Rating: 
Summary: Political Correctness Run Amok
Review: Jared Diamond spent both the paperback preface and the intro to the hardback, spouting the politically correct dogma that he, as an historian and not a paleontologist, is enslaved to. He easily takes to flights of fancy on scant information that lead to the conclusion that primitive societies are actually more intelligent than developed Western societies. But whenever evidence is presented to the contrary, it is always regarded as racist, inaccurate, or placed into the context of "what indeed is intelligence" or the flaws of IQ tests.His paleontological data, especially on the origins of homo erectus migrations and the population of the Americas, is 10 years old and is selected from the politically correct blessed database, not from the scientific record. Of course he is but an historian and Historians exist to re-write history, so what else should we expect? On a micro level however, JD hits on some irrefutable aspects of human societal development. First the fact that a stronger society will seek to exterminate a lesser one, and the unpopular notion that man, exemplefied by the extermination of 29 species of anminal over 100 pound in weight in a period of 1000 years that coincided with the migration of mongoloid Indians into the Americas, has been the progeneitor of the majority of extinctions of animalia over the last 13,000 years.
Rating: 
Summary: An interesting study, with many flaws
Review: Prof. Diamond has produced a fluently-written account of a popular theory -- that contemporary differences in human cultures and societies are the result solely of starting conditions with respect to geography and environment. However, the book holds numerous flaws. There can be no doubt that Prof. Diamond is the master of a vast amount of data, biological and historical, and he marshals those data to good effect in support of his theories. However, there are many troubling omissions and contradictions contained in the book, which indicate that either there are important holes in Prof. Diamond's knowledge, or that he has been somewhat too selective in his use of data. For example, in discussing the native cereals available to various local groups for purposes of cultivation, he consistently speaks as if corn were the only grain available in Mesoamerica for domestication, and, indeed, that it was the only grain so domesticated. In fact, amaranth was also available, and domesticated. It further lacks many of the deficiencies which Diamond asserts made corn an imperfect domesticate. His failure to deal with this contradictory fact calls his more general arguments into question. Diamond also ignores facts which are uncomfortable or unexplainable under the terms of his theory. For example, he points out that certain grasses native to the Eastern U.S. produce "dream" grains -- the example he offers is sumpweed. Yet the reason he offers that it was not domesticated is weak; it causes hay-fever, and has an objectionable smell. As Diamond should be aware, the question of whether a smell is objectionable is often culturally determined, as are many aesthetic notions. So the fact that we may find it objectionable now does not mean that contemporary consumers of it did, and does not explain why they failed fully to domesticate it. He also offers that other grains had seeds that were too small; but at the same time offers the example of corn being engineered over many years from teosinte, which had even more drawbacks. Why could these plants not have been bred for larger seeds, over time? Why did mesoamericans engineer corn in this way, while north-eastern inhabitants failed to do the same with the plants available to them? He argues that the fact that eastern US farmers abandoned their own crops when offered mesoamerican replacements indicates they were less worthwhile; but all that proves is that the mesoamericans had done a better job of engineering their crops for human consumption, not that those crops were better. Diamond also fails to provide an answer to the question of why mesoamericans failed to adopt the wheel. While arguing that the lack of large draft animals made their use unlikely, he acknowledges that the wheel was, in fact, first used as an adjunct to human labor, in the form of wheelbarrows. The reader is left to wonder why mesoamericans failed to adopt this practical use for the wheel, while leaving them on toys. The book is irksome in its continual reliance on loose arguments, consistently indicated by the use of such terms as "surely", "clearly" or "it must therefore follow," etc. Those words indicate a weakness of proof, not clarity of proof, and encourage the reader to disagree with his conclusions. The book needs a good edit. Finally, Prof. Diamond proves too little. It is unsurprising, and probably not subject to serious debate, that the earlier occupation of the old world by humans means those societies would have a head start over societies arising on a continent populated only tens of thousands of years later. Furthermore, it is intuitively acceptable that isolated societies (such as his precious New Guinea) are less likely to innovate, based on a lack of intellectual cross-currents and the inability to take advantage of new discoveries. But his book cannot explain the peculiar phenomenon of the rise of the West. His geographical and environmental advantages are spread over the whole Eurasian continent, from Spain to China, and are centered in the Fertile Crescent, and these areas have indubitably been linked by trade and war for millenia. Why, then, was America not colonized by Chinese explorers? Why was China invaded by Europeans during the eighteenth centuries and forward, and not the reverse. The fertile crescent was indeed the center of civilization for many years, while Europe was a back-water suffering invasion until the mid-seventeenth century. Why was that trend reversed so suddenly and dramatically, so that by the nineteenth century Britain, France and Russia could vie for protectorates from Palestine east to Indochina? The answer, I would argue, is that the Industrial Revolution occurred in Europe -- indeed it began at the very time that China, the giant in terms of industrial production at the time, was turning in on itself. Why, then, did the IR, which is what made possible the enormous European expansion of the 18-19 centuries, occur in Europe and not China, Safavid Persia or the Ottoman Empire? That is the key question which Diamond's book leaves unanswered, and which, I believe, cannot be answered based on geography and climate alone. Better technological innovation is said to be a product of larger population sizes and densities; thus Eurasia's population is compared with Australia's to in support of that theory. But why did densely populated China fall behind in technological innovation versus the less crowded, less populated countries of Europe from about 1500 on? So, while this is an interesting book, full of valuable tid-bits of information, it fails because the facts offered to support the theories are inconsistent and incomplete and because it ultmately fails to do what its author set out to do -- explain the rise to predominance of one set of cultures or civilizations over all others. Ultimately, it appears more as an opportunity for Prof. Diamond to show off his extensive knowledge than the marshalling of that knowledge in service of a larger argument
Rating: 
Summary: brilliant, but culture does matter
Review: This is a work of power and genius. The writing is dazzling, the thinking incisive, well, perhaps a tad less incisive the closer it gets to the modern world. Diamond notwithstanding, culture does matter. The more complex civilization has become, the more culture seems to matter. Also forms of government, of course. Bad or authoritarian government can drive a prosperous nation into backwardness (look at how Hungary, once an industrial powerhouse, sank once it was locked behind the Iron Curtain) and certainly it is difficult to turn to any explanation other than culture for explaining, say, the different trajectories of varying ethnic groups after emigration to the United States. Fortunately, we are not without books on this subject that are as good as what Diamond gives us on the neolithic revolution and its consequences. Interested readers might take up CULTURE MATTERS a collection of scholarly studies of the influence of cultrual attitudes on economic development. Or BULLOUGH'S POND, a brilliantly written book that looks at the history of a region where culture does, indeed, seem to have mattered intensely. Or THE GREAT DIVERGENCE, in which Kenneth Pomeranz set out to prove that the great leap into sustained growth might have been made by China as easily as by Europe, and succeeded only in convincing me that the cultural differneces between China and the West may not have meant that the West was 'superior' in any absolute sense, but did militate toward an industrial revolution happening in England, not the Yangzi Delta.
Rating: 
Summary: A completely different perspective
Review: This is not the usual non-fiction books that I read; I was captivated by his thesis. Although at times the book was too in-depth, the overall perspective on food production was absolutely fascinating. The book really makes you think about the evolution of societies and the role of the guns, germs, and steel.
Rating:
Summary: An Entertaining But Superficial & MIsleading Work!
Review: This book provides graphic illustration why academics write outside their field of expertise at their own peril. Of course, while one could argue persuasively that Jared Diamond has done so quite well, given the fact the book has become an overwhelming best-seller, some of us old enough to recognize that public success and popular recognition do not necessarily equal objective merit could poke a large number of painful holes in such an argument. There is precious little that is new, startling, or noteworthy about Diamond's thesis; indeed much of it has been argued by a number of historians for generations. The only real contribution I see in all this long-winded narrative is that he has succeeded in catching the elusive kernel of public imagination about the issues of history in general, and that is truly an admirable and noteworthy achievement. Other than that, the book is actually quite pedestrian, predictable, and prosaic. Of course geography is an essential factor in determining any society's potential for survival and/or success in competition with other societies. Having natural and easy access to the sea and all its products, for example, can lessen the otherwise considerable load on the populace for hunting, food gathering, and other requirements for the society's continued subsistence. Likewise, more temperate climates (neither too hot nor too frigid) give a substantial natural advantage to human societies intent on expansion, trade, and war. Yet, while such geographic factors are salient and helpful, they provide critical but insufficient means to explain human history. This is as true of the other factors he argues on behalf. To argue on behalf of demographics as an essential ingredient in the unfolding of human history is a commonplace. To do so is neither profound nor useful. Instead, it is the mark of an idiographic academic so insulated from and evidently ignorant of the established verities and scholarship of another discipline that he is unable to recognize his own logical errors. Here too it is highly reductionistic to suppose that demography plays a central role in the unfolding of history any more than does geography. In anticipation of the next idea, let me hastily add that the same is obviously true for biology. To argue otherwise is make Herr Hitler's fascist argument on behalf of racial eugenics and a super race. Gee, I thought all that nonsense about racial purity and destiny ended in the smoke and ruins of post-war Berlin. In essence, the author's painfully stated "logical" theories of 'guns, germs and steel' are actually anything but logical, and are more likely merely graphic instances of biological reductionism, which attempt to oversimplify the actual verifiable recorded complexities of history over with the faint pastels of more consistent, coherent, and centrist notions of a theoretical academic. Were he better grounded in world history and less anxious to take us on a quick and global tour, he might find that beneath those clear deep waters he has sailed over so quickly are the murky and muddy truths of actual history, which is nowhere near as consistent or as singularly pointed in a particular progressive direction as he would have us believe. This book is entertaining, well written, and easy to read. If you bother to read it, do it for those reasons, and not for edification. In my opinion it falls far too short in that dimension to be useful or believable.
Rating:
Summary: Captivating, Flawed Scientific Review of Human Prehistory
Review: Once in a while a book comes along compelling enough to bring mind altering new perspectives, spark extended contemplation, and arouse fresh interest in overlooked fields of study. This is one of those books. In Guns, Germs, and Steel Diamond investigates human prehistory from a scientific perspective drawing on numerous disciplines to develop a hypothesis that the globally unbalanced rise of civilization and technology was primarily a function of advantageous environmental conditions and resources available to those societies where civilization arose. Though the present landscape may suggest that early societies were on a relatively equal environmental playing field, Diamond's scientific review of the evidence indicates convincingly otherwise. A particularly persuasive point in the book argues that environmental conditions amenable to agriculture (mild climate, indigenous protein-rich plants, and large indigenous domestication-ready animals) facilitated a food surplus and consequently denser populations with surplus time for some members of the society to take on trades, invent, engineer, lead, develop government, heal, build, paint, etc. Innovations then fuelled more surplus time perpetuating a tornado of advancement, sparked in large part by the proverbial flapping butterfly wings of agriculture. Diamond's book challenged my fractured knowledge of human prehistory leaving worldview shattering ideas in its wake. His book also sparked my renewed interest in geography, anthropology, archaeology, weather, and geology among others. The book's fusion of the scientific method with the study of history was quite potent and refreshing, though at times overly reductionist. As such, less scientifically reducible elements like culture and religion are not considered within his hypothesis. At times the book did seem to forgo scientific rigor for political correctness. For example, though Diamond relies on numerous examples of relatively recent non-human elements of natural selection and genetics to build his case, he is unwilling to discuss the potential role of human biological variation created by our settling contrasting environments. Considering modern humans resided and/or began migrating to new and varied lands over 100,000 years ago, there seems sufficient time for some physiological variations to develop that may be relevant to Diamond's case. Unfortunately for this reader, anticipating a compelling argument either way, Diamond just states that environment-induced genetic variations are irrelevant to societal development (and "loathsome" to even think about) as if it were a self-evident axiom. Curiously, he challenges this axiom himself by postulating that the people of New Guinea are likely smarter than the average human considering the mental acuity necessary to survive in their harsh environment. Overall, besides some minor disappointments, this was a spectacular book and I highly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Well-argued and accessible, but not Pulitzer material
Review: Jared Diamond is no genius, but his argument is coherent, convincing, and timely. He brings scientific expertise and outside perspectives from the realms of botany, zoology, geography, and anthropology to the field of history. The theory of environmental determinism which he generally supports is nothing new, and many have elaborated on it before, but his global scope and willingness to reach back into prehistory for evidence is commendable. A very readable and important book, but with a mediocre writing style and a somewhat sloppy and unfocused structure, I don't believe it deserved the Pulitzer prize. Read it anyway if you have little background in history.
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Summary: History As Science
Review: If the Aborigines had originally inhabited Europe, and Caucasian Europeans had started their civilization in Australia would anything be different? Your average racist would say that Australia would have developed a great civilization while Europe would have remained a region of the world where people today would still be throwing spears about. Mr. Diamond explores the progress of humanity by scientifically studying the factors that permitted and encouraged the growth of complex societies. A society is where it is because of geographical factors, and not because of any variables of intelligence or physique. What are these factors? The answers are fascinating: Societies moved from hunter/gatherer types to farmers because they lived in areas where potential food crops grew, and where animals capable of being domesticated lived. Most of the world's food crops originated in the Fertile Crescent of the Mediterranean. Many areas of the world such as Australia and much of the United States had no original food crops. Could it be that some people were just too stupid to recognize a plant's potential? No. Amazingly almost all edible plants were domesticated thousands of years ago, as were our domesticated animals. Australia had no animals capable of being domesticated while horses, sheep, goats, and pigs originated in, and spread quickly through the Euro-Asian continent. We learn some interesting facts about food plant development. Many plants became food because of defective genes. The wild almond tree is poisonous, but some trees were found with defective cyanide producing genes. They were cultivated. Wild peas have a gene that causes the pea pod to explode when ripe, which would make harvesting impossible. Pea plants were found that lacked this "explosion" gene, and so today we eat peas. Societies with domestic animals developed diseases that originated in these animals. (Measles, tuberculosis, and smallpox come from cattle; influenza from pigs). Thus Europeans decimated the Incas and Native Americans by passing on these germs. Incas and Native Americans had no domesticated animals (only the llama in Peru), so they could not fight back with germs of their own. Mr. Diamond presents an immense amount of evidence to show that all peoples are intelligent, and that the development of large, organized societies hinges entirely on varied local natural resources, and being in locations where natural barriers (deserts, mountains, oceans) did not preclude the sharing of resources with others. This is a most impressive work that provides the reader with insight into why hunter/gatherer tribes live together on the same planet with highly complex technological nations.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent view of history that some may find a bit academic
Review: The author of this book does an excellent job of creating a unified story for the rise of human civilizations. I have never seen a more complete explanation of the differences between human civilizations and the reasons for their growth and expansion. The book's world focus and use of non western cultures adds to the impression that this book is about all of civilization. I recommended this book to several folks. Some found it a bit academic and detail oriented. That was a suprise because I found it to be a good story. But then I'm interested in some of the details covered. The title of this book is a bit misleading and probably reduces the number of people interested in it. The author should have come up with something more to the core of the story.
Rating:
Summary: A profound shift in outlook
Review: This book is not a rousing retelling of obscure battles. It is not a dry story of one person's effect on the time in which they inhabit. It is, clearest, freshest new perspective on world history I have ever read. It takes the view that cultural dominance has more to do with external forces, (climate, geography, raw materials, etc.) then do the pluck and skills of individual people. If you are familiar with the concepts of Darwin or those in Morris' 'The Naked Ape', you will find yourself on familiar ground. Otherwise, after reading this book, you will find yourself observing daily life through an entirely new perspective. Final Note: One of the other reviewers said this book has a "left wing" take on history. Hmmm, I suspect it says more about the perspective of the reviewer than it does the book. How the anthropological effects of geography relate to political perspective remain a mystery to me. Having seen Dr. Diamond be interviewed in a number of settings, I suspect he would be quite bemused with the categorization.
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