conquest of regions by Eurasians and geography plays a big part. Basically, Europe had more of the minerals to produce steel than other regions. Also, many regions rich in minerals, practicing agriculture and community life, e.g., New Guinea, had a climate that could not sustain a fire for enough time to create steel weapons. Steel weapons were superior to the sticks and stones type of weapons some societies used. Guns were developed out of the Eurasian countries and soon replaced steel weapons. Since Eurasia was already advanced in the other areas, individuals could grow in skills that facilitated them to develop superior weapons.

Still, I think a better title for this book would be Community, Geography, Climate, and Luck. These four topics better defend Diamond’s stance than including steel and guns. It was the combination of community, geography, and climate that led to the resistance of diseases and ultimately led to the refining of steel and development of guns. Even Diamond had summarize his arguments saying that the domination of one society over another has come down to “geographical luck.”