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Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
by: Jared M. Diamond

Used Price: £15.00

Binding: Audio Cassette
Dewey Decimal Number: 304
EAN: 9781879557543
ISBN: 1879557541
Label: Penton Overseas Inc.,U.S.
Manufacturer: Penton Overseas Inc.,U.S.
Number Of Items: 4
Publication Date: February 29, 2000
Publisher: Penton Overseas Inc.,U.S.
Studio: Penton Overseas Inc.,U.S.
Sales Rank: 945486

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Editorial Review:

Amazon.co.uk Review:
Life isn't fair--here's why: Since 1500, Europeans have, for better and worse, called the tune that the world has danced to. In Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond explains the reasons why things worked out that way. It is an elemental question, and Diamond is certainly not the first to ask it. However, he performs a singular service by relying on scientific fact rather than specious theories of European genetic superiority. Diamond, a professor of physiology at UCLA, suggests that the geography of Eurasia was best suited to farming, the domestication of animals and the free flow of information. The more populous cultures that developed as a result had more complex forms of government and communication--and increased resistance to disease. Finally, fragmented Europe harnessed the power of competitive innovation in ways that China did not. (For example, the Europeans used the Chinese invention of gunpowder to create guns and subjugate the New World.) Diamond's book is complex and a bit overwhelming. But the thesis he methodically puts forth--examining the "positive feedback loop" of farming, then domestication, then population density, then innovation, and on and on--makes sense. Written without bias, Guns, Germs, and Steel is good global history.

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- Interesting read
This book seemed to be on dsplay in bookshops at around the same time as "The Wealth and Povery of Nations" by David Landes. Whereas David Landes is an economic historian Jared Diamond is an anthropologist and geographer.

Having read both books, it struck me that there were often two competing explanations for the same phenemona. I think each author should moderate the others views. I think that both authors have a tendency to push their own pet theories a little further than they really ought to go and perhaps it would be better to take the best insights from both approaches and combine them into a bigger explanation than arguing about 'what came first - the chicken or the egg?'.

Diamond combines grand overarching ... Read More:

Rating:

- Good history, but not the complete story?
At the simple level, this book is a tour de force of the history and geography of mankind, and of how the latter has helped to shape the former. It is a book that everybody should read, if only to counterbalance the eurocentric versions of world history that dominate the bookshelves. Diamond explains how accidents of plant and animal distribution gave some peoples the advantages in agriculture and hence population density that they needed to conquer others, and most interestingly, led them to develop world-conquering diseases.

However, I was a little wary when the author of a science book sets out with a political aim, namely to prove that the present observed inequalities in wealth, goods and technology between peoples of the ... Read More:

Rating:

- Plants, animals and farming
Have you ever wondered why the world has developed the way that it has? Why some cultures and peoples seem to have prospered better than, or even at the expense of, others? If so, Guns, Germs and Steel, by Jared Diamond is a book I would recommend to you. It is deeply thought provoking and well written, squeezing a history of humankind's development over the past 13,000 years into around 400 pages, which, as Diamond points out, is about 150 years per page, so not a small feat.

The basic premise of the book is that all of the worlds more advanced societies, including both those still present today and those that have disappeared into history, needed a set of complementary enablers (Ultimate Factors) to be present to allow them to ... Read More:

Rating:

- Enlightening
Wow. Well I have always wondered in the back of my mind why the continents have spanned out as they have, and as only great scientists can Mr Diamond has got round to answering in a hugely ambitious and incredibly fact-filled fascinating book.

I can't really say anything that hasn't been said here already but most importantly for me this book has reignited a passion for human history in me and that is achievement enough.

Rating:

- Educational, thought provoking.
Why are some parts of the world more advance than others?
A cursory analysis would yield the following suggestions:
1. Some parts of the world have better weapons i.e. guns
2. Some parts of the world have more complicated viruses and bacteria i.e. germs
3. Some parts of the world had an industrial revolution i.e. steel.

This book goes a step deeper and explores the reasons why some parts of the world got these competitive advantages.

The central part of the hypotheisis is that Eurasia had a better ecology and a hole host of benefits spawned from this - not all of which are obvious.

Eurasia (especially the fertile crescent) simple had a good permutation of land, rivers, mountains and ... Read More:

Books : Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies