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

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

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

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

Strengths of Author's Argument On their face, the author's main arguments seem to make sense. The way different societies developed depended largely on the natural resources available to them. Greater resources led to larger and more complex societies that both permitted and promoted subsequent technological development and advancement. By the time Western societies encountered and dominated tropical societies, the means through which they did so were result of earlier (natural) causes

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