Guns, Germs, and Steel: Vocabulary Flashcards
CHAPTER 3: COLLISION AT CAJAMARCA
Central Event: On Nov 16, 1532, Francisco Pizarro's 168 Spaniards captured Inca Emperor Atahuallpa, commanding \sim 80,000 soldiers, at Cajamarca. Atahuallpa was executed after a ransom (vol. \approx 2992 \text{ ft}^3 or \approx 84.7 \text{ m}^3 gold) was delivered, accelerating the Inca conquest.
Significance: Demonstrated how small European forces, with technological advantages, could defeat massive native empires.
Proximate Causes: European steel weapons, armor, firearms, horses, centralized ambush planning (aided by literacy), and Friar Valverde's action.
Ultimate Causes: Broader factors like Eurasian diseases, geography, and farming laid the groundwork for European military success.
CHAPTER 4: FARMER POWER
Basic Thesis: Food production via domestication led to denser populations, fostering military, political, and technological advantages (Guns, Germs, and Steel).
Benefits: Domesticated animals provided meat, milk, fertilizer, and draft power, increasing caloric yield. Manure boosted soil fertility, and draft animals enabled plowing new lands (\sim 5000 \text{ B.C.}). These supported larger, denser settlements.
Sedentism: Reduced birth spacing (from \sim 4 years for hunter-gatherers to \sim 2 years for farmers) increased population density, enabling specialist roles (kings, craftspeople).
Drivers of Farming: Decline in wild resources, availability of domesticable plants, improved food processing tools, and positive population density feedback (autocatalysis).
CHAPTER 5: HISTORY’S HAVES AND HAVE-NOTS
Core Question: Why did food production arise in certain ecologies and not others, and at varying times?
Centers: Five independent centers: Southwest Asia (Fertile Crescent), China, Mesoamerica, the Andes, Eastern United States. Domestication evidence: morphological changes and radiocarbon dating (e.g., \text{8500 B.C.} for wheat/barley).
Fertile Crescent Advantage: Unique Mediterranean climate, diverse large-seeded wild grasses (wheat, barley, lentils, etc.), abundant domesticable animals (goats, sheep, cows, pigs), and high human density facilitated early, robust agriculture and diffusion of innovations (wheel, writing).
Regions Lacking Indigenous Production: Areas like California, Australia, and sub-Saharan Africa faced ecological constraints (lack of domesticable cereals/large mammals), not cultural resistance.
CHAPTER 6: TO FARM OR NOT TO FARM
Central Puzzle: Why did hunter-gatherers adopt farming at different times and places? The transition was gradual and piecemeal, not a conscious, planned choice.
Misconceptions: Not a simple voluntary choice; the divide between nomadic hunter-gatherers and sedentary farmers was not strict. Egalitarianism didn't always collapse immediately with farming.
Drivers: Reiterate the four factors: decline in wild foods, availability of domesticable species, technological advancements for wild food processing, and population density feedback (autocatalysis).
CHAPTER 7: HOW TO MAKE AN ALMOND
Core Question: How were wild, often difficult or poisonous, plants domesticated into crops?
Process: Domestication involves genetic changes (larger seeds, reduced dispersal, less bitterness). Initially, it was often unconscious, with early farmers inadvertently selecting and replanting desirable variants.
Almond Example: Wild almonds contain bitter, cyanide-producing amygdalin. Non-bitter variants arose from a single gene mutation. Early farmers noticed and cultivated these, leading to domesticated almonds (archaeological sites by \%text{8000 B.C.}, domesticated by \%text{3000 B.C.}, found in Tutankhamen's tomb).
CHAPTER 8: APPLES OR INDIANS
Central Question: Why did agriculture develop independently in some fertile areas but not others, or why did some adopt foreign crops?
Comparative Analysis:
Fertile Crescent: Earliest, most robust, globally influential due to a unique convergence of ecology, geography (Mediterranean climate, diverse wild plants, large mammals), and high-protein crops.
New Guinea: Indigenous crops (sugarcane, taro) but lacked cereals and large domestic mammals, limiting population growth until sweet potato introduction.
Eastern United States: Relied on native crops (sunflower) augmented by Mexican crops (corn, beans, squash), but this package didn't support large-scale state formation as in the Fertile Crescent.
Conclusion: Geography and biogeography primarily shaped agricultural development and diffusion, demonstrating environmental potential varied greatly across regions.
CHAPTER 9: ZEBRAS, UNHAPPY MARRIAGES
Central Idea (Anna Karenina Principle): Successful domestication of large mammals requires meeting many criteria; a single unfavorable trait (e.g., diet, growth rate, mating habits, aggression, panic) can prevent it. Of \sim 148 large terrestrial herbivores, only 14 were domesticated.
Major Five: Cow, sheep, goat, pig, horse.
Eurasian Advantage: Eurasia had the most domestication candidates and fewer large mammal extinctions than the Americas or Australia. Social structures (stable herds, dominance hierarchies) of Eurasian species were compatible with human management.
Example: Zebras could not be domesticated due to aggression and panic, unlike horses. This 'domestication bottleneck' explains Eurasia's advantage in developing technology (Guns, Germs, Steel).
CHAPTER 10: SPACIOUS SKIES AND TILTED AXES
Core Question: How do continental orientation (east-west vs. north-south) and latitude influence history?
Continental Axes and Diffusion: Eurasia's east-west axis enabled rapid diffusion of crops and technologies along similar latitudes (e.g., \sim 0.7 \text{ miles/year}), accelerating agricultural spread. The Americas and Africa, with north-south axes, faced significant diffusion barriers (climate, disease, day-length differences), slowing spread (e.g., corn and beans in Americas at \sim 0.3 \text{ miles/year}).
Implications: Geography shapes technology diffusion more broadly, making it as crucial as invention in global power dynamics.
CHAPTER 11: LETHAL GIFT OF LIVESTOCK
Central Thesis: Diseases from domesticated animals (germs) significantly shaped historical encounters, often more than weapons. Exposure to Eurasian germs (smallpox, measles) decimated Native American populations post-1492, undermining resistance.
Germ Evolution Stages: From direct animal-to-human transmission (Stage 1) to sustained human-to-human epidemics (Stage 4), facilitated by close contact with livestock.
Population Density: Crowd diseases require large, dense populations to persist; the rise of cities and trade further spread microbes.
Impact: Disease ecology and epidemiology were inseparable from colonial outcomes; pathogens adapted to human hosts, altering demographic and political history.
CHAPTER 12: BLUEPRINTS AND BORROWED LETTERS
Core Question: How did writing originate and diffuse, and why did some societies develop it while others didn't?
Independent Origins: Sumerian cuneiform (\sim 3000 \text{ B.C.}) and Maya script (\sim 600 \text{ B.C.}) are indisputably independent. Egyptian and Chinese writing are likely independent.
Sumerian Cuneiform: Evolved from accounting tokens to a mixed system of logograms and phonetic signs, enabling more expressive communication.
Diffusion Mechanisms:
Blueprint Copying: Direct adaptation of an existing system (e.g., Cyrillic from Greek).
Idea Diffusion: Adopting the concept of writing and inventing a new system (e.g., Sequoyah's Cherokee syllabary, Korean Hangul).
Constraints & Uses: Early writing was narrow (bureaucratic, elite audience) but later expanded, linked to centralized states for administration and coordination.
CHAPTER 13: NECESSITY'S MOTHER
Core Question: Is innovation driven by necessity, or do inventions often precede and generate new needs?
Phaistos Disk Example: This printed-like system (\sim 1700 \text{ B.C.}) predates modern printing by millennia but didn't diffuse widely, suggesting that early technology without broader societal demand or infrastructure may remain isolated.
Invention of Necessity: Many innovations arise from curiosity or tinkering, with needs evolving after technologies become available. The Manhattan Project is a modern exception driven by acute necessity.
Autocatalytic Technology: Technology often spurs further innovations and uses (e.g., printing combined paper, movable type, ink, presses).
Implications: Challenges simplistic "necessity equals invention" narratives, emphasizing technology's cumulative, non-linear, and context-dependent nature.
CHAPTER 14: FROM EGALITARIANISM TO KLEPTOCRACY
Social Organization Spectrum: Bands (small, egalitarian), Tribes (hundreds, fixed settlements, "big-man"), Chiefdoms (thousands, hereditary chief, redistribution, public works), and States (millions, bureaucracy, laws, taxes, professional military, multiethnic).
Amalgamation: Societies grew via merger (external threat) or conquest (by powerful neighbors), driven by population pressure and competition.
Centralized Power: Chiefs used ideology/ritual; states used budgets, taxes, and formal law. Religious institutions often consolidated power.
Kleptocracy: Chiefs/states extract wealth (tribute/taxes). They gain consent by:
Disarming populace.
Redistributing wealth (public works).
Maintaining order (state violence).
Justifying power through ideology/religion.
Implications: Explores the evolution from egalitarianism to stratified societies, where centralized authority provides public goods but also extracts wealth, raising questions about legitimacy and social justice.