Rating: 
Summary: Brilliant! But why didn't I think of that?
Review: Other reviewers thus far have been very eloquent in lauding "Guns, Germs, and Steel", and there is little I can add that has not been said before. Diamond has pulled off a rare feat--he has written a book that completely transformed the way I view history. It is as if I had been seeing it through a murky, sepia-toned filter that has now been stripped away. I am a student of both history and anthropology, with a particular interest in the meeting of cultures (and the resulting conflicts), and "Guns, Germs, and Steel" has changed the way I approach and analyze those historical events. Diamond writes very well (not just for an academic audience), and for the curious, omnivorous reader this book is definitely worth your time.
Rating: 
Summary: Consistent contradiction
Review: I've read some of the reviews of this book, and they in a large part prompted me to buy it. A regular theme in these reviews is how common sense or logical the book is. I found this to be quite the opposite. Several times in the book Diamond asks the reader to forget common sense, or debunks common sense with so-called "scientific proof." While I have no doubt of Mr. Diamond's learned qualifications, I have serious doubts about his objectivity and scientific method. In fact, he freely admits he wrote the book for his friends, the backwards stone-age peoples of New Guinea. I wonder if in fact Mr. Diamond presented a series of arguments he KNOWS are weak, contradictory, and just plain wacko, in order to stimulate some thought and discussion on the matters at hand. Contradictions I found: Diamond states that technology could not drift across geographic barriers, and that some societies never adopted certain technologies not due to their unreceptiveness, but due to the fact that they were never exposed to said technology. In the same chapter, he states that certain crops DID in fact make it across these so-called barriers. But the receiving society never adopted EVERYTHING, just the easy stuff. So why now did they not accept all the technology again? This is a classic catch-22, it's psuedo-science at it's worst. He makes a case that invention is NOT due to particular geniuses, but due to process. Exactly, some societies take existing technology and make it better constantly. I mean, he's making his own argument AGAINST his premise. He states that ancient Mexicans did in fact invent the wheel and axle, but only used it for toys because a human-drawn cart had no advantage over a porter. What? Has this soft-fingered intellectual ever used a wheelbarrow, how about a hand cart to move his books around? Earlier in the book he does state that the wheelbarrow is one of the key inventions that allowed some societies to adopt irrigation. I've got to ask again, did he do this intentionally, (I hope he did,) or is his scientific method and argument really this shoddy? The list goes on. I gave the book 3 stars for it's breadth and well-written style. Mr. Diamond is certainly a well-learned and compelling author. However, the arguments he presents are incredibly weak. If racist groups had any intelligence at all, they could use the book as their premise for existance. This book represents a prejudicial selection of certain scientific facts, leaving others, indeed the bulk, out. If Mr. Diamond had an open mind, he would have changed his premise by the end of the book just by compiling and organizing the facts he presents. I wonder how many scientists are cringing about the Pulitzer Prize (none, since the PP is journalistic, not scientific.) This book is NOT science, it's journalism, written with the now-standard precept of proving a view, instead of presentation of facts. I wonder if Mr. Diamond is still lecturing, I'd love to be in his class and flunk because I tore his arguments to shreds in front of the auditorium. Whatever your view, buy the book and read it. It's definitely compelling, thought-provoking, and WRONG!
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant piece of work
Review: A wonderful piece of scientific writing which will shape how we view our world and societies. As for the person who said "i found his book a bit eurocentric. He ignores important achievements of new world civilizations and focuses on the developments of early europeans civilizations in the fertile crescent. He seems to emphasiz the lack of european cultural tools in non-european cultures! Always, the european way seems to be better in his view." He _never_ says which way is better per se, but he does indicate that people armed with horses, cannon and muskets have a significant advantage over spear throwing foot soldiers. Primarily though his focus is on HOW the different societies became (or did not become) more advanced. He does not do this to prove superiority of any one race/people - more to point out the impact of geography upon the rate of scientific/technological advance. Basically saying we are all equally able races but our environment was a key to our development technologically.
Rating: 
Summary: an obvious work of obvious brilliance
Review: "Guns, Germs and Steel" is on of those books that makes you cringe as each piece of the well-constructed argument unfolds -- cringe, because you wonder why it has taken so long for somebody to think this up, and why, in fact, you didn't think it up yourself. Diamond draws upon a wealth of expertise in fields as diverse as botany, zoology, archaeology and anthropology to produce a non-racist, environmental explanation for why European peoples came to dominate the globe. You may have to read it in order to believe it. As the simplicity and obviousness of Diamond's multi-layered argument unfolds, it has the reader repeatedly slapping his hand on his forehead and saying "duh". You wonder why, for so many years, so many of us have subconsciously entertained simplistic, culturally-based explanations of the "backwardness" of the world's colonized peoples. Now we know the true story, and we owe a big vote of thanks to Jared Diamond for writing it. Even if his detailed explanations are a bit long-winded and repetitive at times, he makes up for this shortcoming with just enough amusing anectodes about the ironies inherent in the "fates of human societies" to make this book an expansive and delicious read.
Rating:
Summary: A scholarly work
Review: A remarkable history of the last 13,000 years. Diamond's prose style is a bit cumbersome at times but he documents his thesis with good data from a variety of scientific fields. I found the book somwhat repetitive but it is a facinating topic, well researched and well presented. A real thought provoker.
Rating:
Summary: excellent reading, breaks new ground, although...
Review: Diamond has set out to explain why certain cultures ended up with all the heavy weaponry (thus, the power) and why others continued to subsist on stuff like sago pulp. I find his arguments quite compelling. I don't see him sidestepping any of the tough questions the issue raises; he meets them in a refreshingly direct manner. I'd consider it required reading for a good education in ancient history in any geographic area, because its theses are applicable to all. With so many people screaming either 'yay, a non-racist explanation!' or 'this is *so* PC', let me attempt to cut through that thicket for the potential reader. Yes, it is quite apparent that Diamond set out to come up with a non-racist explanation (as opposed to setting out to answer the question, prepared to accept the truth whether it bothered people or not). It does raise the question: had a racial explanation resulted, would he have put it forth? I think not. The effect of this is to make Diamond have to work harder to convince people of his conclusions, because he was certainly predisposed to a given tenet. This is too bad, because his conclusions are quite compelling. It would be shortsighted to dismiss his excellent work without hearing him out, though, even if one cannot quite shake the suspicion that he mainly wanted to prove that his hunter-gatherer friends in New Guinea were smarter than most people give them credit for. The other issue with the predisposition away from a racial explanation is that said predisposition is, itself, often racist, and Diamond does fall prey to this: just because Europeans ultimately developed napalm bombs, nuclear weapons and nerve gases, is that necessarily a positive? One could argue that it speaks well for the residents of ancient Africa, for example, that they never put any effort into learning how to incinerate an entire city or pollute the atmosphere with dioxins. One area of wasted effort was the photo section. He's got pictures in there of peoples from all over the world. Ok, fine, but what do the pictures illustrate? I guess if one has never seen a Spaniard or a Yanomano before, this'll help, but there is no use of the photos to support his perspective. Too bad--if the effort had been spent on diagrams and maps, Diamond could have used these pages to help make his point. Strongly recommended because the strength of the reasoning outweighs all else: no matter how he did it, Diamond's given us very good information.
Rating:
Summary: Great answer to a hard question!
Review: This book tries to answer a question which I am sure many of you have asked before, why did Europeans develop technology and conquer the world and other people didn't. He answers the question completely leaving no details out. His answer isn't a typical racist one which says the Europeans were genetically or culturally superior but that geography, climate and other natural elements prevented peoples who happened to be in one region from having the same natural advantages that people from Europe and the Fertile Cresent had. He organizes the book in four understandable parts. The first one dealing with an overview of human evolution and how we all started out the same but as we spread out the different regions gave some people disadvantages. The second part is about how people in the Fertile Cresent had an advantage over everyone in domesticatable mammals and grains and the third part is about how this food production lead to technology. The fourth part gives a whole overview of all the regions of the world and how each culture developed or didn't develop technology and the reasons for it. The prose style is this book is easy to read and but the subject matter for some people might get bored because sometimes there were long tangents where the original thesis isn't relavant. These tangents can also be a good thing because he goes on to talk about the histories of the different regions of the world. I recommend this book to anyone who ever asked the question, history happen the way it happened and someone who wants to learn about world cultures. I don't recommend this book someone who can't read informational books with a lot of data. Although there were some interesting stories at the beginning of each chapter most of it is just informational. I would also say that the reading level of this book is high school and above. Although it is easy to read, younger people might think the subject matter is boring and get distracted from all the information that is thrown at them. All in all this was a great book!
Rating:
Summary: Eurocentric?
Review: I am not a professional historian, as the author is, but i found his book a bit eurocentric. He ignores important achievements of new world civilizations and focuses on the developments of early europeans civilizations in the fertile crescent. He seems to emphasiz the lack of european cultural tools in non-european cultures! Always, the european way seems to be better in his view. He never mentions the quipu, the Incan record keeping tool that may also have been used as a primitive form of "writing". He ignores the development of the boomerang in Australia, and downplays the great New World civilizations such as the Anasazi, the Inca, Tiwanaku, the Maya, Aztec, and many others. The book is a bit dated also-in the intro he discusses early man in the Americas and dismisses the evidence from Monte Verde, which has recently been supported by the discovery of other ancient early american remains such as the Spirit Cave remains, the infamous Kennewick man, and sites in argentina, and brazil of similar ages. Finally, rather than exploring the reasons why other cultures didnt develop civilizations like the europeans, why not discuss the directions of their civilizations? Given more time and less interaction with europeans, would the Cherokee, the Aztecs, the Tlingit, and many other groups headed for the same pattern as european cultures? What directions were their cultures heading when they came into contact with european invaders? I'd like to see a more indepth scientific discussion of this interesting topic rather than glossing over important details.
Rating:
Summary: A Wealth of Information
Review: After reading the first chapter, I had a feeling that this would be a very interesting book, and I was right. Guns, Germs, and Steel gives a very acurate and easily understandable history of the world, and why some cultures advanced faster than others. The book answered many questions I have had on human advancement. Once I picked it up, I could hardly put it down.
Rating:
Summary: Readable, educational, thought-provoking
Review: from the author of DREAMING YOUR REAL SELF: A PERSONAL APPROACH TO DREAM INTERPRETATION; and DREAM BACK YOUR LIFE. Diamond's overview of the many influences on the development of domestication of animals, agriculture, and the dominance of societies is informative as well as very readable. GUNS, GERMS, AND STEEL exposed me to information and ideas that had never been addressed at all in my traditional education. Reading it with a world map next to me, I enjoyed the discovery of continents and islands that I wished to could see first hand. Stimulated by this subject, I went on to read books by Matt Ridley and Robert Wright. I highly recommend Jared Diamond's other books, too. I don't think he is trying to be PC. You can decide for yourself.
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