In the year 1999 Jared Diamond published his book Guns, Germs, and Steel in which he offers the thesis of geographic luck contributing largely to the reason why Eurasian societies developed over other parts of the world. Diamond credits the Eurasian political, military, and economic superiority in the world not to their possible advancements in culture, intellect, or race, but rather by simply having geographic determinism on their side. Through analysis, Jared Diamond attempts to give the one reason explanation as to why all of the world's history unfolded the way it did. This explanation is flawed for the reason that it disregards other factors that have influenced human history. Diamond's supposition is that geographic determinism is to
…show more content…
By not further exploring the effects of geographic determinism throughout other parts of the world Diamonds argument becomes Eurocentric. Diamond’s theory of geographic determinism is thus, veiled eurocentrism. He states within his book, “In addition to Eurasia's head start and wild animal and plant species, developments in Eurasia were also accelerated by the easier diffusion of animals, plants, ideas, technology, and people in Eurasia than in the Americas, as a result of several sets of geographic and ecological factors. Eurasia's east-west major axis, unlike the Americas' north-south major axis, permitted diffusion without change in latitude and associated environmental variables. In contrast to Eurasia's consistent east-west breadth, the New World was constricted over the whole length of Central America and especially at Panama.” Diamond attempts to illustrate that a continent with a larger “east-to-west” axis is better in terms of the rise of agriculture. He continues to state that the “New World” had restrictions to this idea and ultimately was less suitable for development in agriculture. Within James Blaut’s study, we see the reality of what Diamond is attempting to illustrate, “Diamond is not talking about axes at all; he is making a rather subtle argument about the climatic advantages that (in his view) midladitude regions have over tropical regions.” Jared Diamond fails to apply arguments of geographic determinism parts of the world outside of Eurasia. Diamond instead assures that due to things such as axes that other parts of the world were simply less geographically lucky then Eurasia and thus progressed less. It is this lack of exploration once again that discredits Diamond’s theory. Jared Diamond applies the idea of geographic determinism to Eurasia specifically and does not attempt to
By not further exploring the effects of geographic determinism throughout other parts of the world Diamonds argument becomes Eurocentric. Diamond’s theory of geographic determinism is thus, veiled eurocentrism. He states within his book, “In addition to Eurasia's head start and wild animal and plant species, developments in Eurasia were also accelerated by the easier diffusion of animals, plants, ideas, technology, and people in Eurasia than in the Americas, as a result of several sets of geographic and ecological factors. Eurasia's east-west major axis, unlike the Americas' north-south major axis, permitted diffusion without change in latitude and associated environmental variables. In contrast to Eurasia's consistent east-west breadth, the New World was constricted over the whole length of Central America and especially at Panama.” Diamond attempts to illustrate that a continent with a larger “east-to-west” axis is better in terms of the rise of agriculture. He continues to state that the “New World” had restrictions to this idea and ultimately was less suitable for development in agriculture. Within James Blaut’s study, we see the reality of what Diamond is attempting to illustrate, “Diamond is not talking about axes at all; he is making a rather subtle argument about the climatic advantages that (in his view) midladitude regions have over tropical regions.” Jared Diamond fails to apply arguments of geographic determinism parts of the world outside of Eurasia. Diamond instead assures that due to things such as axes that other parts of the world were simply less geographically lucky then Eurasia and thus progressed less. It is this lack of exploration once again that discredits Diamond’s theory. Jared Diamond applies the idea of geographic determinism to Eurasia specifically and does not attempt to