Western Civilization

Alex Fuller  12/5/19 1)According to Jared Diamond, what allowed Europeans to develop the power necessary to conquer (take over) large portions of the world?    Geography-having the most productive crops and animals allowed Europeans to develop guns, germs, and steel, and ultimately, to conquer the world. 2)Why were the Europeans who settled the South African cape(tip) so successful? Describe two reasons.  the temperature in South African Cape and Europe have a similar latitude which made it easy for the Europeans to farm the same crops and livestock.  3)How did disease allow the Europeans to conquer the native populations in the Americasand in the Africancape?  Europeans brought new germs to Africa which spread and got everyone else sick except them because they were already immune to the disease they brought over, especially smallpox.  4)The Europeans who settled the tropical areas of the African continent i...

1. At the time that the Spanish conquistadores invaded the Inca Empire, they were armed with state of the art weaponry. Describe this weaponry. horses that made them appear like god-like half man, half beast warriors, body armor, guns, and steel swords 2. What is Jared Diamond’s explanation for why the Spanish had advanced to steel swords while Inca’s were still making tools and weapons from bronze? Because Europe was geographically close to the Fertile Crescent, they inherited the 7,000 years of metal technology that had been developed there. Because they had a diversified society that allowed for specialization, the Spanish devoted time and effort to producing the longest, strongest, sharpest swords possible. 3. How did the battle tactics used by the Spanish conquistadors help the small army defeat the Inca army that outnumbered it by the thousands? The Spaniards begin by surprising the Incas, firing their guns and coming out of hiding on horseback. As they rode, the conqu...

Alex Fuller 11/25/19 1. According to Jared Diamond, what are the three major elements that separate the world’s  “haves” from the “have nots”? Guns, germs, and steel 2. Jared Diamond refers to the people of New Guinea as “among the world’s most culturally diverse and adaptable people in the world”, yet they have much less than modern Americans.Diamond has developed a theory about what has caused these huge discrepancies among different countries, and he says it boils down to geographic luck. Give several examples from the film to support Diamond’s theory. people living in the Middle East and all of their resources compared to the relatively small amount of resources provided by the jungle areas of New Guinea, and how having more food resources and the ability to store them led people to become more agrarian and less reliant on being hunter-gatherers.  3. For thousands of years, people have been cultivating crops. Describe the process used to domesticate crops and create p...