Guns, Germs and Steel Essay Example for Free

Guns, Germs and Steel Essay The book Guns, Germs and Steel is an interesting impression of Jared Diamond to challenge and refresh our outlook towards the effect of politics to cultural and individual development as based from historical and theoretical concept. JD is a physiologist and evolutionary biologist and has made this work on a broader scope during his explorations in New Guinea to study the culture as well as the environment of the people. It started out in a prologue while Jared travels with his friend Yali, a New Guinean and questions the diminutive cargo of the locals against the bulk of cargos of the Eurasians. JD tried to explain to Yali by answering him with historical and theoretical views according to his research. JD said that while the natives own the land and the resources, the foreigners are capable of dominance because they are superior in technology as can be seen with their tools and machinery. But JD explained to Yali that what he sees is not proof of the superiority of the Eurasians over the natives but rather the opposite. JD said that Yali’s people are actually smarter and adaptable to any environment because they live in a world that has requires critical survival. Chapter 1 of the book discusses the origin of man and their discovery of tools and art as depicted from their paintings. JD theorizes that man made a great leap and used his intelligence 50,000 years ago as found on skeletons found in Australia and New Guinea. Accordingly, the Americans were probably colonized during 11,000 BC which correspond to the final stage of the Pleistocene Era and the melting of the ice in the last Ice Age. Chapter 2 details the war between the Maoris against the Morioris in Polynesia as early as 1835 in the Chatham islands and. Polynesia during that period has different set of climates, geography, resources and political and social conditions which lead to less diversification of human populations to be able to adapt in their environment. Chapter 3 details the conquest of European Francisco Pizarro and his men to capture Atahuallpa, the Inca emperor at Cajamarca, Peru in 1532. The superior weapons and their armor which were made of steel and the horses and cavalry pushes the natives out of their place while the Europeans brought along with them diseases such as smallpox and eventually infected and killed another native emperor of different tribe. JD pointed out that people of dominant culture has the foremost advantage over those who are less in technology and political organization as the Incas does not have. On Chapter 4 of the book, JD significantly emphasizes the importance of agriculture to propel the development of a fragile society because with the increase of food production there is a room for population to grow larger and stronger. Enough supply of food can sustain people to be more vigorous and organize themselves without resorting to violence to survive. An organized society can form political government to protect its people against conquest such as JD pointed out. In chapter 5, the author describes the technology of calibrating sites for food production by naming sites and crops suitable to grow in their environment while in chapter 6, 7 and 8 discusses his confidence the possibility of converting native hunters into agriculturist because of degeneration of wild games and animals in their environment. He said that there are already great varieties of plants and animals that can be domesticated and cultured and there is no need to hunt for food for a family to survive. JD gave an example in chapter 9 and 10 the success of the Indians in domesticating animals and prevents the extinction of wild animals in their forest. He said that breeding animals is one of the most accepted principles in domesticating animals that even wild species of animals can be bred in captivity. But this depends on the adaptability of animals with the climatic conditions on certain locality. Lack of animal adaptation means limited domestication and cultivation of animals and plants. The New World on the other hand is located on a tropical zone therefore people have more favorable climatic conditions as compared with the Eurasian countries. However, major infectious diseases or what JD calls â€Å"killers of humanity† mainly comes from animals men domesticates. He said that small pox originates from cowpox, flu from pigs and ducks and tuberculosis from cattle. These are only few of the negative impact on the cultivation of livestock by man that even people in the cities are not safe from certain diseases as they kept animals as pets. Industrialization gave man endemic diseases because he attracts germ carrying pests and we now have yellow fever, hookworm, bubonic plague and many other diseases transmitted by pests. Man also is a carrier of pest and diseases to his fellow human such as the body lice, sexually transmitted disease and other human infections. The following chapters introduced the origins of writings in early period of Mesoamerica and most part of Asia. JD significantly highlights necessity as the mother of invention and the invention of writings lead to the invention of the technology and then to arms for weapons and destruction. He said that the introduction of technology was also the beginning of civilizations to colonize other civilizations, destroying their population and their culture. The author also reviews the societal form of organization on a certain level which starts from the smaller faction or the band. The â€Å"band† is composed of people that are usually related by blood, nomadic in nature and have one ethnicity and language and no more than 5 to 80 people bonded together to be form a small society. The â€Å"tribe†, however has more people with fixed community, one ethnicity and language but being led by a leader in a societal form of government such as tribe in New Guinea and Australia . The â€Å"group† leads to chiefdoms and then to a larger extent which forms the state. The â€Å"state† have more than 50,000 people living in various villages, class and residence-based relationships. They also have more than one language, have centralized bureaucratic government levels and politicians to man the government, the law and the state. States have also their police and militaries to protect its citizenry against injustice. This was discussed on chapter 14. Chapter 15 to 16 depicts the Australian and New Guinean’ climate where Yali belongs. These two countries were formerly united as one large mass of land but separated because of the effect of large body of water 10,000 years ago. The following chapters discuss how China became the China of today which brought by forced unification of the Qin dynasty in 221 BC. Continuous fighting and dominance of Asian ethnicities in old China produces mixed races of different Asian origins but came up to have one traditional language which is the Sino-Tibetan family of languages. Among these languages is the Mandarin. Chapter 17 is explained by JD on how the islands of the Pacific were able to be colonized by the Asians who arrived in New Guinea around 40,000 BC. This Asian group composes the ancestors of Philippine Negritos and formerly called the Austronesian. Their migrations began from China, reached Taiwan and then the Philippines at around 3000 BC. Those who came to Sumatra and Java became the Malayo-Polynesian while those who arrived in Northern New Guinea and Samoa became the Samoans. JD reviews on chapter 18 the factors which led to the European conquering Americas. The Europeans are better in food production, domestication of animals, producing metals and weapons, organization of armies, transportation and communication and solid political organization which the people of early America lacks. The people of the New World such as New Guinea, however are more primitive and backward and lacks capabilities to organize themselves. This was the reason why the Europeans or the Eurasians have been able to establish their colony in their nation without conflict and resistance. And finally chapter 19 discusses how the people of Africa came to be blacks. Accordingly, in the previous era, North Africans were whites who resemble Middle Eastern and Europeans and speak Afro-Asiatic languages. The pygmies or small black African people are mostly confined to Central Africa but were outnumbered by indigenous people. The blacks occupy only most of the Saharan Africa but extended their occupancy to the East coast to Cape town. From there they began to cultivate crops and domesticate animals and expand largely in numbers. The epilogue of this book answers Yali’s question on why whites have been so successful with their trades and always have larger cargos compared with the locals on a shipping trade comes to conclusion. The book answers his question by chapters and details. The effect of geographical formation and the environment clearly emphasizes the commencement of dominance by the Eurasian whites. Dominance factors illustrates the capability of the Eurasian to domesticate plant and animals better than the people of the New World, the speed of their technology which also sped up the rates of migration and their concrete population and size of their continents enable them to migrate and search for more opportunities to other continents. Furthermore, JD wants to search further with his study to come up with more variables that could defend his theory. He believes that he can only do this through natural historical experiments that need to be researched. These involve the history of human societies which are always intricate to understand than the lost dinosaurs of the old world (McGoodwin). Work Cited: McGoodwin, Michael. Jared Diamond: Guns, Germs and Steel. (2000). April 10, 2008 http://mcgoodwin. net/pages/gungermsteel. html.

The Lost Identitiy of Othello Essay -- GCSE Coursework Shakespeare Oth

The Lost Identitiy of Othello  Ã‚   Othello's identity in the Venetian society is his role as "the Moor". Few people use his real name when talking about him. When speaking the given quote, Othello is telling the Venetians how he won Desdemona's heart by telling her the story of his life, and he now retells it to the Venetians. This tale-telling is a way of employing the linguistic system to reshape for himself a new identity with more positive connotations than "the Moor" can offer. "The Moor" is an expression the Venetians connect to other expressions in the linguistic system which all have a negative value. Examples are such expressions as "old black ram... The above excerpt is provided as reference only.   The complete essay begins below. When considering the identity of Othello, in Shakespeare's play Othello, it is beneficial to ponder the quote "I am not what I am.". Perhaps Othello finds his identity threatened by Desdemona's reaction to his tales. In order to understand this better, it is useful to note a quote from Pam Morris: Literature and Feminism, (Blackwell, 1993) where she discusses the resolution of the Oedipal crisis. For Freud the outcome of the child's fear of castration is its submission to the reality principle and hence its entry into the social order. For Lacan this must coincide with the child's entry into the language system.....Language is thus the Law of the father; a linguistic system within which our social and gender identity is always already structured. (p. 104) Othello's identity in the Venetian society is his role as "the Moor". Few people use his real name when talking about him. When speaking the given quote, Othello is telling the Venetians how he won Desdemona's heart by tel... ... in himself he found it impossible that anybody else should do so. This insecurity proves his undoing. His positive self-image gone, he is left a choice between "the Moor" or nothingness. The moment Emilia realizes Othello is the murderer she reverts to calling him expressions connected to the negative image of "the Moor": "And you the blacker devil!...thou art a devil." (V, ii, 129, 131) He can't stand being this person, the only one society and the symbolic order can offer him. To construct his own identity has proven impossible. To be without an identity, a non-personn implies death. He chooses to free himself of this unwanted identity by stepping out of the social order and the language system by means of suicide. Works Cited: Shakespeare, William. Othello. The Complete. Moby (tm) Shakespeare. Online. Mass. Institute of Technology. Internet. 16 Nov. 1996

How successfully does Alan Ayckbourn slice into the soul of surburbia in Absurd Person Singular?

I feel Ayckbourn does it extremely well, as he takes three very different couples with very different lives and compares and contrasts them to give the everyday people and situations we come across in our own lives. The characters in this play become more familiar as it develops and people like Marion who has a 2 faced personality becomes recognisable with people in your life. She begins complimenting Jane and Sidney on their kitchen by saying sweet things such as â€Å"what a simply dishy kitchen† but when Jane and Sidney cannot see her she turns to her husband Ronald and claims the house is â€Å"loathsome† and demands her husband to take her home in â€Å"5 minutes† However Jane and Sidney fell everything is going wonderfully, as they have only invited these particular guests, to help them in the future. Sidney says to Ronald â€Å"I hope you've been giving a little bit of thought to our chat if you had a moment† Ronald is a bank manager and Sidney wants him to help him out a bit with loans. Then there is Geoff, who is married to Eva. Not that his marriage should mean anything as he constantly cheats on Eva and doesn't care if she does or doesn't know. Also he speaks openly about his filthy obsession. He describes one of his conquests as an â€Å"absolute little cracker†. His disloyalty unveils his shallow self but also reveals the reason for Eva's pain which has led to depression. As Ayckbourn â€Å"slices† through each character, we can see they are all pretending be something and they all appear to concerned with themselves, except Eva she doesn't act differently to her self or hide her problems, which is clear when she says to Sidney on the subject of her pills † they prevent me from turning into a raving lunatic†. Ayckbourn goes deeper to see her reasons for depression instead of trying to reveal a fake intention, which is what the others posses. * * * * In Act 2 the characters are slowly developing. This time the Christmas party is being held at Geoff and Eva's and it appears they aren't in the best of spirits as Geoff has just told Eva he's leaving her for another woman, this is seen when he says â€Å"Sally and I will probably get somewhere else together† these words are harsh and blunt and have turned Eva mute. When the guests finally arrive, Eva has decided to commit suicide, she begins to gas herself by placing her head in the oven, when Jane walks in and believes she's cleaning the oven and volunteers to do it herself and says â€Å"don't you worry about the oven†¦I must clean that oven if it kills me† Eva, upset that her plan has failed then attempts to overdose herself but accidentally drops the pills down the plug hole. Whilst trying to capture them, Sidney enters and thinks she's trying to unblock it and says â€Å"you'll never get a sink unblocked that way† then gets his tools kit and begins to ‘fix' it. This creates a black humour as Eva's situation is becoming more desperate as people keep interfering even though they believe they are helping but its also quite sad because it shows how little they know about each other as they can't even see Eva is suffering from serious depression. You can also see how involved they are with themselves and are completely oblivious to the fact that Eva is desperate to kill herself. There is a dramatic irony as Ronald sets about a routine repair of fixing a light bulb but Eva's condition is anything but routine. We become more and more sympathetic with Eva as she feels without Geoff she cannot live or his dismissal has led her to suicide but with Geoff we despise as he plays with Eva trying to twist things on to her by saying such things as â€Å"if your blaming yourself don't† which seems he thinks she should be and he also claims â€Å"other men don't have this trouble† when talking about his cheating as if it were some illness and deserves sympathy for it. As Eva continues to ignore him his impatience grows until he speaks of previous violence such as â€Å"I'm going to lose my temper. And we know what happens then don't we. I'll take a swing for you† his patronising and angry tone is almost creepy and furthers are hate for him. Throughout it all, Eva's many suicide attempts, Ronalds electrocution when changing the light bulb and Sidney drying himself from being soaked in dirty water while fixing the pipes. Is slightly over the top but that adds more comedy but the symapathy for Eva is still there as she is still suffering and suspension is created of what will become of the Brewster-wrights marriage as tension is created when Marion says â€Å"You'd never think it but he was a really vital young man, Eva you'd never think it to look at him† maybe claiming she is no longer attracted to him.

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