¶ … 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...
What are the symbols of group identity in the United States? Are they good or bad in your opinion? Symbols of group identity often pertain to foodstuffs (such as the critical evolution of wheat, corn, and the animals consumed) and cultural symbols such as literacy. What one eats, where one lives, and how one expresses one's self-reflects one's cultural associations -- whether a society was a hunter-gatherer or agrarian in ancient
Guns, Germs, and Steel is the documentary film version of Jared Diamond's Pulitzer Prize winning book of the same name. Like the book, the documentary is divided into three separate sections. This allows for the logical development of Diamond's ideas, and for the application of the underlying thesis to different time periods, themes, and human populations. Although extensive ground is covered in the three episodes, the premise and themes
As the world is more thoroughly explored, social scientists seem to find that the words social and science are largely contradictory and an oxymoron. Even rational choice theory bases its conclusions upon statistics and upon a costs and benefits analysis to come up with their conclusions in a more logical manner. Simply put, rationality can not be directly tested. Rather, social scientists that base their ideas upon rational choice
Till the period up to 11,000 BC every individuals remained Stone Age hunters/gatherers. Nearly that time, the roads of growth of human societies on various continents started to move away in a large scale. (Guns, Germs, and Steel- the Fates of Human Societies: (www.2think.org) During that period, when Stone Age hunter-gatherers comprised the total human population, a big segregation happened in the proportion that the human societies progressed. In
9. Wild almonds contain cyanide: a person can die from eating only a few dozen of them (Diamond, p. 114). They taste bitter due to the presence of amygdalin, the precursor to cyanide. The chemical serves as a defense mechanism for the almond, deterring animals (and people) from eating them and better ensuring the propagation of the almond plant because the nut is its seed. As Diamond points out, if
History Naval Warfare What was naval power in the age of sail and how did different sea going states exercise it from the period 1650-1850? "There is a deep landlubber bias in historical and social research," writes Charles King. "History and social life, we seem to think, happen on the ground. What happens on the water…is just the scene-setter for the real action when the actors get where they are going. But
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