Monday, August 12, 2013

In Guns, Germs, and Steel, why should Diamond be characterized as an environmental historian?

Diamond should be characterized as an environmental
historian because of the fact that his major thesis has to do with the environment. 
Diamond centers his whole book around the idea that the environment in which societies
arise plays a huge role in determining whether those societies become powerful or
not.


Diamond's major point in this book is that geography
has a huge impact on history.  He proposes that the number of domesticable plant and
animal species, along with the direction of a continent's longest axis, is the ultimate
cause of whether a society becomes powerful.  These factors are purely environmental and
Diamond is using them to explain some of the most important outcomes of human
history.


Because Diamond puts such a huge emphasis on
environmental factors, he can be characterized as an environmental
historian.

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