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3.83 AVERAGE
3.83 AVERAGE
Jared Diamond discusses world history with a geographic determinism perspective. The thesis is that Europeans "superiority" as of now resulted from geographic privilege from thousands of years ago. Diamond lays out his points with a multidisciplinary approach—ranging from geography, biological evolution, to ecology. This is the first world history book I read and I'm glad that Diamond debunks the racist views that white supremacy holds with such solid arguments.
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
Another great book in the “broad patterns of human history” genre. And it only took me four times of checking it out from the library!
Surprisingly, relatively little of the book’s content actually related to guns, germs, or steel. Rather, it looks at the underlying causes that led to Europeans having advantages in those three areas at the time where continents collided — notably as it relates to food production.
Having read Sapiens relatively recently, I was afraid that this book would be insufficiently different to warrant the read, and I am pleased to say that this was not the case. Where Sapiens is ~strictly a social scientific book, Guns, Germs, and Steel takes a more natural science view of long-term human history and mixes in archaeology, anthropology, linguistics, and the like. Who knew that a discussion of relative seed sizes among domesticable plants could be so interesting?!
Like most books of its length, it could have stood to be shorter, but it is far from the most egregious example of this (cough Thinking, Fast and Slow cough). In particular, the last few chapters on the history of each continent were mostly repetitive of the ideas earlier in the book. I appreciated having each history laid out in a succinct narrative but the point could’ve been made in fewer words given the many preceding chapters.
I think it could use an update; I listened to the audiobook, and from what I can tell, nothing had been changed from the original 1997 edition. I would love to see a revised edition with updated language (we don’t say “Eskimos” anymore) and discussion around more recent research (pre-Clovis peoples in North America, for example; also, this is minor, but I’m pretty sure that the inefficiency of the QWERTY keyboard is a myth that has been debunked).
That said, I am thrilled that I finally spent the ~15 hours that it took to get through this thing, after so many years of hearing about it.
Easily five stars for the quality of the research, despite a few qualms.
Surprisingly, relatively little of the book’s content actually related to guns, germs, or steel. Rather, it looks at the underlying causes that led to Europeans having advantages in those three areas at the time where continents collided — notably as it relates to food production.
Having read Sapiens relatively recently, I was afraid that this book would be insufficiently different to warrant the read, and I am pleased to say that this was not the case. Where Sapiens is ~strictly a social scientific book, Guns, Germs, and Steel takes a more natural science view of long-term human history and mixes in archaeology, anthropology, linguistics, and the like. Who knew that a discussion of relative seed sizes among domesticable plants could be so interesting?!
Like most books of its length, it could have stood to be shorter, but it is far from the most egregious example of this (cough Thinking, Fast and Slow cough). In particular, the last few chapters on the history of each continent were mostly repetitive of the ideas earlier in the book. I appreciated having each history laid out in a succinct narrative but the point could’ve been made in fewer words given the many preceding chapters.
I think it could use an update; I listened to the audiobook, and from what I can tell, nothing had been changed from the original 1997 edition. I would love to see a revised edition with updated language (we don’t say “Eskimos” anymore) and discussion around more recent research (pre-Clovis peoples in North America, for example; also, this is minor, but I’m pretty sure that the inefficiency of the QWERTY keyboard is a myth that has been debunked).
That said, I am thrilled that I finally spent the ~15 hours that it took to get through this thing, after so many years of hearing about it.
Easily five stars for the quality of the research, despite a few qualms.
challenging
informative
slow-paced
Never has comparing hilter to MLK Jr seemed so okay.
Yes, I'm sure that title has flagged the attention of anyone who has even the most remote awareness of social justice, and yes out of context it sounds like madnes. Yet here lies a such well writen and unbiased history or humanity that statements like that are completely acceptable.
Jarred Diamond's career as a biologist, more specifically an evolutionary biologist, have affordes him the perfect skill set to look at human history through a scientifc lense and cast aside as many biases and assumptions as possible. Yali got far more than what he bargained for when asking "why white people have so much". For some this may have seemed like an opportunity to boast about their ancestors ingenuity but for Diamond it was an opportunity to explore the near infinite environmental factors that have driven human socicietal evolution of the past thirteen millennia.
One could say that it is far too brief to allocate each continent only a page per century, which is about what our history equates to in a 400 page book. However I would argure that most readers would consider this book to be an extremely in-deapth analysis if how peoples came to be how they are today. I've learned more about the history of Polynesia, Madagascar, Papua New Guinea and Australia from these pages than from any prior source. Cultures that I've previously thought dull, now appear fascinating and uniquely, world events that previously seemes trivial now seem so utterly world shaping that it seems hard to believe that any one event could have so much influence. And thus I return to the point made in the tital, the actions of adolf hitler and the failed attempts on his life are instrumental in the contemporary structure of Europe and golbal balance of power, just as the more recent actions of Martin Luther King Jr have had a profound influence on the wellbeing of African Americans and have been felt the world over in the emancipation of people of colour.
And so to conclude, I chose such a punchy title because the comparison shocked me at first, but in the context of this book with Diamonds total acknowledgement and therefore absence of potential of racial biaeses it is a, though brief, a completely fair comparison to make.
I would recommend this book to anyone with an interest in history, anthropology, social justice, life and social sciences and frankly any university students. I will add the one caveat that it is quite dense at times so it would help to have some prior knowledge of world history.
Yes, I'm sure that title has flagged the attention of anyone who has even the most remote awareness of social justice, and yes out of context it sounds like madnes. Yet here lies a such well writen and unbiased history or humanity that statements like that are completely acceptable.
Jarred Diamond's career as a biologist, more specifically an evolutionary biologist, have affordes him the perfect skill set to look at human history through a scientifc lense and cast aside as many biases and assumptions as possible. Yali got far more than what he bargained for when asking "why white people have so much". For some this may have seemed like an opportunity to boast about their ancestors ingenuity but for Diamond it was an opportunity to explore the near infinite environmental factors that have driven human socicietal evolution of the past thirteen millennia.
One could say that it is far too brief to allocate each continent only a page per century, which is about what our history equates to in a 400 page book. However I would argure that most readers would consider this book to be an extremely in-deapth analysis if how peoples came to be how they are today. I've learned more about the history of Polynesia, Madagascar, Papua New Guinea and Australia from these pages than from any prior source. Cultures that I've previously thought dull, now appear fascinating and uniquely, world events that previously seemes trivial now seem so utterly world shaping that it seems hard to believe that any one event could have so much influence. And thus I return to the point made in the tital, the actions of adolf hitler and the failed attempts on his life are instrumental in the contemporary structure of Europe and golbal balance of power, just as the more recent actions of Martin Luther King Jr have had a profound influence on the wellbeing of African Americans and have been felt the world over in the emancipation of people of colour.
And so to conclude, I chose such a punchy title because the comparison shocked me at first, but in the context of this book with Diamonds total acknowledgement and therefore absence of potential of racial biaeses it is a, though brief, a completely fair comparison to make.
I would recommend this book to anyone with an interest in history, anthropology, social justice, life and social sciences and frankly any university students. I will add the one caveat that it is quite dense at times so it would help to have some prior knowledge of world history.
informative
medium-paced
adventurous
informative
medium-paced
slow-paced
I really enjoyed this book; I feel like I learned a lot. It was looking at the history of why certain peoples in different parts of the world developed guns, germs and steel faster than others. His arguments were that the differences in people on different continents is not because of racial or innate differences in the people themselves, but due instead to differences in environment. While I don't believe many people that I know would ever argue for the racist view, I found learning about the factors influencing societal development fascinating.
Many of the critiques about this book that I read were complaints about the writing style in the book, complaining that it was too repetitive or redundant. While it is written in a fairly stark, scientific format chapter to chapter (question, expounding on question, answering question, conclusion), I actually enjoyed his thoroughness (for the most part). Part four: Around the World in Five Chapters was the only part of the book I found overly repetitive, but on the whole the book was very readable.
I actually started reading this book probably four years ago, and didn't finish it for some reason (maybe I had to return it to the library?). Anyhow, I'm glad that I came back to it.
Many of the critiques about this book that I read were complaints about the writing style in the book, complaining that it was too repetitive or redundant. While it is written in a fairly stark, scientific format chapter to chapter (question, expounding on question, answering question, conclusion), I actually enjoyed his thoroughness (for the most part). Part four: Around the World in Five Chapters was the only part of the book I found overly repetitive, but on the whole the book was very readable.
I actually started reading this book probably four years ago, and didn't finish it for some reason (maybe I had to return it to the library?). Anyhow, I'm glad that I came back to it.
It's a bit boring and I didn't find anything unique about it.