According to Guns, Germs, and Steel, explain some of the reasons why fertile crescent enjoyed such success while other regions faltered?

The answer to this question can be found in chapter 8 of Guns, Germs, and Steel, entitled "Apples or Indians." Diamond cites several advantages enjoyed by the Fertile Crescent that led it to become the first region to develop agriculture.

The first is that it "lies within a zone of so-called Mediterranean climate." This is a climate with long, dry summers and warm, wet winters. This makes for plant species that are ideal for...

The answer to this question can be found in chapter 8 of Guns, Germs, and Steel, entitled "Apples or Indians." Diamond cites several advantages enjoyed by the Fertile Crescent that led it to become the first region to develop agriculture.

The first is that it "lies within a zone of so-called Mediterranean climate." This is a climate with long, dry summers and warm, wet winters. This makes for plant species that are ideal for domestication, because they put much of their energy into seeds, which are edible.

Another reason is that there were simply a lot of useful plants already native to the area. Diamond writes, "the wild ancestors of many Fertile Crescent crops were already abundant and highly productive," and their potential for domestication must have "been obvious to hunter-gatherers."

The Fertile Crescent also features a number of self-pollinating plants that can be cross-pollinated. This means they create a lot of varieties for potential farmers to select from.

All of these factors, Diamond argues, made the Fertile Crescent a logical site for the development of agriculture. But it also enjoyed some other advantages. First, it was bigger than similar Mediterranean zones around the world. Second, there was enough climatic variation from season to season to encourage the development of more annual plants. Third, it has the highest variation in altitude among other similar regions around the world. Fourth, it has more large domesticable animals than other Mediterranean zones. Finally, Diamond posits that agriculture in the Fertile Crescent may have faced less competition from hunter-gatherers than in other regions.