The history of humanity is made up of conquests and explorations. Most of the time, the countries of Western Europe possessed enormous amounts of wealth and power, while the populations of Africa and South America lagged behind. So why exactly did humans on different continents develop at such different rates? Although the reasons behind this remain controversial, Diamond, in his book Guns, Germs, and Steel, attempted to answer this question by arguing that differences in individuals' environments, rather than their biological differences, affect their rate of development. . Although this book received many compliments, the famous historian McNeil raised the issue that while emphasizing environmental factors, this book neglected potential cultural aspects in answering this question. His critiques added important points to Diamond's view, which provided a more complete explanation of the issue. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay In the prologue to the book Guns, Germs, and Steel, Diamond clearly stated that this book was structured around the question of Yali, who was a politician from New Guinea and wanted to know why Europeans, and not them, had more advanced technology. This conversation took place as a few island political leaders were trying to gain independence from Australia, which was essentially a microscopic view of what Diamond intended to explore in this book: inequalities of wealth, power and technology. Historically, many theories have attempted to answer this puzzling question, with the most popular explanation being that differences between societies could be attributed to genetics, particularly natural selection and evolutionary descent. Diamond, nonetheless, believed that while innate abilities might be a possible explanation, natural environments actually played a more important role. To prove this point, he gave an example of the natural experiment that occurred between the Moriori and Maori people on two Pacific islands. While the Moriori must have been hunter-gatherers because the climate is not suitable for farming, the Māori practiced agriculture and had surplus food for their suitable geography and environment. According to Diamond, “food production is an indirect prerequisite for the production of weapons, germs and steel.” (Diamond, page 86) Indeed, food production and the domestication of wild animals brought enormous advantages over hunter-gatherer tribes, including food storage, denser populations, technological progress and the political development. Animal products such as meat and milk produced more available consumable calories, allowing for shorter birth intervals, which meant denser populations on the Māori island. Additionally, agriculture and livestock allowed food storage, which became a huge military advantage during wars. These enormous advantages ultimately resulted in a “sedentary, politically centralized, socially stratified, economically complex, and technologically innovative” society. This, after all, explains why literacy, weapons, and microbes evolved in more stable societies rather than hunter-gatherer tribes. In this case it was not surprising that the Maori people had a greater density10001424052748703467304575383131592767868.