1. Write a brief review of Guns, Germs, and Steel. Your review should include a discussion of what the author tries to do, how he tries to do it, and how well he succeeds in the attempt. You should also contrast and compare Diamond’s basic viewpoint with that presented in a typical history course. In what ways does Guns, Germs, and Steel reflect Diamond’s fundamental academic training (as an evolutionary ecologist of birds)?
2. First of all, pick your persona. For purposes of this question you can be any of the following, but whichever you choose, you have been trained as an agriculturist-generalist, and your job is to help local people develop sound agricultural and nutritional plans at both the family level and the village level. Anyhow, you can be:
a. A Peace Corps worker,
b. A worker for UMCOR or Catholic or Jewish World Services,
c. An Extension Agent from the Ag. School at the Univ. of Villahermosa,
- A development consultant for the Cuban government,
- An ag-development expert from Clemson University.
Whatever your persona, you have been assigned to a small village on the east coast of southern Mexico (c. 17o N; elevation is about 10m), and you are beginning your second year with these people. Previously you have been almost too busy to think, but now you must send an essay back to your sponsoring agency, telling them about your work. The people you work with are Spanish-speaking, mostly literate farmers who are trying (1) to raise enough to eat (they almost always succeed, though with little surplus), (2) to stay healthy and to keep their children healthy, and (3) to make enough money to get by in the modern world. (Note that these people live within half a day’s bus ride of Villahermosa, which is a big, thoroughly modern city.) Your essay is to be published in a slick-paper newsletter (sort of like Wofford Today) intended for public consumption. You should touch on at least the following:
a. What are weather and climate like?
b. What sorts of crops/animals do these Mexicans raise?
c. If their agricultural practices are typical for the area, what improvements do you suggest?
d. How do they make money, what do they need it for, & how do they spend any surplus?
e. How are these people’s lives impacted by issues discussed in a class-report (other than yours)?
f. What is a typical house like in “your” village?
g. What is a typical family like?
h. What do these people eat—and why?
i. What do you tell these people when they suggest clearing more forestland?
j. What are the biggest worries these people have?
k. What are the truly good things in these people's lives?
l. What is the biggest health problem these people face?
m. What sorts of health problems do you face?
n. What are these people learning from you?
o. What sorts of things are you learning from these people?
Note: Please don’t answer this question piece by piece; rather, write a newsletter-like essay integrating your answers to my tacky little questions. Pay particular attention to c. & d & e. above; you need to demonstrate how, for good or ill, these folks, whose grandparents were subsistence farmers w/traditional crops, are now entirely tied in with the modern world economy. (Note: If you choose persona c or d, you must write at least one answer-paragraph in Spanish.)
3. (Note: As you deal with this question, do not duplicate any substantial portion of your answer to question 2. above.) Write an essay about either cattle (choose either milk or beef) or rice or wheat or corn. Your essay should touch on the organism’s domestication, its current culture/husbandry (including something about geographic variation in how farmers/ranchers maintain it), and its current importance (nutrition-wise, economics-wise, and otherwise; you might even say something about the organism’s various types of symbolic importance). Be sure to address ecological issues: How have people changed the organism? How has culture/husbandry of the organism affected human lifeways? What are major current environmental problems with the current culture/husbandry of the organism? How could any adverse environmental impacts be ameliorated?