![Page 1: Guns, Germs, and Steel. The cover art actually says a lot about the way the Western world looked at, and sometimes still looks at the conquest of the](https://reader035.vdocument.in/reader035/viewer/2022062511/55182a8b55034684678b4c4e/html5/thumbnails/1.jpg)
Guns, Germs, and Steel
![Page 2: Guns, Germs, and Steel. The cover art actually says a lot about the way the Western world looked at, and sometimes still looks at the conquest of the](https://reader035.vdocument.in/reader035/viewer/2022062511/55182a8b55034684678b4c4e/html5/thumbnails/2.jpg)
![Page 3: Guns, Germs, and Steel. The cover art actually says a lot about the way the Western world looked at, and sometimes still looks at the conquest of the](https://reader035.vdocument.in/reader035/viewer/2022062511/55182a8b55034684678b4c4e/html5/thumbnails/3.jpg)
The cover art actually says a lot about the way the Western world looked at, and sometimes still looks at the conquest of the New World.
Cover art:
Sir John Everett Millais, Pizarro seizing the Inca of Peru, 1845
![Page 4: Guns, Germs, and Steel. The cover art actually says a lot about the way the Western world looked at, and sometimes still looks at the conquest of the](https://reader035.vdocument.in/reader035/viewer/2022062511/55182a8b55034684678b4c4e/html5/thumbnails/4.jpg)
Advance of Christianity
Heroic Conquistadors
Weak, effeminate, native leader
Frightened, superstitious natives.
![Page 5: Guns, Germs, and Steel. The cover art actually says a lot about the way the Western world looked at, and sometimes still looks at the conquest of the](https://reader035.vdocument.in/reader035/viewer/2022062511/55182a8b55034684678b4c4e/html5/thumbnails/5.jpg)
• The painting reflects a firmly held belief that Europe conquered the world starting around 1500 AD because Europeans were simply better, smarter, etc. and ordained by God to conquer ignorant savages.
![Page 6: Guns, Germs, and Steel. The cover art actually says a lot about the way the Western world looked at, and sometimes still looks at the conquest of the](https://reader035.vdocument.in/reader035/viewer/2022062511/55182a8b55034684678b4c4e/html5/thumbnails/6.jpg)
• This view, either consciously or subconsciously, is still common.
• At some level, like most important questions of historical consequence, it has intense political dimensions.
![Page 7: Guns, Germs, and Steel. The cover art actually says a lot about the way the Western world looked at, and sometimes still looks at the conquest of the](https://reader035.vdocument.in/reader035/viewer/2022062511/55182a8b55034684678b4c4e/html5/thumbnails/7.jpg)
After all…
• “Why did Pizarro come to capture Atahuallpa, instead of Atahuallpa’s coming to Spain to capture King Charles I?”
![Page 8: Guns, Germs, and Steel. The cover art actually says a lot about the way the Western world looked at, and sometimes still looks at the conquest of the](https://reader035.vdocument.in/reader035/viewer/2022062511/55182a8b55034684678b4c4e/html5/thumbnails/8.jpg)
After all…
• Pizarro: 62 mounted soldiers.
• Pizarro: 106 infantrymen
Defeats:
• Atahuallpa: approx. 80,000 soldiers
![Page 9: Guns, Germs, and Steel. The cover art actually says a lot about the way the Western world looked at, and sometimes still looks at the conquest of the](https://reader035.vdocument.in/reader035/viewer/2022062511/55182a8b55034684678b4c4e/html5/thumbnails/9.jpg)
?
• Doesn’t this point to European superiority?
![Page 10: Guns, Germs, and Steel. The cover art actually says a lot about the way the Western world looked at, and sometimes still looks at the conquest of the](https://reader035.vdocument.in/reader035/viewer/2022062511/55182a8b55034684678b4c4e/html5/thumbnails/10.jpg)
The Spanish had an edge:
• Animals: Horses
• Technology: Steel and Writing
• Germs
• Crops
• Geography
![Page 11: Guns, Germs, and Steel. The cover art actually says a lot about the way the Western world looked at, and sometimes still looks at the conquest of the](https://reader035.vdocument.in/reader035/viewer/2022062511/55182a8b55034684678b4c4e/html5/thumbnails/11.jpg)
?
• How did the Europeans come to possess all of these advantages?
• Is this just further evidence of European superiority?
![Page 12: Guns, Germs, and Steel. The cover art actually says a lot about the way the Western world looked at, and sometimes still looks at the conquest of the](https://reader035.vdocument.in/reader035/viewer/2022062511/55182a8b55034684678b4c4e/html5/thumbnails/12.jpg)
Enter Jared Diamond…
• If we want to see how these societies became so different, we need to look at their roots.
• Guns, Germs, and Steel traces the development of world societies from ancient times.
• Let’s start by winding the clock back several thousand years….
![Page 13: Guns, Germs, and Steel. The cover art actually says a lot about the way the Western world looked at, and sometimes still looks at the conquest of the](https://reader035.vdocument.in/reader035/viewer/2022062511/55182a8b55034684678b4c4e/html5/thumbnails/13.jpg)
Animals
![Page 14: Guns, Germs, and Steel. The cover art actually says a lot about the way the Western world looked at, and sometimes still looks at the conquest of the](https://reader035.vdocument.in/reader035/viewer/2022062511/55182a8b55034684678b4c4e/html5/thumbnails/14.jpg)
Horses & Domestic animals
• A certain element of luck: the first domesticated horses came from Eurasia.
• In the New World, there simply weren’t the right type of animals to domesticate
• Not just horses, but food draft and food animals as well, Eurasia had an edge.
![Page 15: Guns, Germs, and Steel. The cover art actually says a lot about the way the Western world looked at, and sometimes still looks at the conquest of the](https://reader035.vdocument.in/reader035/viewer/2022062511/55182a8b55034684678b4c4e/html5/thumbnails/15.jpg)
Horses
• Horses are a big tactical advantage
• (Height, speed, size, terror factor)
• Indians don’t have horses Like Mr. Ed
![Page 16: Guns, Germs, and Steel. The cover art actually says a lot about the way the Western world looked at, and sometimes still looks at the conquest of the](https://reader035.vdocument.in/reader035/viewer/2022062511/55182a8b55034684678b4c4e/html5/thumbnails/16.jpg)
Some bad luck: Why not Africa?
• Africa, like the Americas did not have the basic species capable of useful domesticity
• You cannot domesticate a Zebra, for instance, even though it looks kind of like a horse.
![Page 17: Guns, Germs, and Steel. The cover art actually says a lot about the way the Western world looked at, and sometimes still looks at the conquest of the](https://reader035.vdocument.in/reader035/viewer/2022062511/55182a8b55034684678b4c4e/html5/thumbnails/17.jpg)
Actually…
• Other than the llama, the biggest domesticated animals in the New World at the time of European contact were small dogs.
![Page 18: Guns, Germs, and Steel. The cover art actually says a lot about the way the Western world looked at, and sometimes still looks at the conquest of the](https://reader035.vdocument.in/reader035/viewer/2022062511/55182a8b55034684678b4c4e/html5/thumbnails/18.jpg)
Domesticated Animals
• Domesticated animals also provide:
• 1) Labor (draft animals – mules, oxen)
• 2) Food (porkchops, steak, barbeque, hamburgers, bacon, sausage, filet mignon, pot roast, garlic braised leg of lamb, darn, I’m getting hungry already!)
• 3) Transportation & War machines: horses
![Page 19: Guns, Germs, and Steel. The cover art actually says a lot about the way the Western world looked at, and sometimes still looks at the conquest of the](https://reader035.vdocument.in/reader035/viewer/2022062511/55182a8b55034684678b4c4e/html5/thumbnails/19.jpg)
Technology
![Page 20: Guns, Germs, and Steel. The cover art actually says a lot about the way the Western world looked at, and sometimes still looks at the conquest of the](https://reader035.vdocument.in/reader035/viewer/2022062511/55182a8b55034684678b4c4e/html5/thumbnails/20.jpg)
Steel
• Edged Weapons and Armor made of steel (swords, helmets, chain mail, lances, and a few harquebusier – early guns)
• Incas: stone weapons (obsidian) and armor made of quilted cotton.
![Page 21: Guns, Germs, and Steel. The cover art actually says a lot about the way the Western world looked at, and sometimes still looks at the conquest of the](https://reader035.vdocument.in/reader035/viewer/2022062511/55182a8b55034684678b4c4e/html5/thumbnails/21.jpg)
Government & Technology
• Well fed, European populations grew large.
• Large numbers of people not involved in the production of food can dedicate their attention to other pursuits
• Large societies develop governments and literacy
![Page 22: Guns, Germs, and Steel. The cover art actually says a lot about the way the Western world looked at, and sometimes still looks at the conquest of the](https://reader035.vdocument.in/reader035/viewer/2022062511/55182a8b55034684678b4c4e/html5/thumbnails/22.jpg)
Literacy & Writing
• Only native elites knew the complex Indian writing systems
• Confusion reigned supreme in the Incan army when Pizarro landed.
• Every Spanish raiding party had at least several literate members.
• Very important for planning and communication
![Page 23: Guns, Germs, and Steel. The cover art actually says a lot about the way the Western world looked at, and sometimes still looks at the conquest of the](https://reader035.vdocument.in/reader035/viewer/2022062511/55182a8b55034684678b4c4e/html5/thumbnails/23.jpg)
Geography
![Page 24: Guns, Germs, and Steel. The cover art actually says a lot about the way the Western world looked at, and sometimes still looks at the conquest of the](https://reader035.vdocument.in/reader035/viewer/2022062511/55182a8b55034684678b4c4e/html5/thumbnails/24.jpg)
Continental Axis
Jared Diamond:
Geography mattered:
1)Dictated the domesticable species available (plant and animal)
2)Dictated the ease at which they spread.
![Page 25: Guns, Germs, and Steel. The cover art actually says a lot about the way the Western world looked at, and sometimes still looks at the conquest of the](https://reader035.vdocument.in/reader035/viewer/2022062511/55182a8b55034684678b4c4e/html5/thumbnails/25.jpg)
Continental Axis & Europe
• The geography of Europe and Western Asia are conducive to the spread of these plant and animal species
• The geography of Africa (Sahara desert, jungles, large mountain ranges) is not. – Many barriers, differing climates.
• Similarly, The Americas also had a north-south orientation and were separated by an ocean from useful species.
![Page 26: Guns, Germs, and Steel. The cover art actually says a lot about the way the Western world looked at, and sometimes still looks at the conquest of the](https://reader035.vdocument.in/reader035/viewer/2022062511/55182a8b55034684678b4c4e/html5/thumbnails/26.jpg)
Crops
![Page 27: Guns, Germs, and Steel. The cover art actually says a lot about the way the Western world looked at, and sometimes still looks at the conquest of the](https://reader035.vdocument.in/reader035/viewer/2022062511/55182a8b55034684678b4c4e/html5/thumbnails/27.jpg)
Continental Axis: Climate
Temperature also stays more the same in the same longitude (east-west) versus moving across latitude (north-south)
Thus, crops that grow in Western Russia will also grow in France. But crops grown in France will NOT grow in Libya.
Cold Winters
Warm mostly year-round
Tropical/Hot year-round
![Page 28: Guns, Germs, and Steel. The cover art actually says a lot about the way the Western world looked at, and sometimes still looks at the conquest of the](https://reader035.vdocument.in/reader035/viewer/2022062511/55182a8b55034684678b4c4e/html5/thumbnails/28.jpg)
Why does this matter?
• What Jared Diamond calls “Farmer Power.”
• European and Eurasian societies had domesticable grain crops available to them that allowed a FRACTION of the population to feed ALL of the population.
• Continental axis allowed them to spread through Eurasia, but not elsewhere.
![Page 29: Guns, Germs, and Steel. The cover art actually says a lot about the way the Western world looked at, and sometimes still looks at the conquest of the](https://reader035.vdocument.in/reader035/viewer/2022062511/55182a8b55034684678b4c4e/html5/thumbnails/29.jpg)
Crops
• For instance, wheat and barley are very nutritious and yield a lot per acre.
• European societies grew larger because they had abundant food production
![Page 30: Guns, Germs, and Steel. The cover art actually says a lot about the way the Western world looked at, and sometimes still looks at the conquest of the](https://reader035.vdocument.in/reader035/viewer/2022062511/55182a8b55034684678b4c4e/html5/thumbnails/30.jpg)
Crops
• When the production of food only requires part of the population, there are people left over to become a ruling elite, artisans, engineers, etc.
• Ultimately you have division of labor and governmental structure. Chiefdoms, then kingdoms.
![Page 31: Guns, Germs, and Steel. The cover art actually says a lot about the way the Western world looked at, and sometimes still looks at the conquest of the](https://reader035.vdocument.in/reader035/viewer/2022062511/55182a8b55034684678b4c4e/html5/thumbnails/31.jpg)
Germs
![Page 32: Guns, Germs, and Steel. The cover art actually says a lot about the way the Western world looked at, and sometimes still looks at the conquest of the](https://reader035.vdocument.in/reader035/viewer/2022062511/55182a8b55034684678b4c4e/html5/thumbnails/32.jpg)
Animals & Disease
• Domestic animals are not the cleanest things in the world.
• Often living in very close proximity with humans, not to mention their own feces.
• Transmission of all kinds of crazy diseases.
![Page 33: Guns, Germs, and Steel. The cover art actually says a lot about the way the Western world looked at, and sometimes still looks at the conquest of the](https://reader035.vdocument.in/reader035/viewer/2022062511/55182a8b55034684678b4c4e/html5/thumbnails/33.jpg)
Disease: Germs
Europeans:surplus of food = growing populations, more density of population.greater density = living in close quarters with one another (diseases)living in close quarters with animals(more diseases)
Europeans will contract many diseases over time. More importantly, they will also develop immunity to them.
![Page 34: Guns, Germs, and Steel. The cover art actually says a lot about the way the Western world looked at, and sometimes still looks at the conquest of the](https://reader035.vdocument.in/reader035/viewer/2022062511/55182a8b55034684678b4c4e/html5/thumbnails/34.jpg)
Disease: Germs
• Disease will be a very critical element in the European conquest of the New World
• Valley of Mexico in 1450: 16 million people
• All of Mexico by 1600: 2 million people
• Smallpox, scarlet fever
![Page 35: Guns, Germs, and Steel. The cover art actually says a lot about the way the Western world looked at, and sometimes still looks at the conquest of the](https://reader035.vdocument.in/reader035/viewer/2022062511/55182a8b55034684678b4c4e/html5/thumbnails/35.jpg)
Germs
• The Spanish carried lethal diseases with them that the Indians had never seen before to which they had no immunity.
• Disease actually got to the Incas a generation before Pizarro ever made it there. This created a massive disruption and a civil war in Incan society.
![Page 36: Guns, Germs, and Steel. The cover art actually says a lot about the way the Western world looked at, and sometimes still looks at the conquest of the](https://reader035.vdocument.in/reader035/viewer/2022062511/55182a8b55034684678b4c4e/html5/thumbnails/36.jpg)
Time
• Europe, and by extension, Eurasian society had built up its immunity to diseases, it societies, governments over several thousand years in isolation of the societies that they conquered.
![Page 37: Guns, Germs, and Steel. The cover art actually says a lot about the way the Western world looked at, and sometimes still looks at the conquest of the](https://reader035.vdocument.in/reader035/viewer/2022062511/55182a8b55034684678b4c4e/html5/thumbnails/37.jpg)
European domination at 1500 AD
• Thus, genetic diversity + ease of spreading domesticable species of plants & animals along the continental axis allowed Europe especially to develop large societies.
• Biodiversity and proximity (and filth!) created disease and immunities
• Dense populations produced governments, technology, and desire to explore for new worlds.
![Page 38: Guns, Germs, and Steel. The cover art actually says a lot about the way the Western world looked at, and sometimes still looks at the conquest of the](https://reader035.vdocument.in/reader035/viewer/2022062511/55182a8b55034684678b4c4e/html5/thumbnails/38.jpg)
Lastly
• Does this put the thesis of European superiority in a new light?
• The work of Jared Diamond in Guns, Germs and Steel does not address everything, but is an interesting argument from the world of science.
![Page 39: Guns, Germs, and Steel. The cover art actually says a lot about the way the Western world looked at, and sometimes still looks at the conquest of the](https://reader035.vdocument.in/reader035/viewer/2022062511/55182a8b55034684678b4c4e/html5/thumbnails/39.jpg)
21st Century
• How do these variables fit into gaining global power today?
• How they were different during the Age of Exploration?
![Page 40: Guns, Germs, and Steel. The cover art actually says a lot about the way the Western world looked at, and sometimes still looks at the conquest of the](https://reader035.vdocument.in/reader035/viewer/2022062511/55182a8b55034684678b4c4e/html5/thumbnails/40.jpg)
AnimalsAnimals
CropsCrops
GeographyGeography
TechnologyTechnology
GermsGerms