Goodreads | Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies

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Yeshua rated it:

(review of isbn 0739467352)

04/06/08

In 1532, Francisco Pizarro and a band of 168 Spaniards punctured the heart of the Inca Empire and proceeded to capture its emperor, decimate its citizens, and plunder its gold. Why didn’t it happen the other way around? Why didn't the Incas sail to Europe, capture Charles V, kill his subjects, and loot his castles and cathedrals? Jared Diamond attempts to answer this question in Guns, Germs & Steel.

Why have Europeans tended to dominate other peoples on other continents? Does it...more

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Monica rated it:

(review of isbn 0739467352)

04/30/08

I had to write a paper on this book for my first class in graduate school. I am going to look to see if I still have it...hold on...I am totally pasting it in:

“I’ve set myself the modest task of trying to explain the broad pattern of human history, on all the continents, for the last 13,000 years.” While Diamond’s explanation of his prize-winning book’s goal is clearly oversimplified, the impetus for writing the book is not: while doing research in New Guinea, a native friend named...more I had to write a paper on this book for my first class in graduate school. I am going to look to see if I still have it...hold on...I am totally pasting it in:

“I’ve set myself the modest task of trying to explain the broad pattern of human history, on all the continents, for the last 13,000 years.” While Diamond’s explanation of his prize-winning book’s goal is clearly oversimplified, the impetus for writing the book is not: while doing research in New Guinea, a native friend named Yali asked him “Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo [metal tools, weaponry, the material stuff of civilization], but we black people had little cargo of our own?”
While many scientists in the past have rushed to answer Yali’s question with the overtired answer of “race,” Diamond takes another route. He claims the differences in the long-term histories of people from around the world have been due not to innate differences in the people themselves, but rather their varied environments. Diamond backs his thesis up with examples like that of the Moriori people. In 1835 the Moriori, who lived on Chatham Island, 500 miles south of New Zealand, were attacked and brutally slaughtered by 500 Maori who arrived on their island by boat. Though the Moriori outnumbered the Maori by more than two to one, they were peaceable hunter-gatherers who were entirely inexperienced at war, lacked strong leadership and access to even the simplest technology. What makes this encounter interesting is that both groups were descendants from a common ancestor. Several Maori people had broken away and settled Chatham Island hundreds of years earlier. During the time they lived apart both groups evolved in different directions, with the Maori on mainland New Zealand embracing complex technology while the Moriori on Chatham Island did not; they remained hunter-gatherers while the Maori followed a lifestyle of intensive farming.
Diamond often cites Polynesia as a “natural experiment” because a variety of different islands – all with different levels of isolation, climate, productivity and geological and biological resources – were colonized by the same founding population, much like Chatham Island was. However, despite their ability to trace the same bloodline, these populations diverged. Diamond goes on to explain that these different populations, all biologically the same, went on to develop different technology at different rates, the most important of those being farming and domesticating plants and animals. Farming was essential to accumulating food and storing surplus, thus allowing non-food producing specialists (those in the military, in government, etc) to move the society ahead rather than keeping it in a constant hunter-gatherer state. Diamond, who has spent many years doing research in Polynesia, highlights examples where societies on some islands capitalized on their environment while others were hindered by what they found on theirs.
Readers have to wait until the end of the book to get some of the juiciest bits of information pertaining to more recent history. The chapter “The Future of History as a Science” (described as “alone worth the price of admission” by the Los Angeles Times) expands on topics like why Europe ended up dominating the New World when China, India and the Fertile Crescent region had, by all rights, taken the lead thus far economically, technologically and ecologically. By pointing out the smallest of decisions that lead to the biggest of mistakes – a power struggle between two factions in China led to the grounding of their enormous fleet and the dismantling of shipyards, paving the way for Europeans and the bumbling Christopher Columbus to discover America – Diamond easily shows how countries that appeared to have all the advantages or “head starts” as he calls them could fall behind. This chapter also delves into the fascinating effects and almost-effects of what he calls “idiosyncratic people” – where one person could have and at times in fact did sway the course of history. For example, what if Hitler had been killed, rather than simply wounded, in an assassination attempt in 1944? Or better yet, what if Hitler had been killed in a car accident that took place in 1930? If the driver of a truck that had collided with Hitler’s vehicle had hit his brakes a fraction of a second later, “the form of an eventual World War II would probably have been quite different…” Through these examples, Diamond discusses how such individual idiosyncrasies throw wild cards into the course of history. After reading chapter upon chapter that shows the smallest of changes taking place over 13,000 years or more, “The Future of History as a Science” provides a nice dichotomy to the earlier parts of Guns, Germs, and Steel.
If there is a flaw with Diamond’s award-winning book, it is the overwhelming amount of time covered in the book as well as a windfall of information for the reader to digest. While his examples support his beliefs, at times Diamond can get wordy in his explanations. The Los Angeles Times got it right by saying “reading Diamond is like watching someone riding a unicycle, balancing an eel on his nose and juggling five squealing piglets” – he gets your attention, but sometimes the massive amount of information can be overpowering.
Diamond himself is the first to admit that compressing 13,000 years of history on all continents into a 400-page book can be oversimplifying human history. But he also hopes it makes others interested in the challenge of developing that history as a science. And this book proves to be the perfect springboard.
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Jim rated it:

(review of isbn 0393061310)

07/27/07

Read in January, 2006

The Purist

I give you now Professor Twist,
A conscientious scientist,
Trustees exclaimed, "He never bungles!"
And sent him off to distant jungles.
Camped on a tropic riverside,
One day he missed his loving bride.
She had, the guide informed him later,
Been eaten by an alligator.
Professor Twist could not but smile.
"You mean," he said, "a crocodile."

That bit of Ogden Nash whimsy came into my head as ...more

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Miriam rated it:

(review of isbn 0739467352)

06/01/08

bookshelves: big-ideas-nonfiction

Read in June, 2008

recommended to Miriam by: Jon Spaihts
recommends it for: just about anyone

Well, I understand why this got a Pulitzer. I hope every student is having to read it in high school. I'm afraid they're not.

Although Diamond's main purpose is to answer the question "Why did the peoples of some continents conquer and dispossess others?" in a non-racist fashion (and succeeds convincingly), the book in many ways is a history of the world, and one less Eurocentric and less focused on irrelevant details than many whose point is explicitly trying to do that.

This...more
Well, I understand why this got a Pulitzer. I hope every student is having to read it in high school. I'm afraid they're not.

Although Diamond's main purpose is to answer the question "Why did the peoples of some continents conquer and dispossess others?" in a non-racist fashion (and succeeds convincingly), the book in many ways is a history of the world, and one less Eurocentric and less focused on irrelevant details than many whose point is explicitly trying to do that.

This was one of those awesome books that blew my mind in almost every chapter with some fact or analysis that threw something I knew or thought I knew about the world into a totally different light or explained how something got the way it was. (For example, my nerdy self loved the description of how people go about starting to domesticate plants, why we have domesticated almonds but not acorns, stuff like that.)

Diamond uses a mixture of ecological history, linguistics, and archeology to make a pretty concise and well-supported argument that a few things—suitable domesticable plants, suitable domesticable animals, east-west vs north-south axis, and size—led to the large differences in development of technology, epidemic diseases, writing, and political organization that allowed, for example, Europe to conquer the Americas. It's a fascinating tale that everyone should know.

I especially appreciate the perspective that comes from his choice to focus in detail on what happens when cultures collide in areas outside the Europe-Americas story. The story of the South Chinese expanding into the Indonesian archipelago and Polynesia, for example, allows this American reader to not only become a much better-educated world citizen, but to think about the issues in a less familiar context where I have fewer knee-jerk associations.

While Diamond bends over backward, and rightly so, to make clear that there's not only nothing inherent in different people's genes that led them to develop "civilization" at different speeds, he also tries to be clear early on that there's nothing inherently wonderful about civilization either. I know from another paper of his that hunter-gatherers actually enjoyed better physical health than settled farmers. (He does slip from this from time to time, though, and starts talking as if it's too bad not to invent any given thing there is to invent.)

But still, his account leads right to, yet doesn't address at all, some hard questions: Was/is it inevitable that those who did accidentally acquire food production and its advantages address the population pressures that arise from food production by overrunning and massacring in cold-blood other societies? (It is sobering and instructive to remember how much of that had already happened long before 1492.)

Should we care about the extermination of human populations and their languages? (It seems that the early human-caused mass extinctions of large mammals had *huge* effects on continental competitiveness: might loss of human cultural diversity do the same?)

Or, perhaps more relevant to today's world: recognizing that the advantages held by the global North were not "earned" or "deserved," is there justification for us to continue wielding our economic power to maintain that disparity rather than letting/helping other areas either "catch up" or remain at the complexity level appropriate to their environment?

Although Diamond's neutral political/moral stance irritated me at times (mostly when it bordered on "it's inevitable that human societies are self-centered warmongers"), I think it was the right choice for the book--those are important questions, but ones that his analysis should contribute to, not vice versa. He even offers a bit of a look at an answer when he starts, tentatively, to explore why Europe went a conquerin' overseas and China, which alone by his measures could also have done so, didn't (yet)....less

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Mike rated it:

(review of isbn 0739467352)

05/18/07

Read in March, 2006

recommends it for: Folks with some interest in ancient history

Author Jared Diamond's two-part thesis is: 1) the most important theme in human history is that of civilizations beating the crap out of each other, 2) the reason the beat-ors were Europeans and the beat-ees the Aboriginees, Mayans, et. al. is because of the geographical features of where each civilization happened to develop. Whether societies developed gunpowder, written language, and other technological niceties, argues Diamond, is completely a function of whether they emerged amidst travel-...more Author Jared Diamond's two-part thesis is: 1) the most important theme in human history is that of civilizations beating the crap out of each other, 2) the reason the beat-ors were Europeans and the beat-ees the Aboriginees, Mayans, et. al. is because of the geographical features of where each civilization happened to develop. Whether societies developed gunpowder, written language, and other technological niceties, argues Diamond, is completely a function of whether they emerged amidst travel-and-trade condusive geography and easily-domesticable plants and animals.

I'm not sure I agree that why the Spanish obliterated the Mayans instead of visa versa is the most interesting question of human history. (How about the evolution of ideas, or the impact of great leaders and inventors?) But it is an interesting question, and worth exploring. Diamond is a philosophical monist, neatly ascribing just about every juncture in human history to a single cause or related group of causes. Given his extensive background in botany and geology, it makes sense that he would look for the impact of those factors in the human story. Unfortunately, those factors are all he regards as important; he relegates to insignificance the contribution of ideas, innovations, and the decision-making of individuals or cultures. His view is fatalistic, seemingly motivated by a P.C.-era desire to pronounce all cultures equal, and their fates the product of random circumstance.

A contradiction here is that fatalistic viewpoints are incompatible with moral pronouncements. (If nobody can control their actions, who's to blame for anything?) Diamond is condemnatory of the Spanish incursion into Mayan lands, but the logical consequence of his theory is that the Mayans would have done the same to the Spanish if they had been first to develop the musket and frigate. Taking Diamond's theory seriously means we'd have to view imperialism as natural and unavoidable, like the predation of animals, and be unable to criticize any culture's actions whatever.

All that said... this is a fascinating and worthwhile read.
There's no doubt that the factors Diamond identified had some role in human progress, however, and if you can put aside the author's predisposition towards his own field and somewhat sketchy philosophical foundation, the book is a compelling and vivid account of what life was like for the earliest civilizations. Diamond describes the evolution of agriculture, written language, and other indispensable facets of human history, giving us a crash tour through the earliest days of human history. The specialized expertise that ultimately derails Diamond's overview at the same time offers a compelling and detailed view of the rise of mankind.

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Alex rated it:

(review of isbn 0739467352)

03/06/08

bookshelves: books-read-in-2006

Read in July, 2006

GUNS, GERMS, AND STEEL: THE FATES OF HUMAN SOCIETIES BY JARED DIAMOND: This is one of those books that takes you a while to read -- it's pretty heavy non-fiction -- and yet at the end of it, you feel like Hippocrates, a Muslim scientist, or Leonardo Da Vinci must have felt at the realization of a great discovery. The Eureka! moment. This book is kind of like the movie Hotel Rwanda: the movie was life-altering for me, and just made every other movie that came out that year seem tawdry and unimpor...more GUNS, GERMS, AND STEEL: THE FATES OF HUMAN SOCIETIES BY JARED DIAMOND: This is one of those books that takes you a while to read -- it's pretty heavy non-fiction -- and yet at the end of it, you feel like Hippocrates, a Muslim scientist, or Leonardo Da Vinci must have felt at the realization of a great discovery. The Eureka! moment. This book is kind of like the movie Hotel Rwanda: the movie was life-altering for me, and just made every other movie that came out that year seem tawdry and unimportant; it was one of those movies that everyone should see (especially Americans and Western Europeans) just to understand the world and its history better. Guns, Germs, and Steel is one of those books that everyone should read to better comprehend their existence at this specific moment in time.

The premise of the book is revealed in the prologue in a conversation between the author and a New Guinea native who lives his very simple life in Stone Age conditions. The thesis that arises in their conversation is what specific events led to the fact that Europeans were the ones to reach New Guinea and interact with its people, and why it wasn't the New Guinea people to develop the technology and abilities to travel the world and make first contact with the Europeans.

With the concept in place, Diamond sets about doing this in his conversational and, quite frankly, mind-blowing and ingenious way. As a professor, with studies in anthropology and biology, he has an astounding way of seeing things and being able to explain ideas in a simple manner that make so much sense and you're left saying to yourself: "Oh, that's how that happened," or "that's why it's like that." At times he can bog you down with details, mainly because he explains them on minutest and seemingly most insignificant level (such as different seeds around the world). And yet you are left with that adage of chaos theory: everything on this planet happens for a reason and has a knock-on effect.

Some of Diamond's ideas that I found and still find most astonishing include:

The reason the continent of Eurasia was able to develop to a much more advanced level than the rest of the world, with its complex empires, cradles of civilizations, and large amount of farming and domesticated species was due to its latitude on a specific east-west axis. The other continents -- North and South America, Africa, Australasia -- are all on a north-south axis. What does this difference mean? For one, climate is greatly changed the further north or south ones goes, which has an effect on the migration of people, animals, and plants, as well as the spread of information, technology and culture. Because of this, Eurasia was able to develop more crops and have them spread around the continent through trade, as well as the spread of domesticated animals, culture and more importantly, technology. The other continents did not have this ease, which Diamond explains in clear detail with facts and dates.

Of course, I am vastly over-simplifying the book and it's really necessary for one to peruse its pages to get the full understanding. Another concept that I was very happy to be made so clear is the explanation of why whites conquered most of the world was not because they were a superior race in any way. And how is this simply explained? To use Jared Diamond's example:

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Radhika rated it:

(review of isbn 0739467352)

09/04/07

Read in January, 2007

recommends it for: Humanists, geographers, omnivorous readers

I give this book 4 stars because it has some very interesting ideas that provoke thought and inquiry. It also offers plausible explanations that often ring true. I don't give it 5 stars because it suffers from certain drawbacks.

I love his analysis and interpretation of causes that show why civilization arose variously in diverse and distinct locations of the planet. I love how his causes make sense. His rejection of race-based politics is quite clear. I like
how his explanations lead ...more I give this book 4 stars because it has some very interesting ideas that provoke thought and inquiry. It also offers plausible explanations that often ring true. I don't give it 5 stars because it suffers from certain drawbacks.

I love his analysis and interpretation of causes that show why civilization arose variously in diverse and distinct locations of the planet. I love how his causes make sense. His rejection of race-based politics is quite clear. I like
how his explanations lead us to reexamine patriotism, nationality, group affiliation, judgment of other cultures... There is definitely a lot to learn and what better way to learn than from someone who loves to learn/teach by
engaging.

Contrary to another reader on goodreads, I couldn't wait to get to the "around the world" chapters. That is what the book was building towards in my opinion. Towards explaining why the world today looks like it does.

Jared Diamond is not much into referencing materials which is strange given that he is an academic. One could claim that this book is written for a wider audience and is meant to be more approachable and if so, Diamond makes some very bald statements which are very hard to substantiate in the absence of citations. For instance, his claim that the hard sciences look down upon softer sciences like history. I heard similar claims in graduate school. But where is the evidence for such claims and should they be taken seriously if there isn't supporting scientific evidence for it? I don't doubt that such evidence may exist if he makes the statement but I have a hard time as a reader who needs more proof. He makes a similar bald assertion towards the front of the book about the prevalence of race-based explanations for differences in development which again I know exist based on similar conversations but which I would never take seriously anyway, unless someone could show it to me using science.

There is a lot of redundancy in the book. The four major causes are drummed, driven and pummeled into one. A different organization of the book could have lead to less redundancy and more salient communication of points. That said, he does still get his points across. Lovely pictures in the book. The maps and tables are a little thin on resources but the author tries to provide a reading list toward the end of the book for each chapter.

The PBS show based on his book more pithily stated and demonstrated the unequal distribution of material wealth, health and resources around the globe and made clear who has benefited and at whose expense. It is not very often that any westerner, let alone an academic has so openly shown through their work how viciously parts of the human race have treated certain other parts of it. His book does make me want to go further back and look also at what lead to racial distinctions in the first place.

In the new edition of the book, there is an especially interesting chapter on Japan and the Japanese people and language and how they might be Korean in ethnicity. This may not go down well with a Japanese audience with their extreme nationalism and their emphasis on superiority over neighboring cultures. However, it is perfectly plausible and a fascinating read.

--
www.aprilandradsdiablog.blogspot.com...less

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Elizabeth rated it:

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01/21/08

Germ Guns & Steel

It is a thesis,
His thesis being; that all animals are created equal… but not all animals sleep in a bed with sheets.
Why?
Because in addition to needing tree for wood to make looms, herders to shear sheep & weavers to make sheets, you also need (DHU) SHEEP.
Yep, if you are unlucky enough to be born on a continent or onto part of a continent with only anteaters, there is no fucking way you are going to get sheets, no matter how smart you are.
All well and good...more

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Deborah rated it:

(review of isbn 0739467352)

01/23/08

Read in January, 2008

Having read Charles C. Mann's 1491 immediately before Guns, Germs, and Steel, I was all-too aware of the dated nature of many of Diamond's assumptions about the New World. (And therefore I would highly recommend 1491 to anyone interested in learning about the latest and greatest developments in knowledge concerning the early history of the Americas.) This seed of doubt concerning the accuracy of Diamond's assumptions about the Americas prevented me from fully appreciating what he had to say ab...more Having read Charles C. Mann's 1491 immediately before Guns, Germs, and Steel, I was all-too aware of the dated nature of many of Diamond's assumptions about the New World. (And therefore I would highly recommend 1491 to anyone interested in learning about the latest and greatest developments in knowledge concerning the early history of the Americas.) This seed of doubt concerning the accuracy of Diamond's assumptions about the Americas prevented me from fully appreciating what he had to say about the histories of the other continents, of which I am even less familiar.

True, the theories promoted in Diamond's book are not disrupted by the accuracy of details concerning the peoples and societies under discussion, but this raises another concern for me: the theories are so generalized, they don't suffer for the potential inaccuracy of described events. In other words, instead of starting with objective histories (and or/references to ongoing research into such histories), the book starts with a central premise and cites historical examples to support that theory.

The central theory may be summarized as follows:
* People with agriculture can produce food surpluses
* Food surpluses can support larger populations
* People located in geographical areas with animals to domesticate were able to use such animals for labor as well as meat
* Large populations with food surpluses can support artisans and bureaucrats
* Artisans and bureaucrats lead to more complex social structures and technical innovations (tools, weapons, metallurgy)
* Dense populations (especially those with domestic animals) contract and evolve immunities to germs and diseases
* Eurasian populations, due to favorable conditions for agriculture and their head-start on many other populations around the globe, acquired the "guns, germs, and steel" to conquer populations lacking the equivalent weaponry, diseases, and technology.

While the central premise makes general sense, I think it's important to acknowledge that it represents a generality, and thus offers an over-simplified view of human history. Considering the fact that this book leans so heavily on theory, I am surprised that book stores typically shelve it in History and Science sections, rather than Philosophy.

After that long disclaimer, I can say that the overall content was interesting. I especially enjoyed the section about the process of domesticating plants and animals. It had never really occurred to me that some plants and animals simply cannot be domesticated, or that the yields of some plants made the domestication of others less desirable or completely unnecessary.

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Curtis rated it:

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03/12/08

bookshelves: history

Read in January, 2005

Before buying and reading this book, I read some reviews, and frankly, they didn't inspire me. They talked about it being a history of the world, they talked about its immense, ambitious scope. Such talk causes my crap detectors to tingle. I did finally buy it after reading a laudatory review by someone I respect. And I'm glad I did, because I found it to be absolutely top notch. The phrase "history of the world" misguides because the book is entirely about pre-history. The story...more Before buying and reading this book, I read some reviews, and frankly, they didn't inspire me. They talked about it being a history of the world, they talked about its immense, ambitious scope. Such talk causes my crap detectors to tingle. I did finally buy it after reading a laudatory review by someone I respect. And I'm glad I did, because I found it to be absolutely top notch. The phrase "history of the world" misguides because the book is entirely about pre-history. The story it tells is historical in nature, but since it is about societies for which we have no written histories, the nature of the evidence is different, and that is one key to its value. The book is a superb assemblage of evidence from different disciplines, mainly genetic analysis, archeology (including non-human fossil evidence), and linguistics, with a smattering of anthropology. This evidence is woven – with original analysis – into a story of early human history.
The result is a story that isn't always pretty but that hangs together well and seems better defended – hence more believable – than I would have thought possible. I suppose this is the origin of those "ambitious scope" comments in the reviews I distrusted. I could not have imagined before reading this book that so much about human pre-history could be inferred.
The writing is strong as well: cogent, well paced, never overbearing. Diamond has a gift not only for writing clearly, but for helping you to understand why you should care. For example, even though his scope includes inference of pre-historical migrations and developments (both cultural and technological) throughout the world, he organizes his presentation in terms of a trenchant theme – why did the European cultures win out over so many others? Why did the Europeans colonize Africa, South America, and so on? Why didn't the Bushmen, or the Australians, or the Incas invade Europe?
And this gift extends to well-chosen personal anecdotes from Diamond's rather unusual life. He personalizes the key question (why the Europeans won) by having it come from the mouth of a Papuan politician who buttonholes Diamond on a beach, asking why the Europeans have so much "cargo" and the New Guineans so little. He illustrates the challenges of Australia by telling stories of his own adventures there as well as those of some Europeans (who died there) in the 19th Century.
By bringing together evidence from a number of disciplines, synthesizing it, and writing about it in an accessible way, Diamond has done something important. It has always been said that the reason to pay attention to history is to learn more about who we are. I believe that this book can be even more powerful in that endeavor because of the vast period (13000 years) and scope (the whole world) it covers, even though the lack of a written record limits the amount of detail. I for one found it stimulating, eye-opening, maybe even life changing.
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Craig rated it:

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06/03/08

Why civilization evolved as it did. Although parts are difficult to get through (ie long winded sections on the history of agriculture), it's worth the effort for those who still believe the West rose to power by accident, or because they're smarter than other societies.

Besides understanding why human history likely unfolded as it did, it was just interesting to come to realize that certain seemingly small things can cause massive changes in how society operates and how power is distributed....more Why civilization evolved as it did. Although parts are difficult to get through (ie long winded sections on the history of agriculture), it's worth the effort for those who still believe the West rose to power by accident, or because they're smarter than other societies.

Besides understanding why human history likely unfolded as it did, it was just interesting to come to realize that certain seemingly small things can cause massive changes in how society operates and how power is distributed. Man isn't necessarily smarter than all other species, but it is the only species with opposable thumbs (to make tools), and an evolved tongue (capable of speaking languages). Likewise, the discovery of agriculture freed man from the all-consuming task of feeding himself and his family, which eventually led to larger concentrated populations, cities, states, and empires. Other strong influences include language, writing, religion, law, and government. When you really think about it, there are really only a few dozen such changes that were the enabling factors to allow civilization to develop to its current state. The rest were really just details and inevitabilities.

It's interesting to think about what lies ahead. Have things been set in motion by some recent "primary" factor that makes the future more or less inevitable? If such an outcome is undesirable or even catastrophic, can we really do anything to change it? To me, two of the big lessons of the book are that a) there are primary factors that exert very strong influences over the course of human history, and b) changing the course of human history under the influence of such factors is extremely difficult.

For those who have read "The Black Swan", it's interesting to note that such factors are often completely unpredictable, and therefore it is nearly impossible to predict how history will unfold over the course of 20, 30 years. Did anyone 30 years ago predict the transformative influence and far reaching effects of the PC, the internet, and the cell phone? From what I've read, long term predictions about the future are often projections of current technologies and trends. So 50 years ago, the major changes people envisioned were along the lines of "we'll have flying cars", or "washing machines will clean and dry clothes in 5 minutes". It seems that not only is man very unimaginative when it comes to predicting the future, they are also much too confident about their predictions.

Right now there are many people in a tizzy about how we'll run out of oil in 40 years, or that global warming will kill us all within a 100 years. My guess is that the primary drivers of civilization 50-100 years hence haven't yet been identified as very important yet. Although that makes me feel quite helpless, it makes life more interesting, I think....less

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Jason rated it:

11/07/07

Read in May, 2004

What processes enabled certain societies to become powerful and innovative? Why did Europeans come to dominate much of the world and the New World? Why did history unfold differently on different continents? These are the questions that this culturally significant work sets out to answer. For the most part the author does a good job. Without going into detail some of the reasons are; the east-west axis orientation of Eurasia as compared to the north-south axis orientation found on other contient...more What processes enabled certain societies to become powerful and innovative? Why did Europeans come to dominate much of the world and the New World? Why did history unfold differently on different continents? These are the questions that this culturally significant work sets out to answer. For the most part the author does a good job. Without going into detail some of the reasons are; the east-west axis orientation of Eurasia as compared to the north-south axis orientation found on other contients like Africa and the Americas, Eurasia's abundance of plants and animals available for domestication as contrasted to the scarcity of them elsewhere, Europeans resistance to germs that were never encountered till modern times by native american peoples, and agriculturally producing societies with dense populations that could support a sedentary lifestyle where people were able to innovate and create new technologies. These explanations for why certain peoples displaced others or why certain peoples such as European colonists who settled Australia were able to form literate agriculturally producing societies in contrast to Aborginies who had been there for 1000s of years and never managed to do it are much better than previous outdated ones. The causes and reasons leading to different histories of different peoples have much more to do with geography and environment as opposed to being caused by innate differences in the peoples themselves. The author has obviously researched the subject in-depth (as far as possible upon him) and presented his findings in several chapters. The chapters take these reasons and expound upon them while offering evidence and showing different chains of causation. I found the book mostly interesting and lively although it read somewhat slow because of the statistics and facts contained throughout. By the time you get to the end of the book you will definitely have the themes of it pounded into your head as the author details them over and over. In my opinion it would have been better to condense redundant details but still a fantastic book that's definitely worth a read. Sometimes I found myself getting a little dulled because in the latter part of the book the author focuses on the expansion of languages and the conclusions we can draw from them as to whom settled where and when. Some of the other parts of the book were a little techincal as well but there were also some fascinating chapters that kept your attention like the ones talking about the Spanish invasion of Incan lands. I recommend this book for its ability to change racist (and incorrect) views of human history and also its ability to enlighten and hopefully educate humans to the point of understanding causes of events and outcomes better. Good read. ...less

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Darrell rated it:

(review of isbn 0739467352)

02/22/08

bookshelves: reviewed

Read in February, 2008

In Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond attempts to answer the question of why Eurasians colonized the Americas, Australia, and Africa rather than the other way around. He gives us a brief overview of human history over the past 13,000 years, particularly focusing on the effects of geography on cultural development.

Once, all human societies were hunter-gatherers. The reason some adopted the farming lifestyle quicker than others has everything to do with geography. Some areas of the w...more In Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond attempts to answer the question of why Eurasians colonized the Americas, Australia, and Africa rather than the other way around. He gives us a brief overview of human history over the past 13,000 years, particularly focusing on the effects of geography on cultural development.

Once, all human societies were hunter-gatherers. The reason some adopted the farming lifestyle quicker than others has everything to do with geography. Some areas of the world such as the Fertile Crescent are blessed with the right combination of climate, location, and variety of elevations to produce a wide variety of plants which are suitable to farming and animals which are suitable to domestication. Other areas of the world have fewer or no suitable plants and animals and thus remained as hunter-gatherers for a much longer period of time.

Once a society becomes agrarian, their population increases and they can focus on activities other than food production such as government, warfare, and inventions such as the inventions of writing and the wheel around 3000 B.C. Also, societies with daily contact with animals tend to come in contact with nastier diseases and eventually develop a tolerance for these germs.

Despite the fact humans originated in Africa 7 million years ago, the Fertile Crescent in the Middle East was the birthplace of civilization. The reason for this is Africa's head start couldn't compete with the Fertile Crescent's natural abundance of domesticatable plants and animals. While African animals such as elephants can certainly be tamed, they can't be domesticated for a variety of reasons Diamond goes into in the book.

Geography also plays a role in how crops, animals, and inventions spread. Europe didn't need to domesticate plants and animals or invent writing since they could just borrow them from the Middle East. Geographically isolated parts of the word such as Sub-Saharan Africa, Australia, and the Americas had geological barriers preventing them from sharing what the other cultures developed and had to do the best they could with the plants and animals they had.

Thus, he destroys the myth that certain races of people are naturally superior to others. Europeans colonized America rather than the other way around because Europe had geographical advantages America did not have and if their geographies were reversed, America would have the guns, germs, and steel to colonize Europe.

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in human history. My only complaint about the book is he claims China didn't visit the Americas before Columbus despite all the evidence that exists today showing they did (See 1421: The Year China Discovered America for example)....less

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Joel rated it:

(review of isbn 0739467352)

06/05/07

bookshelves: booksthatalmostkilledme

Read in October, 2000

When the Dropkick Murphies were at the height of their popularity, I'd often have this awkward conversation where someone would ask me what I thought of them and I'd say I didn't like them. Their fans were really evangelical for some reason, so I'd usually be pressed to explain myself. I'd list the reasons: songwriting so-so, macho bullshit, Americans trying to play up their Irish roots almost always sound silly and, finally, that I found the working-class oi!/skin tradition they were vaguely ro...more When the Dropkick Murphies were at the height of their popularity, I'd often have this awkward conversation where someone would ask me what I thought of them and I'd say I didn't like them. Their fans were really evangelical for some reason, so I'd usually be pressed to explain myself. I'd list the reasons: songwriting so-so, macho bullshit, Americans trying to play up their Irish roots almost always sound silly and, finally, that I found the working-class oi!/skin tradition they were vaguely rooted in to be distasteful because of its racism and xenophobia. At this point, some faux-proletarian yo-yo would always step out of the woodwork and give me his "all skinheads aren't nazis" speech. I found this really, really irritating. I didn't say all skinheads were nazis dude, I said that skinhead culture, with a few exceptions (SHARPS, Redskins -very much peripheral groups) always seemed very comfortable with a moderate level of racism, xenophobia, etc. This shouldn't have been news to anyone -The 4 Skins, of "One law for them" fame were obviously not nazis. Neither were the Anti-heroes, but it didn't stop them from being Republican assholes in at least half of their songs. Deliberately misreading this argument as the "all skins are nazis" was and is classic straw man stuff.

I feel the same way about Guns, Germs and Steel. Try it: Next time someone asks you about the book (and you will be asked -it's still extremely popular), say you found it to be a sneaky return to the race sciences (and pseudo race sciences, like climactic band theory) of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Some blowhard will immediately start explaining to you as he or she would to a four-year-old that Diamond's thesis isn't racist because he attributes the relative success and failures of different groups to environment, not biology.

This is dumb -he's working from a very decrepit Hegelian notion of historical progress and populating it with winners and losers, just like the Social Darwinists before him. His innovation is to ascribe the losers' losing to them happening to be in places where the environment required little modification to support stable societies, causing them, over thousands of years, to slack off. He's simply substituted environment for biology as a primary cause. Because the changes he's invoking happen over tens of thousands of years, whether they are "caused" by race or by environment is beside the point. ...less

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