The Human Drift” is an example of an expository text. The structure of the text is well defined. London presents his main argument in the opening sentence of his essay:
The history of civilisation is a history of wandering, sword in hand, in search of food.
In the subsequent four paragraphs, he establishes several premises to support this main argument about hunger being a driving force for humans:
Man, like any other animal, has roved over the earth seeking what he might devour; and not romance and adventure, but the hunger-need, has urged him on his vast adventures.
Throughout the story, London supplements his premises with historical evidence to strengthen his main argument.
It has always been so, from the time of the first pre-human anthropoid crossing a mountain-divide in quest of better berry-bushes beyond, down to the latest Slovak, arriving on our shores to-day, to go to work in the coal-mines of Pennsylvania.
There have been drifts from east to west and west to east, from north to south and back again, drifts that have criss-crossed one another, and drifts colliding and recoiling and caroming off in new directions. PLATO
