Jared Diamond’s Guns Germs and Steel

Topic

Jared Diamond’s Guns Germs and Steel

Instructions

You have two books to pick from for this assignment

  • Gun, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond

OR

  • The Substance of Civilization: Materials and Human History from the Stone Age to the Age of Silicon by Stephen Sass
  • Over the course of the block/semester, you will be asked to read two selections from that book. The selections will be a chapter or 15-20 pages and you will choose what you want to read.
  • You will summarize the selection; the summary should be one-two pages.
    • The summary should be ONLY the ideas in the text – your opinions and ideas should not be in this section.  Your ideas and opinions will be in the response section.
    • The paragraph should demonstrate all of the hallmarks of good writing:  a clear main idea that is supported by specific and concrete details from the text, writing that flows and has connections between ideas (transitions), and writing that is clear of MUGs (mechanics, usage, and grammar) errors.
  • Next, you write a response.  For the response, you should ask yourself what the ideas or facts are that made the biggest impact on you.
    • Were you surprised?
    • Did you learn something that is different from something you already knew?
    • Then, you explore your own reaction – why is the idea or face you’re presenting the one that really resonated with you?
    •  Your response should be one page or less.
    • Your response should include information from the text you read, so you will have citations in the response section, also.
  • This essay will be APA 6th ed. formatted with a cover page, in-text citations, and a references page.
    • On your references page, be sure to include which page numbers you read at the end of the entry.

Answer preview

Guns, Germs and Steel, a book by Jared Diamond seeks to explain why history unfolded differently in different continents. The author seeks to find ultimate explanations that go beyond the human racial differences that many history books tend to focus. Chapter two of the book gives a summation of the focus of this book as “history followed different courses for different people because of differences among people’s environment, not because of biological differences among people themselves” (Diamond, 2017, p. 12). According to the author, it is the environmental factors like plants and animal domestication that gave one society an advantage over another.

Word count: 974