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Summary: Civilization Revisited
Review: For an amateur evolutionary anthropologist I found the book a fascinating, multi-faceted, and generally readable story of the evolution of civilization since the last ice age. Diamond takes us from nomadic hunter-gatherers who were fortunately situated by climate and geography to find domesticated plants and animals to the birth of fixed farming communities. The latter needed organization, bureaucracy, political systems, and language, as well as an army to defend their territory and expand into neighboring ones. He demonstrates which of the wild plants were most readily domesticated (wheat, barley, millet, sorghum) and which animals contributed to the protein diet and transportation (sheep, goats, cows, pigs, horses,dogs). He also makes logical arguments as to why other animals were not domesticable. Interestingly, most of the domesticated animals are herbivores. Because of the roughly 10% efficiency of conversion of food (either meat or vegetation) to weight, the carnivores must consume 10 times their weight in their prey of herbivores, which must therefore consume 10 times their weight in vegetation; it is thus much more efficient for man to eliminate carnivores - the middle man - as their primary diet. Of course, most of the carnivores are also more dangerous and not easily captured. But this is a sidebar to the story. With this as a point of departure, Diamond traces the evolution and trajectories of societies around the world - starting with the Fertile Crescent in the middle east about 12000 B.C. - in a suitable climate (much later decayed to deserts by deforestation and overgrazing). And progressing first to Austronasian, (China) to Polynesia, New Guinea, and Australia and somewhat later to Greece and western Europe. The diffusion of farming, animals, language, and technology (including the wheel), moved readily in both directions across the Euro-Asian continents - which extends east-west without many ecological or geographical barriers. This compares to the slow diffusion of corresponding features in the western hemisphere where plants and animals (llama and alpaca in South America) never made it across the vast climatic and geographical barriers into North America. It is surprising that corn domesticated in Mexico took a few millenia to make it to native Americans in eastern U.S. And the wheel - used on Mexican toys - took several millennia to develop in the western hemisphere much after they had become operating transportation systems in the middle east. With the development of ocean going ships (which had been abandoned by the Chinese for political reasons) we approach recorded history - with the Norse arrivals in Greenland (which did not last), and the Spanish conquests of the Incas in Peru (with a few hundred horse-mounted troops with weapons), and the Aztecs in Mexico. Having brought "civilization" to the new world, they then devastated the natives with weapons and disease. Diamond presents this "history" as hypotheses in need of further elaboration rather than as dogma. The story is made more fascinating by the anthropological tools (carbon dating), the garbage left by primitive tribes and communities, pottery, language, and technology, which make sense of the geographical dispersion of peoples and their cultural evolution. Diamond's book is repetitive and plodding in places, but the reader will be well rewarded by pursuing this fascinating story, which ends with a question as to what the future holds for civilization.
Rating: 
Summary: Great book; will get you thinking
Review: Guns, Germs and Steel studies human history with a geographical and biological approach that is both refreshing and informative. It answers some very important questions and provides an introduction to the phenomena of plant and animal domestication that (after reading it) seems essential to understanding human history. I wish I'd read it in high school! On the down side, the book is at times repetitive and has too few maps.
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Summary: Sencillamente fascinante
Review: Cuando empece a leerlo, no dejaba de sorprenderme por la obviedad de algunos de sus postulados, en los que sin embargo, nunca me habia detenido a pensar, y es exactamente eso lo que este señor hacer DETENERSE A PENSAR. Es admirable su capacidad de analisis y la vastedad de sus conocimientos. Aprendi mucho con este libro y la riqueza de temas tratados desperto mi interes en otras areas del saber. Lo recomiendo ampliamente.
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Summary: Original and thorough
Review: In "Guns, Germ and Steel", Jared Diamond presents the rather simple thesis that the rise of complex societies has been influenced primarily be geography. I say "rather simple", because the author goes to great lengths to prove it. There is actually nothing simple about his argument, as geography encompasses climate, suitability for agriculture, native fauna, natural resources, etc. Furthermore, he needs to revise his argument for North and South America, Australia, Africa and much of Asia, to account for different variables in each locale. Finally, after laying out and backing up his thesis, he applies it to a walk through of modern history, and identifies why Europeans were so successful in dominating the rest of the globe. He is no apologist for brutality and slavery, but he correctly points out that the diseases the Europeans brought with them were the overwhelming cause of death and defeat for indigenous cultures around the world. In turn, these diseases were the result of the urban lifestyle Europeans had. A lifestyle supported by easily farmed grains and domesticated animals. Of course, it's all much more complicated than that, and Diamond does a superb job of walking the reader through his thesis in well written, easy to digest chapters. A background in evolution, biology or sociology will certainly enhance the readers understanding/enjoyment but it is by no means necessary. My only complaint about this work is that Diamond tends to belabor points long after his case is made. A zeal for thoroughness, however, is a small complaint about an otherwise excellent work.
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Summary: JUST LET ME SAY THIS ...
Review: ... it was fun and educational to read. The fact that most were never taught world history the way it should have been taught had me anticipating each chapter to come. It sort of bogged down for me here and there, but not enough to lose interest. His observations/theories on the rise of civilizations were pretty much on target but seem to peter out after contact with the new world. He also avoided(?) many ancient civilizations that would probably have acted as a monkey wrench thrown into the gears of his theoretical works. Also, another item in which I think should have been given equal space to were the political/religious decisions that most likely had very serious progressive/regressive results ( he used China as one of the examples and I have a few of my own). At the end Diamond acknowledges this point very very briefly, and I'm sure it is because it could have made all the effort of writing this book in the 1st place look like a total waste. Can't blame him for that, but it forces me to hold back on 1 star. Still, more than worth the time and education to be had. I recommend it.
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Summary: Geography Determines Your Destiny
Review: Book Review of Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel by Joylyn Stover As a second year student at Olivet College in Michigan, I was given the opportunity to incorporate Guns, Germs, and Steel into my Civilization Studies course. I chose this book because I wanted to see history from a new perspective, focusing more on the science aspects. As part of the course requirements, I am posting my critical analysis of his book and how it affected me as a student. Jared Diamond certainly has an interesting take on the history of the early civilizations. Throughout his book, he attempts to explain the rise and fall of civilizations through a non racist look. He explains how agriculture, domesticating animals and natural resources affected the destiny of the early civilizations. His overall thesis states that it was geography that gave civilizations an advantage for survival. This is a convincing claim, yet how true and believable is it? Diamond successfully explains several aspects that lead to the powerful, dominating societies we see today. One of those is the transition from hunter gatherers to that of farmers. Once a society began producing surpluses of food, families grew larger and homes were established. Property lines were distinguished and laws came into play. Occupational positions outside of agriculture were necessary and were sustained through the excess of food produced on the farms. This also led to the advancements in technology. Weaponry and exploration by sea became more important trades with the help of agriculture sustenance. This inevitably led to an explosion of wars and the conquering of less technologically advanced societies. Although many societies lived in areas that did not lend itself to be farmed. Many geographic features hindered societies from this advancement such as the Arctic or desert regions. In such a case as the Aborigines, the land was incapable of sustaining sufficient plant life to support a growing community. In this situation, the Aborigines were forced to continue living in a hunter and gatherer society. The consequences of this outcome is evident when Diamond analyzes the Aborigines' way of life which is similar to that of hunter gatherers a thousand years ago. They continue living without the extra “cargo” that many of the developed nations have. Diamond makes an unfortunate statement that “hunter gatherers met one of two fates: either they were displaced by neighboring food producers, or else they survived only by adopting food production themselves.” Typically this is what happened to many of the communities. They often were low in population and were inexperienced with weaponry and organized defense and lost their battles with neighboring societies. Throughout the book, he supports his theories with intelligent and reasonable evidence that makes his claims believed wholeheartedly. Unfortunately, he disregards other influences on society growth and advancement such as religion, culture and general human decisions. Does this mean that if the Aborigines had geographic conditions that allowed for the domesticating of plants and animals and an agriculture surplus they would have dominated as a society? Diamond fails to include other influential factors that disagree with his theory of geographic determination. Jared Diamond’s book is effective in that he looks at history from many diverse angles. He dissects issues of agriculture, animal domestication, disease, language development and most of all geography and the role they played in the success of the early civilizations. His take on history is easily understood and explains to a great extent how and why some civilizations managed to grow and prosper at the rate they did. Unfortunately Diamond’s one major flaw was his inability to omit the redundant information resulting with several dead chapters. This includes the monotonous chapters about food production and the domestication of plants and animals. In my opinion, these chapters were space fillers for the book. Most of the information could have been edited to a few pages rather than reiterating the same ideas and concepts as if his readers were mindless.... I believe Diamond lost sight of who his audience was and fell to a lower level of writing. Often I struggled to finish the aseptic pages of redundant information. Yet, this complaint only applies to the few chapters I stated above. Generally I was adequately satisfied with his book. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in anthropology or who would like to study history from a non-traditional point of view. I thoroughly enjoyed the chapter discussing the evolution of germs, and recommend you at least read that chapter if you choose not to read the book at all. In my perspective, this was especially intriguing because of my science based interests. I encourage those with patience and an open mind to read this book. I believe there is much truth in Diamond’s theories.
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Summary: Although it has some flaws, it¿ll make for great dinner conv
Review: I have two boys, ages 9 and 15. Although neither of them wanted to read Guns, Germs, and Steel, my reading of it has led to some interesting conversations in our family. The book gives a good background to history in many parts of the world that I was not as familiar with as I should have been. As I've read the book, I've summarized his claims for my kids. It has led us to good discussions about the people that we have replaced on this continent, to question the concepts of race and intelligence, and to wonder just how white Europeans, who could certainly be savage and stupid themselves, came to conquer most of the world. Although I think that many of the author's claims are a bit too strong, it is still a thought-provoking book.For a more complete review of the book, I'd have to agree with the weaknesses mentioned by Christopher Smith in a review on this website posted on Jan. 24, 2001.
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Summary: One star for scientific treatment, five for Liberal Science
Review: I define "liberal science" as the prostitution of science to the service of political bias. Diamond's book is the most edifying example I've found to date of this form of junk science. Diamond crafts a tight argument by what he doesn't include as well as by what he packs into 500 pages. He picks and chooses carefully among disciplines only for data that supports his premise: that Earth's varied environment had, over millenia, privleged whites and asians, but left all others holding dead tickets. He goes to great pains to emphasize that environment had no evolutionary impact on intelligence (his underlying theme) and "proves" it with the most specious arm-waving anecdote imaginable. He doesn't return to this subject after that, and crucially,he ignores psychometric science entirely. He must. He ends many of his chapters with a self-congratulatory florish on how they explode "white racist's" beliefs. (In this book, a racist is anyone who believes that environment may have had an effect on the evolutionary rate of intelligence increase.) Diamond struts out geographic determinism as the sole cause for the way world history turned out-a bare-faced crime against open-minded science. But it is his masterful manipulation of data from disperate sources that has given his book so many positive reviews. I have been convinced by his argument that geography has a hand in the development of civilization. But he demands that you believe it is the only hand: that 50,000 years in northern climes only gave W&A better farm products but imposed exactly the same evolutionary pressure on the traits called intelligence and temperment as did the tropics, even though color and bone structure diverged; that civilization, itself a radically new environment we've been undergoing seletion in for 300 generations, hasn't placed even a smidgen of differing selection pressure on intelligence and temperment than did the forest. And if the reader doesn't swallow these remarkable coincidences,so amply supported by Diamond's adroitly culled data, this book, not too subtly, calls him a racist. This book is well worth a careful read. From it one can learn many fascinating points from prehistory-I loved the explanation of the origin of the Samoans (but why was Diamond so lenient on them for destroying his favorite people-the New Guinea negritics). But remember that Diamond is on a political mission, and he is selectively using his extensive scientific background to make you believe that half of the story is the whole story. What is needed, after this book, is a for a real scientist to write a critique pointing out all the data, the literature, the disciplines that Diamond saw fit to ignore in his quest for the Liberal grail.
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Summary: An excellent synthesis of ecology with history
Review: This wonderful book will be remembered as one of the most important books of the 1990's, and perhaps, the entire 20th Century. Distinguished ecologist and physiologist Jared Diamond presents a novel synthesis of ecology with history; one which should be required reading for all historians. Without a doubt, "Guns, Germs and Steel" offers a unique perspective on the rise of Western civilization. Diamond urges historians to pay more attention as to how humanity's interactions with its local ecologies have shaped the course of history, offering persuasive evidence that Western Civilization's success is an accident due to its origins in the Near East's Fertile Crescent, which had a rich assemblage of animals and plants that were easy to domesticate. Other regions in the Americas and Asia were considerably poorer with regards to potentially domesticated animals and plants than the Fertile Crescent. He notes how the spread of the Fertile Crescent's domesticated animals across the globe, along with their associated diseases, made Western civilization's economic and political success almost inevitable. Much to his credit, Diamond concludes by offering suggestions as to how his elegant hypothesis can be tested by historians as well as scientists. He makes his compelling case with vivid, often eloquent, prose. This is one magnificent tome truly worthy of all the honors and awards it has earned so far.
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Summary: If you only read one pop-science book this year.....
Review: ......make it this one. Some pop-science books are deathly dull, others make you scratch your head in puzzlement, good ones educate - teaching you things you never knew. Occasionally, as in this instance, you read a book and you feel like an instant genius. Taking a step back from the trees of history - such as wars, dates, conquerors, laws, treaties etc etc, Diamond goes for the big picture and captures the wood. What is it about human development in the last thirteen thousand years that has put us here today ? In a nutshell, argues Diamond, geography. Taking the reader from an Africa with little prospect of development due to inhibiting factors such as tropical disease belts, lack of rivers and animals that have evolved alonside humans and are wary of them and thus not domesticable, into the middle-east where animals that have never met humans were tamable and there were wild plants suitable for the development of sophisticated agriculture and from there with this "package" of benefits how man colonised everywhere else. Here, running into a geographical dead-end, there finding room to thrive flourish and develop complex technological societies. Diamond has less sat down and hammered out a new knowledge of history, rather by adopting a new viewpoint he has more thrown hidden patterns into sharp relief. This book is a literal revelation and is sure to fire enthusiasm for further research into this area. Like I say at the top, if you read pop science make this your one must read this year and if you don't then, heck, you should as you don't know what you're missing.
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