“Guns, Germs and Steel”

The history of the world is filled with events that often get lost over time. Why things happen and who was involved are frequently exposed by interested authors/historians. To understand what one author has published in his findings, CLL will have Jim Roddy make a presentation scheduled for Friday, May 24, 2024 from 9:30 to 11 a.m. in Clubhouse 2 Auditorium entitled “Guns, Germs and Steel”. Residents interested in attending the program should register to attend with the Lifestyle Department or by calling 301-598-1320. Registration begins on the Tuesday following the Friday publication in the Leisure World newspaper. For more details about the class, contact the Center’s website at https://www.cllmd.com.

Jared Diamond is the author upon whom Jim bases this course, who had written a book of the same name. In his book, Diamond attempts to explain how Europeans became dominant in agriculture and animal domestication, and how the east west axis of the Eurasian continent geography played a role. According to Diamond, four factors are responsible for all historical developments: 1) availability of potential crops and domestic animals, 2) the orientation of continental axis to facilitate the spread of agriculture, 3) transfer of knowledge between continents, and 4) population size. Why were the Spanish able to conquer the New World occupants despite being heavily outnumbered and why didn’t the Native Americans beat up on the Spanish? Guns: the Spanish had muzzle loading muskets and cannon; Germs: the Europeans had millennia of exposure to horses, cows, chickens, pigs and sheep and a resistance to their viruses; Steel: swords and steel armor were far superior to the weapons and quilted armor of the Native Americans. You don’t need to have read this book to attend this course.

Jim is an electro-optical engineer who spent his career designing, building and testing equipment that use lasers as a source and wrote signals, text or images onto film, paper, or electro photographic media. He holds over three dozen US patents. He has a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics from Villanova University and has done work on a masters degree in Electrical Engineering at Drexel University and Rochester Institute of Technology. He’s a lifetime member of the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers). Jim brings to Leisure World his membership and course leader for 12 years at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute associated with Rochester Institute of Technology. His course topics there included science, engineering, history, medicine and music. Jim is an active member of  the Center for Lifelong Board.