Rating: 
Summary: Superior! My entire social science education is reframed
Review: This is possibly the best 'big picture' book of human history ever, and one of the few books i'll give 5 stars. Diamond sets out to understand why it was Europeans who became the dominant force in human history, and makes a thrilling case for a sort of geographical/biological determinism based on the superior mutability of grains and livestock available to them. My 16 years of social studies and geography classes was suddenly converted into pale, false, useless colors; it all could have been captured better by just reading this book. 'GGS' is definitely repititive, overly long, and will certainly cause endless arguments among the philosopher kings about this and that, how it is racist, nationalist, blah blah. At the end of the day debates about this book are the modern equivalent of earlier popular debates: does geology exist? does evolution exist? is women's suffrage the right thing to do? hmmmm... not so hard to answer those in retrospect, nor mr diamonds excellent points in GGS.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Book But Be Prepared!
Review: This book is everything the book-jacket reviewers(a group not selected for their negative impressions)say it is: important and fascinating. I was intrigued and educated and am glad I read it.I only learned of the book because it was this month's assignment for our book club. Unfortunately, several of our members did not finish it, because they early on became bogged down in redundancies, repetition and endless enumerations and textbook-like lists. And there was a whole lot more about New Guinea than most of us need or want to know. I have convinced the non-finishers to give it another chance. Read every third paragraph or so if you must, or concentrate on the last two sections, resting assured that Professor Diamond has pretty well proved his assumptions of what are termed "ultimate causes." I really recommended this book to the lay reader (like me) because of what it has to say, not because it is particularly well-written. Give it try.
Rating:
Summary: One of the greatest books ever written.
Review: Jared Diamond has out done himself this time. The far-reaching magnitude of this book has implications that will affect us politically, culturally, and economically for decades and possibly centuries to come. Diamond is a humble genius with immense insight and understanding of the human world. The so-called great minds and great works of humanity (including religous works) do not come close to matching Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel.
Rating: 
Summary: Ideology left out
Review: The main problem about this book is that it totally ignores discussing ideology; the western domination of the world is relatively new but the domination of religious and ideological powers is a fairly old concept. I would argue that as the arabs conccured a fair part of the world to spread Islam, the romans did the same to spread "Great Rome" and the Western Christians did the same to spread christianity in the middle ages and "whatever imperialistic ideas they come up with" in modern history. It must be obvious to anybody that world domination is a result of a "relatively advanced" civilization implicitly needing more resources and explicitly advocating a religion or an ideology. This role has been played by several world powers in the last 2500 years and taking current western domination as an epilogue to history is a naiive approach. The fact that civilizations in the old world were dominant needs no explanation; it is enough to do some analysis of resources and geography to understand why but it takes eternity to understand why the natural evolution of an advanced civilization is to seek domination of the other. I will argue that it could have been the chinese who dominated the world if their religious belief had a notion of missionaries, one that is only found in Christianity and Islam. This also applies to capitalism for instance whereby according to western though "the whole world needs to engage in free trade in order to have democracy and freedom", total none-sense if you ask me... Read Jean Baudlliard, "The Transparency of Evil" to get a phylosophical insight into the issue.
Rating:
Summary: An Interesting Observation
Review: The previous reviews have amply summarized, evaluated and (most
appropriately) lauded "Guns, Germs, and Steel. I would just like to make a little observation. When Diamond says that the kind of subsistence permitted by the environment in primitive times was an ultimate social, economic
and political determining factor, he comes strikingly close to
an old Marxist theory: the structure of a society is determined
by the natural resources available to it. It is astonishing that
there should be such a rapprochement of ideas between Messrs.
Diamond and Marx, two gentlemen so vastly removed from each
other in time and ideological mindset.
Rating:
Summary: Superb attempt to explain history
Review: Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond is a superb attempt to explain the fortunes of human history. His central thesis is that the current Western-European domination of the world is not a product of superior intelligence, but of an accident of geography. Namely the Europeans were the beneficiaries of superior access to wild plants that could be utilized for food production, wild animals that could be domesticated and the absence of physical barriers permitted the transfer of technology and plants and animals from the "Fertile Crescent," where farming was founded, to Europe. The end result was that Europeans developed agricultural societies quicker than Mesoamericans, Africans and other societies. This led to larger, more dense societies with written languages, an increased resistence to germs, technological innovations and access to large beasts of burden that could be used for farming and warfare. When the Spanish met the Incas the above advantages allowed less than 200 Spaniards to subdue an immense Inca Army. Diamond's theory is more than plausible and well argued. Especially important is the effect of germs on the outcome of the confrontation as well as the latter ones between Europeans and most other of the worlds cultures. At times germs, such as smallpox, effectively wiped out whole civilizations without the necessity of a single military confrontation. The demise of the developed Native American civilizations in the Mississippi valley is a prime example. Contrary to other reviews, Diamond does not seek to use geographic determinism as an explanation for every cultural development. As an example he readily admits that there are other important factors when considering a confrontation of two cultures with similar geographic advantages. His explanation of why Europeans and not the Chinese colonized North America is an example. His subscribes the failure of Chinese to complete the task not to food production, germs, or the lack of available technology, but to the 15th Century political process that China operated under. The European system encouraged innovation as a result of numerous power centers where ideas that one center dismissed could be accepted by others. Columbus' rejection by numerous parties before the Spanish agreed to finance his expedition is the classic example. On the other hand, China had centralized political system so when a decision was made to stop exploration and destroy the navy there was no other place to go. The book is well written and while repetitious at times it is an easy read. If one wants to attempt to understand human history this book is a must read.
Rating: 
Summary: wordy, wordy, wordy
Review: The book is tedious, full of extra words, and asks the reader to many questions which makes the writer sound condescending.
Rating:
Summary: Re-thinking world history
Review: Interesting new perspective of human history, full of evidence and based on strong arguments. I would highly recomend it to people working in agriculture and research. Its only problem is: too many repetitions about the main points. I can understand long before the repetition number 100, as most people do. (Don't worry anymore Mr. Diamond, we got your points). Besides that style issue, this book will always have a special place in my collection, considering it a must read for anyone interested in world history. Enjoy it!
Rating:
Summary: A brilliant and engrossing book
Review: Why are some civilizations more powerful and "advanced" than others? Seeking a non-racist explanation, "Guns, Germs, and Steel" author Jared Diamond wrote this book. He looks at when different continents were populated. (For example, there were humans in Africa and Europe long before there were humans in Australia.) He looks at the kinds of flora and fauna native to each continent; some spots, he found, had far fewer domesticable plants and animals. He looks at how geographical barriers kept some inventions and ideas from spreading to other areas. There are many charts, graphs and maps that helpfully illustrate his concepts. I would have preferred more photos, as I like to see the people and places I'm reading about. Diamond's writing is generally quite lively and engrossing. There are, however, a few dry spots. Overall, history and sociology buffs will enjoy this book immensely.
Rating:
Summary: Thought it would never end!
Review: This book would have benefitted greatly from slash and burn editing. It started with such promise. The chapter on Pizarro's conquest of the Incas was fascinating. It was pretty easy reading. The summary of the beginnings of agriculture and animal domestication, with references to landscape and climate, were also interesting. I felt like a lot of the rest of the book was beating us over the head with repeats of the same information. How many times do we need to be told that the Chinese invented the wheelbarrow or that Mesoamerica had the wheel but didn't use it for transportation? I feel the pain of professors who assign a page limit on papers and have to wade through filler students use to pad them out to the required page limit. My faith in the granters of the Pulitzer prize was shaken.
| 
