Alex Bohr

2-8-14
AP World History
Analytical Reading

In the article "The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race" by Jared
Diamond, the author's thesis is "In particular, recent discoveries suggest that the adoption
of agriculture, supposedly our most decisive step toward a better life, was in many ways a
catastrophe from which we have never recovered" (Jared Diamond). In other words, our
adoption of agriculture to bring us a better life was a huge mistake and to this day we
have not recovered from that mistake.
In the article "The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race" by Jared
Diamond, the evidence that the author uses to support the thesis is "With agriculture came
the gross social and sexual inequality, the disease and despotism, that curse our
existence" (Jared Diamond). In other words, the appearance of agriculture in our world
has brought many horrors upon us. Disease started to wipe out city after city, and
segregation started to become the standard way of treating people.
In the article "The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race" by Jared
Diamond, the author's conclusion is "In contrast, we're still struggling with the mess into
which agriculture has tumbled us and it's unclear whether we can solve it. If the history
of the human race began at midnight, then we would now be almost at the end our first
day. We lived as hunter-gatherers for nearly the whole of that day, from midnight through
dawn, noon, and sunset. Finally, at 11:54 pm, we adopted agriculture. As our second
midnight approaches, will the plight of famine-stricken peasants gradually spread to
engulf us all? Or will we somehow achieve those seductive blessings that we imagine
behind agriculture's glittering facade ,and that have so far eluded us" (Jared Diamond).
The article "The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race," the author,
Jared Diamond, discusses how the adoption of agriculture has brought upon us our own
catastrophe. I have to agree with Jared. When we adopted agriculture, we brought upon
us our own doomsday. Disease spread across the globe and nearly wiped us out us
existence. People began to encourage inequality between the sexes. Starvation and
nutrition were a high worry for farmers. All agriculture brought us is our own doomsday.
When we adopted agriculture, we began to "clump together in crowded societies"
(Diamond). Now that farmers could produce more and more food, bigger societies and
cities could pop up across the globe. When people began to join together in cities,
disease started to step in. When one city was in need of one specific supply, they would
trade with another city for that supply. When that city traded, if they had a disease,
would now pass it along to the other city, infecting them. "Tuberculosis and diarrheal
disease had to await the rise of farming, measles and bubonic plague the appearance of
large cities" (Diamond). When we began our new way of gathering food, agriculture, we
brought upon us a dark time from which we could not escape.
Second, when we adopted agriculture, people began to encourage inequality
between the sexes. When we were hunters and gatherers, we shared the responsibilities
of everyday life between the men and the women. Most of the time, men did the hard
work so that the women did not have to. Though now within agricultural societies,
"Women are sometimes made breasts of burden" (Diamond). Women are now taken
advantage of and given all the hard work so that the men don't have to. This even
happens in today's word. "In New Guinea farming communities, women are often seen
staggering under loads of vegetables while the men walk empty-handed" (Diamond).
Men take agriculture as a way now to get out of doing the hard work. They make the
women do the hard-lifting and assign the easy jobs for them. Agriculture has brought the
encouragement of inequality between the sexes.
Third, when we adopted agriculture a new worry for farmers arose. Starvation
and nutrition began to worry farmers. Farmers could only produced the amount of crops
that they have room for. That could be lots of land to farm on or only one or two acres to
farm on. "Because of dependence on a limited number of crops, farmers ran the risk of
starvation if one crop failed" (Diamond). Farmers now had the worry, and still do today,
of not being able to produce enough food if one of their crops failed. Nutrition was also a
worry of farmers. When hunter-gatherers obtained their food for the day, they had a wide
variety of foods, which meant a wide variety of nutrients. Though when farmers obtained
their food for the day it was only a few crops. They did not have the rights nutrients in
those few crops. "The farmers gained cheap calories at the cost of poor nutrition"
(Diamond). Agriculture brought up upon us the worry of starvation and nutrition.
In the end, I do agree with Jared Diamond's opinion about how agriculture was
"The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race." Disease spread across the globe
and nearly wiped us out of existence. People began to encourage inequality between the
sexes. Starvation and nutrition were a high worry for farmers. All agriculture brought us
was our own doomsday.