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The Fates of Human Societies

iamond theorizes that four developments occurred that promoted inequities between societies still in evidence in the modern world. The first of these was that high numbers of livestock led to epidemic diseases whose human strains were retained in dense populations even though immunities developed. These diseases were fatal to large numbers of peoples who lived in different environments. For example, germs not guns killed many Native American populations. The second factor is that continents with a large number of animal species offered more that species that could be practically domesticated, providing these societies with advantages from sheep for clothing or cattle for food and labor. The third factor was that in such societies with these advantages, not everyone needed to engage in farming. As such, the excess labor supply led to the development of writers, clergy, bureaucrats and others that provided benefits in war and peace. Finally, the fourth aspect of advantaged societies stemmed from non-farmers who contributed innovations and technological advances to societies, from guns to medicines, which provided their communities with a basic advantage over others. Without the ability to produce food surpluses which, in turn, led to dense sedentary populations, such features of complex societies were not achievable. As Diamond (426) argues, ôAdvanced technology, centralized political organization, and other features of complex societies could emerge only in dense sedentary populations capable of accumulating food surpluses.ö

Diamond supports his argument that differences in development of different societies are directly related to differences in environment by providing the example of the clash of two separately developed cultures. He explains how Francisco Pizarro and less than 200 conquistadors were able to conquer tens of thousands of Inca soldiers and capture Inca Emperor Atahuallpa and the Inca Empire because of the ...

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The Fates of Human Societies. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 14:27, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1710999.html