IP Blog

Anyone who has ever read Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel knows the most important contributory element that guarantees the rise and spread of domesticables enabling food production is writing.  Writing stems from the ultimate factor of the east/west axis where location plays a key role. ( Diamond 87) The east/west axis of society allows it to incorporate and domesticate a large number of plants and animals that survive und3er the same conditions.  With this incorporation of food, there comes a need for food production, but with this food comes germs and epidemics because of the lack of immunity to these wild species.  “…the diseases evolved from germs of the domesticated animals…” (87)

What does this have to do with writing?

When disease are developed and seen, they can be documented and therefore prevented and/or treated.  Writing allows societies to write down details about these diseases (most commonly the symptoms) and prevent people from dieing off from these new diseases.  Writing also allows for small groups or villages to develop their societies from bands and tribes to chiefdoms, or states. (268-269) “As population densities rose, food production became increasingly favored because it provided the increased food outputs needed to feed all those people.” (111) With this food input and output, it became extremely necessary for food storage.

Stemming from the chart on pg. 87 of Mr. Diamond’s novel, he infers that food storage virtually lead right into the necessity for writing. (87) He infers that calories = creation and therefore creation means writing.  Writing allowed for so many things to happen for a society.  It gave them the chance to document history, store their food and know their inventory, begin on the path to political organization and law, etc. “Continental differences in axis orientation affected the diffusion not only of food production but also of other technologies and inventions.” (190) Although this is true, writing allowed for the differences in axis orientation to be compromised through its many assets.