Blake Everett
AP World History
8/26/2013
Pd 4
Guns, Germs, and Steel Book Review
Professor Diamond's intent for writing the book Guns, Germs and Steel is to explain how different civilizations became dominate and how other civilizations became dominated. I believe the author's agenda is to educate the reader about how these civilizations evolved by using technology which was created by trial and error. In addition to technology, the reader also learns about the way in which disease/germs were spread from the old world to the new world. The author informs the reader about the ways in which guns have an advantage over earlier weapons.
Over the course of the book, Professor Diamond uses a variety of evidence in his writing. He uses scientific evidence, linguistic evidence, and historical evidence, among others. For example, in the early parts of the book, Diamond uses scientific evidence to support the evolution of human beings.
Dodo, based on Roelant Savery's 1626 painting of a...
World map depicting America
World map showing location of Oceania, (green, rig...He uses the size of the seeds of prehistoric grasses to show how hunters and gathers evolved into farmers. He uses historical evidence recorded by professors and scientists in earlier times to support the ways in which diseases have evolved over time. He uses linguistic evidence to make claims about how the Bantu came to dominate Africa and about how Austronesians spread through the Pacific. He uses historical and geographical evidence to talk about the ways in which different kinds of Polynesian societies evolved. He tells you what sources he used in the back of the book. He used a lot of maps but mostly pictures. He also used a lot of tables. The tables, maps, and pictures did help clarify the text. An example of a table used can be found on page 268 and 269 and displays types of societies. Some of the data in the...