Guns Germs and Steel

1
Guns Germs and Steel

• The Fates of Human Societies

2

• "In the 13,000 years since the end of the last
  Ice Age,

3

• some parts of the world developed literate
  industrial societies with metal tools

4

• other parts developed only non-literate farming
  societies

5

• and still others retained societies of
  hunter-gatherers with stone tools

6
Inequality and Extermination

• Those historical inequalities have cast long
  shadows on the modern world, because the literate
  societies with metal tools have conquered or
  exterminated the other societies."

7
Yalis Question

• Yali, a New Guinea politician asked
• "Why is it that you white people developed so
  much cargo and brought it to New Guinea,
• but we black people had little cargo of our own?"
  

8
Distribution of Wealth

• To rephrase,
• "why did wealth and power become distributed as
  they now are, rather than in some other way?

Distribution of Wealth in the World
9
Common explanations

• Racial or genetic superiority?
• No objective evidence for this theory

10
Common explanations

• Cold climate stimulates inventiveness?
• But Europeans inherited from warm climate peoples
• agriculture,
• wheels,
• writing, and
• metallurgy
• Japan inherited
• Agriculture, metallurgy, writing
• Industrial Revolution

11
Chapter 1

• Up to the Starting Point

12
Cro Magnons

• Cro-Magnons moved into Europe 40,000 years ago.
• Tools, needles, fishhooks, harpoons, bows and
  arrows, sewn clothing, houses, carefully buried
  skeletons, art, hunting big prey.
• Displaced or killed off Neandertals

13
Spreading Out

• 40,000-30,000 years ago humans used watercraft to
  cross from Asia to Indonesia to Australia and New
  Guinea.
• This time period correlates to a massive
  extinction of large game in those places.

14
Large Game in Eurasia

• Diamond's theory is that large game survived in
  Eurasia because humans took a million years to
  develop tools and become lethal predators of
  large game, giving game time to adapt.

15
Spreading to the Americas

• By 20,000 years ago, humans learned how to
  survive in Siberia.
• This led to migration to Americas by 12,000 BC.
• It took 1,000 years for humans to cover both N.
  and S. America.
• Time period correlates to a massive extinction of
  large game in Americas Horses, lions, elephants,
  cheetahs, camels, and giant ground sloths.

16
Chapter 2

• A Natural Experiment of History

17
Chatham Islands

• In 1835, a seal hunting ship visiting the Chatham
  islands 500 miles off the coast of New Zealand
  brought the first news to New Zealand of islands
  where
• "there is an abundance of sea and shellfish the
  lakes swarm with eels
• and it is a land of the karaka berry...
• The inhabitants are very numerous, but they do
  not understand how to fight,
• and have no weapons".

18
Chatham Islands
19
Maori of New Zealand

• Nine hundred of the native Maori people of New
  Zealand,
• armed with guns,
• arrived in the Chatham Islands
• announcing that the Chatham Islands people (the
  Moriori)
• were now their slaves,
• and killed those who objected.

20
Moriori Slaughter

• An eyewitness account said
• "The Maori commenced to kill us like sheep...
• We were terrified, fled to the bush,
• concealed ourselves in holes underground, and in
  any place to escape our enemies.
• It was of no avail we were discovered and killed
• -- men, women, and children indiscriminately".

Maori
21
Maori Explanation

• A Maori conqueror explained
• "We took possession...in accordance with our
  customs and we caught all the people.
• Not one escaped.
• Some ran away from us, these we killed, and
  others we killed -- but what of that?
• It was in accordance with our custom".

22
Natural History Experiment

• This is a natural history experiment. Both the
  Maori and Moriori descended from the same
  Polynesian farmers who settled New Zealand.

23
Moriori

• But the Moriori, after moving to the Chatham
  islands hundreds of years earlier could not farm
  due to the cold climate, and became
  hunter/gatherers.
• They learned to live peacefully because their
  resources were so limited.

24
Maori

• The New Zealand Maori
• continued farming
• dense populations
• more complex technology and political
  organization
• ferocious wars
• The difference was geography.
• Competing agricultural societies are prone to
  warfare

25
Chapter 3

• Collision at Cajamarca

26
Conquest of the New World

• "The biggest population shift of modern times has
  been the colonization of the new World by
  Europeans, and the resulting conquest, numerical
  reduction , or complete disappearance of most
  groups of Native Americans".

27
Pizarro

• The Incas were conquered by the Spaniard
  Francisco Pizarro.

28
Pizarros Forces

• Pizarro had 168 soldiers.
• They were in unfamiliar territory, ignorant of
  the local inhabitants, were 1000 miles away from
  reinforcements, and were and surrounded by the
  Incan empire with 80,000 soldiers led by
  Atahuallpa.

29
Guns, Germs and Steel

• Pizarro, however, had steel armor and swords,
  horse mounted cavalry, and guns (a minor factor).

30
Treachery

• The account of the capture of Atahuallpa is one
  of the most difficult passages you may ever read,
  due to the treachery employed by Pizarro, and the
  religious justification used.
• Of course, we also know that Pizarro collected a
  huge ransom for Atahuallpa in gold and silver,
  and then killed him anyway.

Inca Gold
31
Conquistadors

• In addition to horses and steel, the
  conquistadors
• Had superior ocean going ships
• Had superior political organization of the
  European states
• Carried infectious diseases that wiped out 95
  of Native Americans (smallpox, measles,
  influenza, typhus, bubonic plague)
• Had superior knowledge of human behavior from
  thousands of years of written history.

32
Conquistadors

• Pizarro got his treacherous ideas from the
  experience of Cortez.
• The Incas knew nothing of Spaniards.

Cortez and Montezuma
33
Why not the other way?

• Still, why was it that the Europeans had all of
  the advantages instead of the Incas? Why didn't
  the Incas invent guns and steel swords, have
  horses, or bear deadly diseases?

Inca
Inca Warrior