Final answer:
Jared Diamond's 'Guns, Germs, and Steel' discusses the differences between the ancient Middle East and modern New Guinea in terms of geographical and environmental factors that influenced societal development and interactions with Europeans.
Step-by-step explanation:
Jared Diamond, in Guns, Germs, and Steel, provides a comparative analysis of the ancient Middle East and modern New Guinea, though the specifics of these comparisons aren't detailed in the question provided. Diamond suggests that geographical factors and the availability of resources like domesticable plants and animals shaped the development of societies. This disparity in resources contributed to the differences in the development of technology and societal structures between the ancient Middle East, where civilization first emerged, and regions like New Guinea, which did not develop in the same way.
The ancient Middle East was an area of early human civilization, characterized by early forms of agriculture, domestication, and sedentary societies, contributing to significant advancements and power structures. In contrast, the societies in modern New Guinea maintained a hunter-gatherer lifestyle well into the modern era, which Diamond attributes to the region's geographical isolation and lack of domesticable resources. Thus, these factors collectively influenced the different trajectories of technological development and social complexity which would eventually impact encounters with Europeans and the global power balance.