Questions from the Jared Diamond reading

a. Identify Diamond's major themes and key points.
The leading theme of Diamond's argument is that racial differences did not cause the vast technological gaps between parts of the world present at the start of the colonial age. He also believes the reason racist arguments are used so often is because historians tend to avoid discussing this aspect of that era to give a viable alternative, unlike him. He then goes into the specifics of what caused the differences, showing how to understand we need to go back nearly 13,000 years into the past to find what kick-started the differences in development. He finds specific geographical and environmental differences between the continents that not only allowed Eurasia to develop more quickly, but also made them develop in such a way that it accelerated faster than other continents as well. He then discusses the concept of science, showing how anything humans do to gain knowledge, including history, truly is a science. Science is about knowledge, not the specific way you obtain it.
b. What does he identify as the most important determinants to a society's success?
As far back in history as he goes, approximately 13,000 years, he points to certain geographical and environmental traits that determine a society's success. First, the availability of animals capable of domestication. These animals, such as horses, gave them huge advantages in battle, living closely with them gave them more powerful diseases that they were immune to, and their ability to produce excess food gave them more time to develop metallurgy, technologies, such as guns and steel swords, and writing. The second main contributing factor is that Eurasia's long axis goes east/west rather than north/south such as the Americas' axis or Africa's. This created a more consistent climate, allowing the spread of domesticated plants and lead to the development of larger communities and more complex political systems, one of the main reasons why it was the Europeans venturing to the Americas and not the other way around. The final lesson comes from Australia. Societies with large populations and close ties with nearby societies will be more likely to keep positive technologies and improve on ineffective ones. Because Australia was so isolated and large parts of it were not capable of sustaining life effectively, it feel behind economically and agriculturally.
c. How can these ideas be applied to today's global economy?
The key ideas he showed were that some societies were more isolated and had fewer domesticated animals and plants, and therefore those societies developed technology, arts, and political systems more slowly. This is obviously a powerful explanation for the current distribution of wealth between nations. But, with newly developed technologies we can come up with ways to minimize these problems. With increased globalization and international trade, societies are less isolated than ever. With further increased free trade we could continue this trend and hopefully develop technologies even more quickly. Also global transportation provides a way to move domesticated animals to all parts of the world, reducing this problem for the areas previously lacking in animals capable of domestication. The main problem with the spread of domesticated plants was too much variability in climate. Now, with the capability of creating Genetically Modified Organisms capable of surviving in several different climates and the ability to move them throughout the world with global transportation, we can work to solve this problem as well.