This is a weighty book, ya'll. Jared Diamond's book had been on my list for ages because once upon a time it had been on one of my recommended reading lists for an undergraduate Anthropology class (I majored in that field). I didn't have the time to read it then (it is 425 pages after all) but the t...
This is an interesting and influential book that in its broad conclusions makes a lot of sense, though I have doubts about Diamond’s reasoning on some of his smaller points. It’s longer than it needs to be, but largely because it is thorough and takes the time to break down academic subjects to be a...
Took me a year and a half to read this book. Not only because I'm a slow reader, though I am. But it was so long and there were so many other activities and books clamoring for my attention, that I got sidetracked several times. But it was worth coming back to. It's a fascinating study of how hu...
Diamond explains why some groups of humans have done well based on local circumstances: material resources, pathogens, human migratory patterns, that sort of thing. It's such a useful and non-racist theory that it holds immediate appeal. I've no idea how well it's withstood research over the past tw...
Guns, Germs, and Steel came from the question the author was asked as to why Europeans dominated the world and built empires over the last 600 years as opposed to other societies. For a just over 400 page book, the author answers it pretty well. The book is pretty dense and took a fair amount of t...
Step 1: Be born into the right environment. Germs, Guns, and Steel attempts to answer one of the more uncomfortable questions of history: why on earth did some civilizations dominate others? Ignoring the various power-struggles that occurred within each continent, why was it the Eurasian explorer...
Reading this made me think of the story of the blind men and the elephant; a Jain version of the story reads: The blind man who feels a leg says the elephant is like a pillar; the one who feels the tail says the elephant is like a rope; the one who feels the trunk says the elephant is like a tree...
Well, here are some of my thoughts after completing this book: GUNS, GERMS AND STEEL is a book that was highly criticized for being environmentally deterministic as it is mainly about the impact that the environment had on factors such as food productions, fighting skills, technology, political orga...
An interesting book this looks at how human society developed over the years. I'm not totally sure that it's absolutely correct but it makes for interesting reading and should be compulsary reading for some SF and Fantasy writers who are trying to build a credible world. It's interesting to see ...
This book started out OK but it quickly got excessively repetitive to me. I couldn't help but wonder if Diamond was just trying to figure out how many ways he could say the same thing. I mean, sheesh, you've already told us once do we really need to hear it again? The book could have been shorte...
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