So I've read "Guns, Germs and Steel"?

Question

I've read the book, but I don't get what his point was. What in the world was he getting at?

Answer 1

I haven't read the book, but I did view parts of the documentary. From what little I was exposed to I get the impression that the author was trying to dispel the notion that European military supremacy over the people of the world had something to do with their intellectual greatness or ingenuity, and had more to do with the fact that European people happened to benefit from better availability of raw materials, and a more resilient immune system.

In other words Europe and the Western world's success were more the result of fortunate circumstance, than the gumption, ambition, and astuteness of the European people.

Answer 2

I am 14 and have done a lot of excerpt reading in class. The books main focus is to show that America was seized in all the wrong ways. Guns were used against unarmed people including the Aztecs and Native Americans. Without the dirtiness and diseases of the British, we might never have won America over, without the germs that is. Finally, steel. Without modernization and brute, the Native Americans land couldn't have been modernized and destroyed. Yes, the title says it all and you may be thinking "this is just a stupid 14 year old" but i am in advanced classes and was taught by a teacher of the year. You can google him if you like Michael Holt is his name. Hope this helps!

Jordan CA

Answer 3

From Wikipedia:

"it attempts to explain why Eurasian civilization, as a whole, has survived and conquered others, while refuting the belief that Eurasian hegemony is due to any form of Eurasian intellectual or moral superiority. Diamond argues that the gaps in power and technology between human societies do not reflect cultural or racial differences, but rather originate in environmental differences powerfully amplified by various positive feedback loops. He also, most explicitly in the epilogue, argues that societies with food surpluses and high-to-moderate degrees of interaction with outsiders are more likely to encourage great people to realize their full potential and to adopt new inventions."

Answer 4

It seems on the question of why Europeans got here to the recent international with technologies extremely of the Aztecs coming to Europe. And why did the Europeans have risky ailments that killed human beings they met, extremely than any incorrect way around the elementary answer given is: The land of Europe runs style of east-west, on a similar time as the Americas run north-south. As wintry climate set in, human beings interior the recent international ought to pass to the place it replaced into warmer, while Europeans have been plenty greater probable to hunker down and spend the chilly wintry climate inventing issues. As to germs, many Europeans lives in severe-density settlements (cities), and so greater risky germs ought to stay to tell the story as a results of fact they could unfold quicker than they killed. interior the Americas, human beings have been greater unfolded, so very risky germs could kill quicker than they could unfold.

Answer 5

He's not really forcing a point, just talking about the evolution of society. If he is making a point... it's probably that he's portraying evolution in a series of different ways like societies, diseases, and engineering plants. So I guess it's point is that evolution exsists in all sorts of things.

Answer 6

there isn't some kind of secret like in the DaVinci Code. It's just a bunch of interesting ideas/stories about history.

Answer 7

if you didn't get it, re-read it. Or get the documentary made off the book