GDP: $123.3 billion (2011 est.)
GDP per capita: $27,900 (2011 est.)
Life Expectancy: 80.71 years
Poverty Rate: not available
Literacy Rate: 99%
Unemployment Rate: 6.5%
Inflation rate: 4.5%
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Why Did Human History Unfold Differently On Different Continents For The Last 13,000 Years?
a) Diamond explores the reason behind Eurasian global dominance. He attempts to show that "differences among continental environments, and not...biological differences among peoples themselves" is why Eurasians were able to decimate, subjugate, and exterminate Native Americans, Africans, and Aboriginal
Australians. He accepts that Eurasians had numerous advantages such as ships, political organization, writing, disease, guns, steel swords, and horses. The most important question for diamond is how these advantages were developed. Diamond highlights the fact that Eurasia's geography enabled plant and animal species to easily move from one area to another without having to adapt to new climate. In addition, Diamond points out that Eurasia started out with more domesticatable plant and animal species than the other continents. The ability to develop stable, centralized communities in Eurasia also enabled them to develop and maintain new technology better than in other continents.
b) According to Diamond, the most important determinants to a society's success are "the availability of wild plant and animal species suitable for domestication, the ease with which those species could spread without encountering unsuitable climates, agriculture and herding, population densities, food surpluses, and the development of epidemic infectious diseases, writing, technology, and political organization."
c) These ideas can be applied to today's global economy. The dominant countries is today's world share many of these determinants. In particular, thriving nations in the modern world seem to have strong political structure, advanced technology, high literacy rates and a more abundant supply of food than struggling nations.
b) According to Diamond, the most important determinants to a society's success are "the availability of wild plant and animal species suitable for domestication, the ease with which those species could spread without encountering unsuitable climates, agriculture and herding, population densities, food surpluses, and the development of epidemic infectious diseases, writing, technology, and political organization."
c) These ideas can be applied to today's global economy. The dominant countries is today's world share many of these determinants. In particular, thriving nations in the modern world seem to have strong political structure, advanced technology, high literacy rates and a more abundant supply of food than struggling nations.
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