Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies | 
 enlarge | Author: Jared M. Diamond
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Category: Book
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Rating:  1077 reviews
Sales Rank: 2109
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 480
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.1 x 1.5
ISBN: 0393317552
Dewey Decimal Number: 303.4
EAN: 9780393317558
ASIN: 0393317552
Publication Date: April 1, 1999
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Amazon.com Review
Explaining what William McNeill called The Rise of the West has become the central problem in the study of global history. In Guns, Germs, and Steel Jared Diamond presents the biologist's answer: geography, demography, and ecological happenstance. Diamond evenhandedly reviews human history on every continent since the Ice Age at a rate that emphasizes only the broadest movements of peoples and ideas. Yet his survey is binocular: one eye has the rather distant vision of the evolutionary biologist, while the other eye--and his heart--belongs to the people of New Guinea, where he has done field work for more than 30 years.
Product Description
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize. In this "artful, informative, and delightful" (William H. McNeill, New York Review of Books) book, Jared Diamond convincingly argues that geographical and environmental factors shaped the modern world. Societies that had had a head start in food production advanced beyond the hunter-gatherer stage, and then developed religion --as well as nasty germs and potent weapons of war --and adventured on sea and land to conquer and decimate preliterate cultures. A major advance in our understanding of human societies, Guns, Germs, and Steel chronicles the way that the modern world came to be and stunningly dismantles racially based theories of human history. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science, the Rhone-Poulenc Prize, and the Commonwealth club of California's Gold Medal.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 1072 more reviews...
 A Pattern For Technological Advancement December 5, 2008
In this book Jared Diamond attempts to answer a question put to him by his New Guinean friend, "Why is it that you whit people developed so much cargo and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people has little cargo of our own?"
In New Guineas `cargo' is the term used to refer to goods, such as metal, guns, mirrors, axes, matches, clothing etc. The question is basically, `What factors led to one land having more technology advancement while another did not.
IQ tests have been shown to be culturally based. Decades of tests trying to prove an intelligence difference between races have failed.
If intelligence is not a factor is there another factor.
The answer that Jared Diamond provides is simple and easily observed.
It's the environment that encourages the developments that lead to material advancement and with it the development of towns and cities.
First explanation he provides answers the question, ` what are the factors needed for one people to conquer another people.
Here is an extract from his after word that concludes the main thesis of the book.
"My main conclusion was that societies developed differently on different continents because of differences in continental environments, not in human biology. Advanced technology, centralized political organization, and other features of complex societies could emerge only in dense sedentary populations capable of accumulating food surpluses - populations that depended for their food on the rise of agriculture that began around 8,500 BC But the domesticable wild plant and animal species essential for that rise of agriculture were evenly distributed very unevenly over the continents. The most valuable domesticable wild species were concentrated in only nine small areas of the globe, which thus became the earliest homelands of agriculture. The original inhabitants of those homelands thereby gained a head start towards developing guns, germs (ex. smallpox) and steel. The Language and genes of those homeland inhabitants, as well as their livestock, crops, technologies and writing systems became dominant in the ancient and modern world."
In other words, it is not that one group of people is more `fitter' for survival than another, it is the environment on which they depend and draw from that lead to their success or loss in conquering their neighbors.
The early 19th century Maori are a great example of how a technological and cultural advancement led to a cultural destabilization which in turn led to massive conquering (and death).
One tribe, which was closer to the point of contact with the first colonial ships to New Zealand (land of the Maori), was able to acquire muskets before other tribes. Muskets gave them a definitive advantage over other tribes still using bow and arrows. In addition to this they were the first to get potatoes, which provided more nutrition than the sweet potatoes than they grew. Now they could travel long distances because of an advantage in food supply. With the two advantages in food and weapons they began exterminating other tribes around them. Conquering territory. The tribes that delayed acquiring their own muskets and potatoes were completely wiped out. Those that did acquire were able to stay alive till a new balance of power was reached. By that time a quarter of the population had been wiped out.
The lucky tribe that happened to be where the colonials first landed saw themselves as divinely chosen to conquer the rest of the island. Primitive people tend to see good luck as divinely provided and bad luck as the result of evil spirit. (ex. the devil).
If a land lacks a technological advancement of another then it desperately seeks to gain it for one reason only. Balance of power. So they are not exterminated themselves.
Read entirely before you criticize! December 1, 2008
I've seen so many critiques and reviews on the internet, from scholars and professional reviewers, that seem like they haven't even read the book. For almost every critique that can be raised, Jared Daimond addresses it in his book already. If you will just read the book yourself, in its entirety, you will see what I mean. This book and the broad explanations he puts forward are pretty much beyond reproach, not least because of their broad scope.
Many criticisms can be refuted because the book focuses on the broadest patterns of history, taken over timespans of several hundred years or more.
Another essential point to keep in mind before critiquing is that Daimond distinguishes between proximate and ultimate factors, and raises this distinction repeatedly throughout the book. So before raising a criticism, stop and considered whether you are addressing a proximate cause (like technological advances, or large population) or an ulimate cause (which will inevitably be reduced to one of a few factors which are the very premise of the book).
These ultimate factors can be crudely boiled down to the following:
1)Naturally occurring species of easily domesticable plants (species which are highly nuritious) and large animals.
2)Geographical features (impassable mountains and deserts, location across differing latitudes and climates) that facilitate or impede diffussion of agriculture, technology, and population.
--and that is the book in a nutshell. Those grossly reduced ideas I will carry with me forever and consider every time I hear an explanation of historical outcomes.
Great thesis and synthesis November 30, 2008
In the first half of the book Diamond presents his thesis why certain continents are richer than other continents. This is fascinating reading as long as Diamond describes pre-historic times. His arguments are the strongest I have seen so far. Diamond is much less convincing when he moves to historic times and tries to explain differential performance within a given continent. The second half of the book describe individual continents and is quite tedious, but there is no need to read this section unless you have special interests in a particular region.
The first half or the book is so interesting and thoughtful so it is a must read.
Btw, do not buy the DVD with Diamond, it is quite dull. The book is much better.
A profound and lasting classic November 2, 2008
This is a truly profound book, and quite elegantly written. The central insight is how geography has been a main driving factor in the development of civilizations. Diamond comes at this thesis from several different angles, most importantly after looking at how development has differed between different regions.
Diamond builds a very compelling argument, and is helped by his intimate knowledge of many places - knowledge which comes from actually having spent quite a deal of traveling. He is also helped by his diverse background - as a scientist he has also written two brilliant books on biology (The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal (P.S.) & Why Is Sex Fun?: The Evolution Of Human Sexuality (Science Masters)).
This is popular science at its best, easily understandable, yet deep in insight.
 Fascinating overview of environmental factors, but too biased November 1, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is a fascinating study of how societies developed, however, it's frustrating that Diamond takes such an ideological position at the outset, ruling out some factors simply because he doesn't like them.
"Inexcusably for an evolutionary biologist, Diamond fails to inform his readers that it is different environments that cause, via natural selection, biological differences among populations. All of the Eurasian developments he described created positive feedback loops selecting for increased intelligence and various personality traits (e.g., altruism, rule-following, etc.)."
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