¶ … Cultural Change:
Guns, Germs and Steel vs. Culture Sketches: Case Studies in Anthropology
As indicated by the title of Jared Diamond's book and the films based on his text Guns, Germs and Steel, Diamond takes a relatively fatalistic view of how the environment impacts human culture. From Diamond's perspective, history is shaped through the influences of biological phenomena and changes in technology. For example, the fact that the native inhabitants of Central America had no immunological resistance to the diseases like smallpox carried by the conquistadors, the history of the world was changed. Europeans had some immunological resistance because they lived in close proximity to their livestock while the Incas did not. They also had superior technology: "political competition within Europe fueled a medieval arms race. Pizarro's conquistadors were armed with the latest and greatest in weapons technology -- guns, and swords. The Inca, by comparison, had never worked iron or discovered the uses of gunpowder" (Diamond).
In contrast, Holly Peters-Golden's textbook Culture Sketches: Case Studies in Anthropology emphasizes the adaptability of culture to deal with change. In Diamond's example, cultural adaptability was impossible and the Incas were decimated when the conquistador's...
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