Rating: 
Summary: A tour de force.
Review: An excellent book covering a lot of territory. Jared Diamond presents the material in a fascinating, readable fashion. His arguments are very well laid out, and he pays special attention to maintaining the unity of his argument. It also demonstrates brilliantly how rational thinking unravels a mystery.
Rating:
Summary: This is an accessible and anti-racist explanation of society
Review: Most explanations of why Western Europeans came to dominate the world range from subtly to disgustingly racist. Diamond's explanation is thoroughly based in material reality, not prejudice. By focusing on the connection between the level of technology achieved by a community and the social organization of that community, Diamond follows human development from the earliest, eglitarian societies to the modern, in his words "kleptocratic" societies of wars and inequality. The book is jammed full of research on every angle, from diet to language to ideology in the development of human society. The real strength of Guns, Germs, and Steel is it captures the dynamism of human history, refuting claims that violence between diffenent groups and societies at different levels of development was the only contact they ever had.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating, persuasive, and highly readable
Review: Besides putting forth a compelling thesis (as to the origins of the world's haves and have-nots), Diamond's book is full of interesting facts from a variety of academic fields. (Every night in bed I'd say, "Hey, Ellen, listen to this..." and share some obscure but fascinating tidbit from zoology, epidemiology, linguistics, geography, paleontology, etc.) Diamond's treatment is admittedly broad-brush, but highly insightful nonetheless. If it is "politically correct," that is because it also happens to be...correct.
Rating:
Summary: Required reading for everyone
Review: Diamond's book is a gem (no pun intended). It's clear, well-written and geared to the general reader. This is the first science book that I found to be a "page turner." This book rests on good science and a wonderful pulling together of different disciplines. Don't miss this book. It should be REQUIRED reading for every high school student and for all teachers.
Rating: 
Summary: Politically correct nonsense
Review: So Diamond tells us that some societies (i.e., European) advanced further than others (i.e., Native American, Asian, African,etc.) because they, the Europeans, became involved in farming sooner and thereby developed cohesive societies sooner. What's more these European societies also defeated other peoples by bringing diseases with them. I think Diamond, a physiologist. is out of his depth. Why did Britain conquer India? Indians were certainly more resistant to diseases in India. And during the Indian Mutiny they had rifles and cannon just like the outnumbered British. The Spanish conquistadors defeated the Aztecs and Incas from the very first contact, long before disease played any role. Agriculture began in Mesopotamia long before it began in Europe. The Mongols conquered China and half of Europe and they were a nomadic, non-agricultural people. African tribal societies had farming and domesticated animals for centuries before the Europeans arrived. I could go on. Diamond's book is full of holes. Whether we should discuss colonial conquest on a moral plane is another matter, but Europeans and by extension the United States achieved dominance through other reasons than just having the right plants and grasses.
Rating: 
Summary: Good, but should be shorter
Review: Mr. Diamond's cientific and field knowledge gives him the background needed to write a good book on a tough subject. The points he makes are reasonable and even if you do not agree with him, reading through his reasoning will improve your knowledge about evolution and how our world was shaped. Be preprared to get tired tough. The book is too long and topics are repeated many times. Mr. Diamond's book could be more enjoiable if he used 100 pages less in the book.
Rating:
Summary: Jared Diamond explains the world for you . . .
Review: Diamond's exhaustive but riveting work explains the core question of human history: Why did the Europeans end up running the world show while darker folks on other land masses seem to have been much less successful? According to Diamond's theories--solidly researched and fully plausible--the confluence of random factors of botany, zoology, and geography made the difference. Absolutely fascinating.
Rating:
Summary: The book is a tour de force. Superb.
Review: Jared Diamond beautifully explains the fundamentals of geography, geology and ecology that underlie historic inequality among the continents (and hence among the world's populations) by creating unequal opportunities and constraints. Why did Pizzaro conquer the Incas and Cortes the Aztecs -- but not the other way around? Why didn't Africa, humanity's cradle, make good on its apparent head start and become the dominant power in world affairs? As Diamond spells out, it all has to do with guns, germs and steel (and the dissemination of ideas, the distribution of large domesticable mammals, the prospects for food production, and many other forces). Anyone wanting insight into the world's fundamental inequalities need look no further than this marvelous volume.
Rating:
Summary: a great book, essential reading
Review: Guns, Germs and Steel is the most illuminating book I ever read, and the best you are likely to find this millenium. Diamond shines his light on that dark little corner in all of us where we keep hidden the secret belief that, in spite of everything, and our best intentions, white European people really are smarter and better than everyone else. We hate racism, and being racist even worse, but the evidence is there, before our eyes, obvious and unarguable. White western Europeans had the first big agriculture, then crafts, villages towns and cities and nation states and big armies. Europeans invented everything, did all the best science and discoveries and art, and built the first big industries. And finally got the power and weapons to go forth and conquer and subdue the whole earth. So isn't it obvious? Well no, as a matter of fact it is not, and Jared Diamond is here to explain how it really happened, and why European "superiority" is another one of those obvious, common sense, self evident "truths" that turns out to be as phony as the flat earth or geocentrism. To read this book, and to be free at last from this crippling old myth is exhilerating. After you read it- and you really must- the world will never be the same place it was before. And we can really be one people after all, just the way we always wanted to be.
Rating:
Summary: Brillant, broad analysis
Review: I was blown away by this book. It sets out to explain a question which has always intrigued me: why did some civilizations become more advanced than others, and come to dominate them? Jared Diamond makes a compelling set of arguments, much like in his other book "The Third Chimpanzee". A definite must-read.
|
