Guns, Germs, and Steel 6

In this chapter, we come across one of the pinnacles of human existence: the development of writing. However, this invention was not some new fab that took the world by storm overnight. The spread of writing was disappointingly slow. Diamond explains that this is because of the limited uses of writing at the time. As you can imagine, much of the things we use writing for today (books, history, etc.) were not very relevant to the everyday life of the ancient man. However, the countries that did grasp this marvelous technological advancement received the full benefits of its potentials. Nations with writing could more easily make documents and instructions for new technology. Also, news and information could travel quicker and more accurately by writing. The original message of the sender would not be altered by numerous repetitions from word of mouth. All in all, most cultures did not develop writing on their own, but borrowed it from nearby nations.