Guns, Germs, and Steel
Based on Jared Diamond’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book of the same name, Guns, Germs and Steel traces humanity’s journey over the last 13,000 years – from the dawn of farming at the end of the last Ice Age to the realities of life in the twenty-first century. Inspired by a question put to him on the island of Papua New Guinea more than thirty years ago, Diamond embarks on a world-wide quest to understand the roots of global inequality.
Why were Europeans the ones to conquer so much of our planet? Why didn’t the Chinese, or the Inca, become masters of the globe instead? Why did cities first evolve in the Middle East? Why did farming never emerge in Australia? And why are the tropics now the capital of global poverty?
As he peeled back the layers of history to uncover fundamental, environmental factors shaping the destiny of humanity, Diamond found both his theories and his own endurance tested.
The three one-hour programs were filmed across four continents on High Definition digital video, and combined ambitious dramatic reconstruction with moving documentary footage and computer animation. They also include contributions from Diamond himself and a wealth of international historians, archeologists and scientists.
Guns, Germs, and Steel is a thrilling ride through the elemental forces which have shaped our world – and which continue to shape our future.
Episodes included: 1. Out of Eden, 2. Conquest, and 3. Tropics.
anyone else cant find part 3
but why are those papuans "poor"? they live in nature, are happy and have all they need to live and are free. I'd say they are richer than most westerners
anyone else get really freaked out by the audio or is it just my computer making it sound weird
Great. I use this in my class called Culture and Cusine.
What was the film about?
Good work from Jarod. However, am bothered by him stating that civilizations emerged from the "fertile crescent" and 13 of the 14 domesticated animals originated in the same place, which he calls "Eden". Science disproves this! the oldest known human remains were discovered in areas around the great African rift valley. the oldest known astronomical objects -the nabta playa megaliths- are found in the same place.
So if we abide by science, domestication of animals and the first human settlements took place in this place.
Why then would a man like profesor Jarod ignore this simple fact, unless there is a hidden agenda with his research? any answers out there, folks?
In my mind there is no question that in broad terms Diamond has nailed it. The march of western civilization has primarily benefited from fortunate geography and related circumstances, What could have been more beneficial then stumbling into two continents in 1492 that in less than 200 years became depopulated to the point that we could expand and exploit a brand new ecosystem with vast natural resources and be allowed to develop virtually unchallenged for the last 200+ years? I think we we would do well to realize that "American exceptional ism" is as much a product of geography as it is ideology.
At 52:30:"If your people enjoyed the same geographic advantages as my people, your people would have been to invent helicopters."
I doubt that
also, actually reading the book and comprehending the overall concept is key!!!
To all...most of your "arguments" support his "east-west" landmass hypothesis...as opposed to the "south-north" land mass...but, the fact remains...and history remains....Eurasia....was the key (including ALL of that huge "west -east" land mass)
how do i watch episode 2?
Great documentary, a lot of the arguments certainly hold a lot of weight. I suppose Guns Germs and Steel is far more marketable than the real key elements he argues for: Grass and Goats.
This book/show is the ultimate antidote against racist explanations for why things are the way they are in the world. Everyone should read/listen to the book and watch the programs.
One major area this documentary dint cover was the Indians and Chinese were a global power around 1000 AD, but they dint end up being imperial because culturally hinduism and Buddhism had a lot of teachings of avoiding greed and 'unlawful' occupation. Infact they were the first to invent gunpowder, use steel and also have large fleet of ships.
some of you have a real chip on your shoulders. this documentary is based on scientific data=theory, which means that is not proven and ultimately based on belief just like anything else. Get a grip!!
Hello. We have a lot of documentary films in spanish. Happy New Year!!!
This documentary is FAR better than the book: easier to get through, clearer, and more interesting. Thanks, whoever made this.
I love this book is a great part ofHistory!!
I thing is History and History is that History!! I do respect that great book.
Any history that tells of Europe being invaded? Asia, Africa, America, Australia all had invaders ..... Wonder why this point wasn't mentioned? Irrelevant?
Out of Eden'? is that really the name of the first segment.
Its quite simple: the Fertile Crescent is the Promised land that the Israelites were lead to by Moses after they were enslaved in Egypt - "The land flowing with milk and honey." The greatest civilizations throughout time were believers. Christianity is responsible for later thriving cultures and flourishing in the New World.
Diamond's major weakness, apart from the unproven assumptions of materialism, is its ignorance of ancient culture and the origins of the West. Diamond's environmental determinism can not explain why the ancient Greek city-states, possessing pretty much the same climate, geography, and species of plants and animals as did the Egyptians and Mesopotamians, nonetheless created what those older, more sophisticated civilizations did not: representative government, citizenship, philosophy, a rational approach to reality, political freedom, the beginnings of science, humanism—in short, most of the cultural components of Western civilization that have made it so dominant and that the rest of the world is desperately attempting to emulate.
To wit: How did the Ptolemies create an even more dynamic civilization than that of the earlier dynastic pharaohs, when they inherited from them a supposedly exhausted and increasingly salinized landscape? Or why did the palatial culture of Mycenae prove to be a dead-end society, and yet the radically different Greek city-state centuries later blossomed in the exact same environment? More immediately, are we to suppose that there are underappreciated micro-climates that separate Tijuana from San Diego, strangely different soils on the two immediate sides of the Korean DMZ, and something about those ever-changing lagoons of Venice that made it irrelevant in late Roman times, a world power in 1500, and once again a backwater by 1850? Did the environment of Britain improve from A.D. 400 to 1700 while Rome’s declined, thus explaining why the former outpost of the Western world became its new center and vice versa?
Quotes from Victor Davis Hanson.
Location, location, location...Could it really be that simple...?In many ways his conclusions made a lot of sense to me...hmmm...
First script were found in Vinca (Serbia), and it is seven to nine thausand years old. So this clame that Sumerian had first script is incorrrect.