Jared Diamond's thesis and organizational approach in Guns, Germs, and Steel

Guns, Germs, and Steel

Jared Diamond, in his book Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, explains how he went from being a biologist, studying birds in New Guinea, to developing an entirely new theory on the evolution of human societies. It began in 1972, when a native New Guinean asked him "Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people had little cargo of our own?" (Diamond, 1997, p.14) "Cargo" was what the New Guineans called all the products and technologies that the modern world exports. After 25 years of studying the development of human societies across the planet, his answer, as well as the premise of his book, can be summed up in one sentence, "History followed different courses for different peoples because of differences among peoples' environments, not because of biological differences among peoples themselves." (Diamond, 1997, p.25)

The first chapter of Guns, Germs, and Steel follows a chronological timeline and begins with the spread of humanity across the planet tens of thousands of years ago. In fact, Diamond takes "a whirlwind tour of human history…for millions of years…until 13,000 years ago." (Diamond, 1997, p.28) This type of organization is important because during most of this time all human societies were equally primitive and no single society, no matter where they ere located geographically, held any advantage over any other. This is the starting point in Diamond's theory that from the time humans began settling into stable, permanent societies, where they first settled would ultimately become the key factor in how that society would develop. The second chapter follows a different type of organization, it goes from the small scale to the large. Diamond provides a small scale example of how environment can influence the development of a society, and how that can have a devastating effect on a less advanced society that comes into contact with the more advanced one. His examples include the variety of human societies that developed on the islands of the Pacific, and how the environment of each contributed to that society's development. This theme continues in chapter 3, but on a larger scale, with the Europeans making contact with the America's, and how the more advanced Europeans were able to ultimately conquer whole empires with just a handful of soldiers.

Because Jared Diamond is a biologist, he brings a unique perspective to the field of history and the study of the development of societies. While most historians look to the past and see humans, and their activity as the main factor in the development of societies, Diamond employs a different method, a biological/evolutionary one. According to the theory of evolution, species develop in response to environmental factors, and Diamond takes this approach with human society. By including the environmental influence on history, otherwise known as "Environmental Determinism," the author has developed an entirely new approach to studying history.