Review: Guns, Germs and Steel

One of the most intriguing subjects in human history is debate over why some people gained ‘power’ and others did not. Jared Diamond’s book Gun, Germs, and Steel seeks to identify the age old questions; why did Europeans colonized African and why didn’t Africans did not colonize Europe? Diamond thoroughly examines why some groups of people became dominate over other groups of people and concludes that race had nothing to with the factors that shaped human history. Diamond hypothesizes and argues that geography alone is the reason for historical inequities in human history with minor flaws and sound arguments. 

Diamond fails to account for some serious theories in his argument for an all inclusive geographical explanation for human inequalities. Diamond never looks at the development of capitalism during his history. Diamond argues that the more literate Spanish had the wealth of knowledge as a guide to human behavior and thought as opposed to the Taino peoples of the Caribbean and natives of Central and South America. Diamond never looks more closely at why Spanish knowledge helped in their colonization. What was so special about the Spanish knowledge? Didn’t the natives have their own history of human affairs abet it be written or oral? The author reasons that the Spanish were not as ‘naïve’ as the natives in their understanding of past human conquests, theories, and wars which helped the Spanish defeat the natives. Diamond does not explain why the natives of new world would not have known about war, greed, corruption, or capitalism. Diamond never explains why Europeans had the urge to colonize; he only answers how the Europeans had the means to colonize.