It is often said those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Almost every society in the world tries to make sure its citizens have some knowledge of the nation’s past history. This may be why history courses are taught at both high school and college level all over the world. Yet we observe again and again that countries do repeat past mistakes. One possible explanation may be that the future leaders of a country are taught the wrong history which exaggerates positive aspects of past history and hides certain negative aspects because they may hurt national pride. In addition, historians may not always conduct objective analysis due to their national bias. I got this idea after reading Jared Diamond’s book Guns, Germs, and Steel (GGS) . GGS has changed my opinion of what a history book should be and it has helped me not only better understand past world history but also the current trends.
One of the greatest lessons GGS provides is that people from all over the world are equally intelligent and cautions against ethnocentric beliefs. GGS does this by explaining the different economic accomplishments of different societies were not due to differences in intelligence or individual capabilities but largely due to other factors such as different geographical characteristics and trade. Diamond explains European societies benefitted from close proximity to each other which means new ideas would be quickly disseminated to new regions. Similarly, close geographical proximity also offer trade benefits and larger markets for products and services. But isolated societies such as Native Indians in the U.S. or Aborigines in Australia rarely interacted with the outside world, thus, they were at disadvantage regarding exposure to new ideas and technologies.
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"Guns, Germs, and Steel Summary".
GGS has also taught me that the military conquests of western societies have often been exaggerated because in many cases diseases introduced by western explorers to indigenous societies ended up doing more harm than the actual actions of the explorers. Western explorers had developed immunity to certain diseases which locals didn’t have, thus, resulting in huge number of deaths from novel diseases. This shows that biological factors such as immunity to certain diseases also played a major role in territorial gains of certain nations including the Spanish at the expense of other nations such as indigenous people of South America.
GGS doesn’t only give us better history of the past but also enables us to make sense of the present. We know globalization is helping many developing countries grow economically and it is not difficult to understand why. GGS would tell us emerging economies are benefitting from more liberal trade policies with the rest of the world which is also giving them access to latest technologies. These emerging nations were closed to the outside world to a significant extent such as India and China but now they have different attitudes towards global trade.
Everyone should read GGS at least once. In fact, GGS should be made a mandatory reading in high schools all over the world. It should also serve as the roadmap to write history books that are taught in high schools. We can only ensure our future leaders do not repeat past mistakes if we teach them as accurate historical facts as possible.
- Diamond, J. M. (1999). Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (1st ed.). W. W. Norton & Company. Print.
