Rating: 
Summary: A few interesting anecdotes, but the rest is tedious.
Review: I believed the cover blurb about this book, and was sorely disappointed. The only time this book came alive for me was when the author related personal anecdotes from his research and travels. The rest was rather tedious and boring.
Rating: 
Summary: Exellent thesis, good summaries, and entertaining too
Review: I loved it by page 50. Well work reading.This should be everyone's starter history book, and then you go off to fill in the details.
Rating:
Summary: An interesting subject, a tedious book
Review: I launched into this book with enthusiasm. The subject was close to my heart - why are some societies strong and others weak - and the author's basic proposition was sound - accidents of geography are to blame rather than racial factors. But then came the Prologue ... where we learn about the superior intelligence of New Guinea children because they don't sit around all day and watch TV like Western children. Later, the author also gives us a little holiday snap about running out of water in the Australian outback, which presumably demonstrates Europeans' low intelligence compared with Australian Aborigines. That's a bit like arguing that I am pretty smart because I know where all the pubs in Sydney are. Jared Diamond wants history to be taken seriously as a science, but he has done his cause no favours with this sort of stuff. What we get is a few good ideas - food production, literacy, disease, etc. - which support his thesis; what we don't get are the obvious - though not so palatable - cultural, religious, etc. factors. Why have Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand done better than Burma, Laos and India? Why have the Chinese prospered wherever they have gone? And how did a few Mongolian nomadic sheepherders manage to conquer most of Eurasia? The reasons given for Europe's dominance over China in the last 500 years - Columbus was able to shop around different nations for a sponsor, which he could not have done in a unified China, and (with maps to illustrate it) Europe's bumpier coastline - are a bit silly. And what about the United States pre-eminence during the twentieth century? One could put up with all of this if the book was a good read. It is not. It is wordy, ponderous, and sometimes patronising. The author has a few important points to make - especially concerning livestock raising and agriculture - and, just so we won't forget, he keeps repeating them. How many times do we read about the spread of food production from the Fertile Crescent? We even get at least one reminder about the smart New Guinea children. Some worth, but don't spend too much time on it.
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Summary: this could be the answer or part of it
Review: there is a difference between gm(geomagnetic) equator and gg(geografic) equator.(it effects "fertile crescent");but the interesting difference is the effect of negative pole versus positive pole with people:posistive is more harmful than negative and we all know how dangerous the added positive supply provided by the sun can be to your exposed skin. think about people that live in the southern emisphere, why is their skin so dark? positive pole also has an effect on bacterial growth. negative has a very good effect on regenerating of human cells.in other words it is much better to live in the north emisphere than southern. the overwhelming effects of the sun rays(f.i.r.) are balanced by relaxing night effects of geomagnetic negative pole.i invite author to verify the gm maps. enrico rosati
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent for non-technical reading
Review: While it is difficult for me to give an very high rating for a book that doesn't present its source material well, I must say that this book presents a very compelling theory in a clear and concise way for laypersons such as myself. As an undergraduate five years ago studying the history of Africa, I pored over pages and pages of articles regarding the Bantu population expansion and came away with no clue of its significance. This book cleared that up in a matter of minutes. Anyone who has wondered why civilizations have had different paths of development should definitely read this book. Anyone foolish enough to think that genetic or racial factors were decisive had better read this book and then face the challenge of refuting its primary argument.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent easy to understand entry into modern anthropology.
Review: A great read,. This book provides some valuable insites into how and why societies are where they are today. Highly recommended to individuals who want to gain a deeper understanding of how various civilizations arose; and those who want to look beyond their traditional western and eurocentric history lessons.
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Summary: Valid ideas, well-presented
Review: Diamond takes on an extremely complicated topic that spans essentially all of human history and boils it down to some very basic premises. For example, he argues that Eurasia (i.e. Europe and Asia) enjoyed the advantage of the lion's share of the most desirable and domesticatable grains and large mammals. This advantage led to earlier agriculture, which led to denser populations, which led to more specialization, which led to better technology and organization, which led to societies better equipped to wage war and conquer their neighbors. Other reviewers, however, take Diamond to task. But is this premise really so darn controversial? The idea that the Fertile Crescent had a nice variety of native large-seeded, protein rich, perennial grains is not new. Heck, I learned as much in my History of Agriculture class as an undergrad (10 years ago). If you believe that Europe was somehow destined to rule the world because of some innate cultural and/or genetic superiority, this book is not for you. If you want wonderful insight into the biogeography of different regions of the earth, and how these differences contributed to differences in development, check out this book. I simply could not put it down.
Rating:
Summary: Great book
Review: Fascinating book. I think some of the below criticisms are not quite fair--this is not meant to be a scholarly book. It's much better, it's a scientific book written for the layman, a rare gem today. Is it somewhat PC? Yeah, but really, the book is so good overall that it's easy to overlook that. I personally think the author did an admirable job of looking at the human civilizations all across the globe rather than concentrating only on European civilizations, as lot of other books do. You can't really study human civilization without looking at non-Western cultures, since we must remember that Europe (and I'm not including Greece , Rome, and other meditteranean cultures that are clearly NOT Western European) has been at the periphery of civilization for most of human history. Overall the book is a monumental work, work that will surely change our understanding of human culture and civilizations.
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Summary: What a Great Book!
Review: A very compelling and readable (excepting the prologue) explanation of the major aspects of human development beyond the Hunter Gatherer stage. It happily completes the unholy trinity of: "The Selfish Gene", "The Moral Animal" and "Guns, Germs and Steel"
Rating:
Summary: Superb!
Review: Fascinating, illuminating, in-depth, very well argued, extremely convincing and usefull - best book I have read in years. One of a kind and surely difficult to beat.
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