Jared Diamond Analysis

Three examples that support Jared Diamond’s argument are livestock, diseases, and the trade of Ideas. Most livestock originates from the area around the fertile crescent and was brought to nations near their origin point. Due to geographic circumstances such as similar longitude, climate, vegetation, and amount of daylight Europe had easy accessibility to livestock while other nations such as the Incas never had any chance of making contact with these useful animals. These same geographical circumstances provided an easy way for Europeans to trade ideas with much older civilizations and the Incas were very isolated. With livestock such as the pig and cow, Europeans experienced more harmful diseases due to constant exposure to these bacteria …show more content…
Diamond attributes a few factors to geography that were not entirely tied to geographical circumstances. Such as writing and military experience. While both of these are affected by the location they each originate from human influence and are created by circumstantial situations. Cuneiform was created by a culture who needed it for the keeping of records and was improved by surrounding civilizations for the same purpose. It was not created by the direct influence of the surrounding landscape. As he points out a similar language was developed by the Mayan culture but did not reach the Inca nation because the geography did not allow the trade of ideas. It was not the landscape that prevented the creation of a language in the Inca nation. Writing in Europe was gifted to them due to the proximity, but to contribute European writing entirely to geography is a step too far. I would say “geography drastically affects the trade of ideas” and not “geography provided writing to Europe”. Also, military experience is a similar case where geography affects the nation's experience, but geography is not always the direct