A Head Start

    The main question asked by Jared Diamond in his book Guns, Germs, and Steel is basically this: Why did some groups and not others form civilizations and take over other less civilized groups? Why did Europeans invade basically every continent, and why was it so easy for them to take over other people?  Diamond tries to show that the reason that Europe was able to advance at such a quicker rate was because it had some sort of a “head start” in agriculture, which then led to civilization.  This reasoning does make sense when it is believed that the increase in agriculture leads to a more complex civilization.

    In order to show that a “head start” in agriculture was necessary to create a civilization more rapidly, it is important to know why agriculture brought upon this result.  As Diamond explains, agriculture allows for groups of people to switch from nomadic ways to a more sedentary lifestyle.  This causes people to produce more offspring because they do not have to carry around their children.  As the population grows larger, groups are drawn together and start to form cities and states and eventually large empires or countries.  Also, with increasing technology in agriculture, surpluses of resources are created so that not everyone has to farm.  There are now leaders, governments, artisans, soldiers, and many other effects related to “civilizations.”
 
    As it was just explained, agriculture leads to what we consider a civilization.  Therefore, wouldn’t it make sense that whoever got a “head start” in agriculture would surely create a civilization first? The reasons why one group of people got a head start and another didn’t may not be sure, but the fact that whoever did, and whoever had the greatest advantage in this area became a civilization first makes sense.  This was able to happen for Europe, and they became able to conquer many different continents.  Even when outnumbered, as described by Diamond of Francisco Pizarro conquering the Incas, who outnumbered his troop.  The Incas did not start advancing in agriculture until later, and therefore were not up to speed with the thoughts, knowledge, history, and inventions of the Spaniards.  They were not prepared and were quickly and easily put down by Pizarro. This is just one example of how Europeans used their advantage from a long time ago of a “head start” in agriculture to eventually dominate the whole world.

    Who knows why Eurasia was able to develop agriculture first and most successfully. Part of the reasoning could be change in climate and population, but whatever the reasoning it seems the most obvious explanation to cause a quicker development of civilizations.  This seems simple logic, when explained by Jared Diamond in his book, and for those reasons he described, it only makes sense to me that there was a great importance to who received a “head start” in agriculture, for it predicted the dominating powers for such a long period of our more modern history.

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As Jared Diamond stated in Guns, Germs, and Steel,“…environments can affect economy, technology, political organization, and fighting skills within a short time.” These environmental conditions are the most important when evaluating Diamond’s “head start” argument. While some societies seemingly had a head start on farming, the domestication of animals, or the like, communication and transportation has made this “head start” seemingly insignificant.

Part I: Food

The first human societies were of the hunter/gatherer nature in which groups of related peoples traveled in search of food in both the plant and animal form. It is most logical then for these groups to evolve into agriculturally based systems where resources were available. For example, if an area was found to have very fertile soil and a constant fresh water source, the farming of plants would be expected to procure. On the other hand, if an area near a large sea or river was found to have shallow waters with a great amount of sea life, the evolving culture would then be anticipated to rely more on seafood as the main source of nourishment.
    The Polynesian islands are a perfect example of the aforementioned result of different environmental conditions. The islands range from tropical to artic climates; from altitudes that can sustain snowfall to ones barely above sea level. In the Polynesian islands, early Polynesians inhabited various islands and often had little contact with other Polynesian cultures until many years later. These isolated societies formed around the resources that were available. The islands formed from volcanoes often had rich, deep soil and adequate rainfall that allowed the possibility of agriculture in those areas. In these islands, dogs, pigs, chickens, or a combination of the three were domesticated as well as the organization of many people to increase the agricultural ability through irrigation. The inhabitants of islands with rivers flowing through or small bays found ways to farm fish and other sea life by enclosing these areas to form small ponds to allow the increase of dependency on seafood as a food source.
    Though the Polynesians seemed to have a “head start” on different areas of organized societies such as farming, they did not do this alone. Though many of the islands were kept isolated by water, those that were close enough together often communicated and essentially traded ideas. Even the beginnings of Polynesian agriculture came from somewhere else as the domesticated plants and animals farmed by the Polynesians first came from Eurasia.
    In today’s world, “head starts” that our ancestors may have had did in no case stay isolated to the area where it began. Wheat and barley production, which began in the Middle East, has spread to virtually every part of the globe in which its production can be sustained. Those areas that are not capable of growing these plants merely buy it from the areas that are. Domestic horses that, until recently, were key to American farming were brought from Spain rather than being domesticated in the Americas.

Part II: Tools and Weapons

    Tool production and weapons seemed to give a head start to those areas with different minerals and metals. Africa and Eurasia contained huge amounts of iron, South America had an abundance of precious metals, and even some Polynesian islands were found to have iron, coal, jade, and gold. Along with the development of tools and weapons, these cultures began to commercially export these products and thus increased the trading of “head starts” between cultures. 
    Even weapons have been spread throughout the globe. During World War II, the United States and Germany created the atomic bomb more or less at the same time. While it was considered to be espionage, the Americans and the Germans spied on each other to find the materials, the method, or additional information about the others’ development of the atomic bomb. Neither society could have completed the task in as short of a time without the indirect help of the other for it was the collaboration of many scientists from different backgrounds that the different countries’ ability to acquire materials from outside sources that allowed the progress of weaponry.
    Countries with no obvious technological advantage have been able in recent years to obtain weapons of mass destruction through communication and trade with countries that have. North Korea and the Middle East which are considered to be technologically behind in human advancement by the world hegemon and its allies have only just revealed their development of these weapons and their possible intentions of use.

Part III: Conclusion

    Though the aforementioned advantages that certain societies and cultures had over others, advancements in communication and transportation have made these “head starts” seemingly pointless. While important at the time, for the possession of these advantages is how the societies of the time maintained life and population, the continual and constant trading of ideas and technology has given the opportunity to catch up and often expand on these procurements to cultures that may have been technologically behind others thousands of years ago.