Guns, Germs, and Steel (Interest)
The comparison between China and the other five countries of the six most populous nations was interesting. With so many people in such a large region, there are probably many different cultures and especially languages that are involved in their 'melting pot.' Diamond says that China is the exception with its unified political, linguistic, and cultural environment. Even though this is debatable, Diamond makes several points to support the idea of China being a unified nation.
He mentions that China could probably be advancing more quickly than the other nations by unifying their political, linguistically, and cultural environment. There's plenty of evidence that it used to be a very diverse place, but it was just unified much earlier. Then Diamond goes against this point by saying that there are differences, even physical differences, between north and south China. He could have gone further by explaining that their are differences in dialect, food, and other cultural aspects between regions, provinces, cities, or even individual villages, but he decided to support his point of a China being a more homogeneous area by avoiding its diversity.
He mentions that China could probably be advancing more quickly than the other nations by unifying their political, linguistically, and cultural environment. There's plenty of evidence that it used to be a very diverse place, but it was just unified much earlier. Then Diamond goes against this point by saying that there are differences, even physical differences, between north and south China. He could have gone further by explaining that their are differences in dialect, food, and other cultural aspects between regions, provinces, cities, or even individual villages, but he decided to support his point of a China being a more homogeneous area by avoiding its diversity.
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