Slavery In Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs And Steel

Jared Diamond’s popular book , Guns, Germs and Steel, argues that Eurasians were blessed with superior environmental conditions. Eurasians were able to utilize this advantage to dominate and colonize other parts of the world. According to Diamond, this environmental theory explains the inequality that has occurred in our world in the past 500 years and is the main reason that our world is the way it is today. Although Diamond’s argument looks to be valid on the surface, when examined, it turns out to be full of fallacies and holes. By only looking at this issue from an environmental perspective, Diamond’s conclusion is inaccurate and incomplete; he has left moral, intellectual and biological factors out and as a result, he has had to modify and twist facts to serve his purpose.

In order to prove his argument, Diamond makes false assumptions about African and Native American societies and ignores moral, ethical or biological factors …show more content…
In the beginning of Chapter 18, Diamond mentions, “ Similarly, he also poses the question, why Europeans were the ones to colonize Sub-Saharan Africa.( footnote 397) “Diamond assumes all societies seek wealth and power.”(cite) He makes the assumption that Native American societies and other societies also found value in conquering and colonizing other societies. He ignores the fact that, “Some societies sought to maximize formidability, while others aimed for internal harmony or spiritual grace as well…”(cite) It is as though, they were all running a race of who could conquer who and now in the twenty-first century, we are analyzing why was it Europe that won the race and not Native Americans or Sub-Saharan Africans. The Europeans found meaning in colonizing for self-advancement but that does not mean other societies also wanted to do the