TOW #4 IRB Post 1 : Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond

Jared Diamond

                        One day while living in New Guinea Jared Diamond was asked a question by a man named Yali, native of island, and it was “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” (15). Jared Diamond is currently a professor of geography at the University of California, but has spent his entire life as an author, physiologist and geologist. In the book Guns, Germs, and Steel the author makes an attempt to answer Yali’s question. Diamond’s book with the purpose to prove that history is the way it is because of differences of peoples’ environments, not because of biological differences. The audience is people who have an interest in geography, because the book is pretty dense with historical content that is not intended for those who cannot bear to read about history. When proving that differences in history are based off of environmental differences, rather than biological differences Diamond uses the rhetorical device of a counter-argument to further emphasize his point. In the beginning of the book when first introducing the topic of the book Diamond introduces a theory that pretty much supports racism Diamond then counteracts this argument by saying “The objection to such racist explanations is not just that they are loathsome, but also that they are wrong. Sound evidence for the existence of human differences in intelligence that parallel human differences in technology is lacking” (19).  The counter-argument allows the reader to see the other side of what Diamond is trying to prove but then he just shuts down the argument. I have not finished reading the book, but so far I believe that the author is doing a very good job at achieving his purpose. I think that there have been some points in the book so far that have been a little dry, but that may just be because the author is at a far more intellectual level of writing than I am used to. I was already on Diamond’s side before picking up the book, but he has provided me up some really solid arguments that answer Yali’s question.