In "Guns, Germs and Steel" Jared Diamond tries to understand why some countries and civilizations have developed wealth and power and evolved throughout history while others civilization no. It also tries to understand how these particular peoples were able to expand and colonize other territories around the world, and not vice versa. Throughout the story, Diamond tries to answer a question posed by a man, a politician, who he met in New Guinea during his study of the evolution of birds. This boy was called Yali. Yali was interested in learning more about why his country had been colonized and controlled by the Western world. He wanted to understand how Europeans controlled New Guinea. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The question posed by Yali was “Why did you whites develop so much cargo and bring it to New Guinea, but we blacks had little cargo of our own? (p. 6). Cargo in other words is the materialistic goods . Diamond found it difficult to answer Yali's question at that time. Although he realizes the inequality between societies, he even points out that New Guineans are as intelligent as Europeans and Americans. From now on Diamond tries to answer the question. Argues why Europe, North America and East Asia are the richest and most powerful countries in the modern world. Why most Africans and other peoples are weak, conquered and subjugated by Europeans this way? Jared goes back in history to 1500 AD, even then there were differences between continents. Empires used different types of weapons to conquer tribes with older and weaker tools. But then Jared goes back in history to the end of the last ice age, when all sorts of people from all over the world were still hunter-gatherers. However, between 11,000 BC and 1,500 AD human changes and developments occurred on the different continents and this is where inequalities began to appear. Diamond states that most countries in Eurasia, North America and others developed agriculture, pastoralism, metallurgy, etc. While other countries remained hunter-gatherers. This is what allowed Eurasia and other developed countries to stand out, improve their situation and witness technology. But the other question Diamond highlights is “why human development has proceeded at such different rates on different continents?”