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A review by andresvk
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond
challenging
informative
slow-paced
2.0
Needless to say, this is a very contentious book, and generally despised by historians.
What I can say about it as a read for people who (like me) are interested in history but not trained in it is this: while there is truth to the central claim that disease resistance from animal domestication played a large part in the colonization of the Americas, it doesn't explain as much as Diamond thinks it does, and the book is too bloated by his attempt to make that one argument a general theory of history.
I got as much out of it as I would have gotten from an online summary.
What I can say about it as a read for people who (like me) are interested in history but not trained in it is this: while there is truth to the central claim that disease resistance from animal domestication played a large part in the colonization of the Americas, it doesn't explain as much as Diamond thinks it does, and the book is too bloated by his attempt to make that one argument a general theory of history.
I got as much out of it as I would have gotten from an online summary.