Unit 2: Guns, Germs, and Steel

In the Guns, Germs and Steel course of study I learned several new concepts from the great Jared Diamond. In his documentary Guns, Germs, and Steel, it explains his theory that the reason for global inequality isn't that people in different regions of the world aren't as smart but, because they weren't dealt a geographically good hand. This theory says that the people who became successful in later centuries, became successful because of where their civilizations began. For instance, if you were living in a region that was conducive to farming, then it was going to be easier for you to grow food; meaning that you would have more time to do other things like building weapons and improving your housing conditions. This also meant though, that if you did not live in a region that was easy for farming that you were going to spend most of your time trying to stay alive, gathering food and you were not going to have time to work on other things like weapons. Therefore, regions that were conducive to growing crops and had an abundance of animals for food and physical labor, had a better opportunity to grow and advance in other areas.

For my country I chose Ethiopia. After reading about Ethiopia on the website imperialethiopia.org it appears that there were associations with the Portuguese around the mid fifteen hundreds. In 1869, the British sent in troops to subdue a king who was not nationally accepted due to policies that were not completely accepted. This mission was the first serious attempt by the Europeans to subvert Ethiopian sovereignty. After reading an article on Ethiopia on the BBC's website it explained that Ethiopia is the oldest independent country in Africa and that aside "from five year occupation from Mussolini's Italy it has never been colonised." According to the CIA World fact book, the Ethiopian economy relies mainly on agriculture with their main export being coffee. The country does have problems with drought though. This fact that the country economy relies mainly on agriculture and that they are vulnerable to weather conditions, shows that Jared Diamonds theory can be applied. The people of Ethiopia have likely spent all of their time trying to grow crops and stay alive, and have not had as much time to do other things as countries with more fortunate geographical conditions.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/et.html

http://www.imperialethiopia.org/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/country_profiles/1072164.stm

My thoughts on "geographic luck" is that its a rather sad concept. It doesn't seem fair that a country should suffer because of where their inhabitants live. But, there are also times when it seems that even without the best conditions for a country that certain countries could have done a lot better than what they have. I believe that Jared Diamond was on the right track on his quest to find the source of global inequalities, I do think that he may have taken it a little to literal. Even though it is definitely harder for a country to develop without the proper geography and assets, that country can not blame all of its problems on where they live. I think that there are certain steps that countries could take to help them become stronger, even though they lack "geographic luck". I think the big question for most people would be, is it our job to help them become stronger or not?