|
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (平装)
by Jared Diamond
| Category:
Non-fiction, Civilization, Human society, History |
| Market price: ¥ 198.00
MSL price:
¥ 158.00
[ Shop incentives ]
|
| Stock:
In Stock |
|
|
MSL rating:
 Good for Gifts |
| MSL Pointer Review:
An epic thoroughly researched and well-written and a must read for the innately inquisitive. |
| If you want us to help you with the right titles you're looking for, or to make reading recommendations based on your needs, please contact our consultants. |
|
| |
AllReviews |
  1 2 Total 2 pages 16 items |
|
|
Eigenvalue (MSL quote), Canada
<2006-12-30 00:00>
The big question addressed in this book is why certain groups of people have been successful in conquering others. The book's title suggests a partial answer, but the root cause, according to Jared Diamond, is geography. In short, certain geographical conditions favored the development of farming, which in turn fostered the development of stable societies, large populations, better technology, and resistance to killer germs. So the societies that were the first to develop farming conquered everybody else.
It's a neat hypothesis, but Diamond has taken a lot of heat for it. As many others have pointed out, some of the critiques have been overtly or implicitly racist, suggesting a genetic basis for the superiority of one group over another. Until someone comes up with some evidence for this ugly position, it's best to ignore it.
The other arguments boil down to religion and culture. These aren't necessarily incorrect, but they beg the question. One could just as easily ask why certain societies developed cultures or religions that enabled them to be more successful than others. As Diamond correctly points out, geography has the advantage of being objective and open to scientific investigation.
The other problem with culture and religion is that they confuse cause and effect. While it's true that religion inspires people to make certain choices, it's also true that people tend to invent religions that justify whatever they happen to be already doing. Same goes for cultural traditions.
Diamond does have a tendency to overstate his case, and to speculate somewhat recklessly. That's probably why people are annoyed with him, but I don't see that as a reason to dismiss the book's main message, which is extremely interesting. |
|
|
An American reader (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-30 00:00>
Though feeling good about Diamond's agreement to some of the principles of my book, The Evolution Diet, I was feeling fairly unimpressed throughout Guns, Germs, and Steel. The title, seemingly influenced by more appropriately named books by Marvin Harris like Cannibals and Kings, and Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches, attempts to clump together things that wouldn't normally be clumped together. In this case, it doesn't really work- some are reasons for why certain cultures thrived, but another is a result. This inconsistency indicates what becomes clear throughout the book, Diamond really doesn't have a strong point.
Sure, Diamond shows how certain foods allowed for the rapid growth of population that was needed for advanced civilizations and comes up with insightful reasons for success like wide East-West expansion in Eurasia, but not in the Americas and Africa. However, Diamond misses the single-most important factor in why some cultures advanced and others didn't: trade. Sure he grazes over the idea and pretty much offers the proof when he shows why Australian peoples failed to thrive despite having enough natural resources. Trade explains why the multicultural and highly populated Eurasian peoples excelled and the others didn't. The proof is seen in the capitals of advanced civilizations, which, throughout history were located at the center of trade routes (the Fertile Crescent, Egypt, Greece, Rome, Arabia, then France, Holland, and England, and eventually America).
Another irksome tendency in Guns is Diamond's racial labeling, which is common elsewhere, but brought to the forefront in this book, which focuses on the differences between races. Throughout the book he describes different races as either, "white," "Native American," "Asian," "black Africans," and, "Aborigines." These labels would only be made more inconsistent if he called his "whites," Caucasians. Diamond missed a great opportunity to bring to an end this baffling inconsistency in labeling that is strictly based on political correctness. Instead, he labels some groups with similar characteristics by their color appearance, some by their continental origination, and still others by a supposed entitlement to land. Perhaps a restructuring of the labels in this culture deserves an entire book, which I'll be happy to provide eventually. Still the inconsistencies make this book difficult to appreciate fully.
Overall, "Guns," reveals a fairly insightful look at the history of humans and how cultures got to their respective levels of advancement, but misses the most obvious reason for it throughout. Because of this, Diamond squanders a great opportunity. |
|
|
An American reader (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-30 00:00>
Jared Diamond has managed to condense in a few hundred pages several powerful arguments about the differences in development between continents and people. The basic argument is that the ultimate causes which led to the divergent courses of the different peoples in our time had to do with food, geographical factors such as the orientation of the axes on each continent and immunity from disease conferred upon farmers. These in turn led to the development of writing, technology, government and guns, which were the proximate causes of the West's ascendancy in the last 500 years of so.
As a Christian, I do not agree with the theory of evolution so I could not agree with Diamond's take on prehistory, but I do agree with his arguments about the advantages that farming gave over the hunter-gatherer lifestyle or the importance of domesticable animals to development on the different continents. It is by this careful building of `irrefutable' argument upon "irrefutable" argument that makes his theory quite plausible.
One problem with his theory however, is that it leaves humans on the periphery of history. He acknowledges the role that several historical giants have played but considers their impact on history to be minor. Is this so though? Has not Hitler had a major effect on subsequent history, did not Caesar? And what of the Pharaohs? This and his classification of several peoples into different racial groups than one would expect are two small matters that I took issue with.
Apart from the above, I found the book to be worth the time invested in reading it. Diamond brings a fresh perspective on our understanding of the world we live in and his clear style of writing makes this work highly readable. Definitely a must read. |
|
|
F. Chloupek (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-30 00:00>
We all know the story of the origin of man in Africa, the spreading of mankind throughout the world, the rise of agriculture in the fertile crescent and then the growth of civilization in the Middle East, China, Europe and America with Europe conquering the New World and then somewhat (though this may be changing now) dominating the Far East.
What Diamond strives to answer is why did culture and power evolve this way?
His answers revolve around:
Available crops for domestication
Available animals for domestication
Ease Of Technology transfer (east/west is easier than north/south and mountains and oceans are a problem)
Diamond painstakingly goes through the differences between various areas of the world. Focusing mainly on non-Western societies, he points out how they were handicapped by lack of resources (fewer available plants and animals) and also in the case of America, by time.
Taking issue with the spotlight reviews, Diamond is not a 100% determinist. Regarding the New World, he describes several of the bad decisions those societies made when interacting with the Europeans, clearly causing their societal collapse to accelerate. In the sections dealing with China, he details various human factors that drove the Chinese to abandon their navies and much of their technology in the 1400s, stagnating for a precious few centuries when Europe moved forward.
This synthesis of geographical determinism ALONG WITH choice is continued in Collapse. taking the two together should give you a good understanding of Diamond.
Both books are excellent and must read for any serious student of history. 5 stars. |
|
|
An American reader (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-30 00:00>
Diamond presents a look at the evolution of various Cultures throughout the World and how geography has played an important part in their development. The reason that Eurasia and North Africa evolved more highly developed (technologically anyway) cultures was that there was a wider variety of wild plant and animal species that could be tamed by the humans living in those areas following the Ice Age than there was available to humans in other parts of the world. This enabled people in these areas to develop farming societies (which required more specializations than hunter gatherer societies) more quickly than in other parts of the globe.
The close proximity of animals in this farming societies passed on germs from animal hosts to humans and evolved human resistance to pathogens such as smallpox to survivors of the diseases and their offspring. Those areas such as the Americas without large domesticated animals to catch diseases from were decimated by Old World diseases when they were introduced by European Explorers.
The premise of the book could have degenerated into White Supremacist or Multi-Cultural nonsense and the fact that it doesn't says a lot about the writing skills of the author. One fact that he doesn't address is how the freedom of expression is a key factor in the development of societies. When that Freedom disappears or is suppressed as in the case of 15 C China or 18 C Holland society tends to stagnant and decline.
I would recommend the book for those interested in History, Sociology or Anthropology.
|
|
|
An American reader (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-30 00:00>
It's hard to say anything new about a famous book that has been reviewed by many hundreds of people. I won't even pretend I've read all the reviews already posted, which would take hours. But of those I've browsed I have noticed a general trend which I want to counter if I can. It's probably a point that has been made before, even if it was 800 posts ago, but it bears repeating.
The key to understanding Guns, Germs, and Steel isn't just a matter of realizing what Diamond argues in favor of (i.e. civil progress is an effect of favorable geography and resource dependency). The key to appreciating the book is understanding what Diamond is trying to build a case against. Many reviewers have stated that Diamond argues against racialist theories of progress, and this is true. He argues you don't need to hypothesize genetic advantages between groups in order to account for how one group may attain superiority over another. Perhaps he's right, but then this argument is not especially novel. Racism and racial theories in the human sciences have been extremely unpopular ever since the fall of colonialism and the ending of WWII. With a few exceptions, (The Bell Curve being a famous example) it's difficult to find recent scholarship in the social sciences that advocates genetic or racialist arguments for progress.
What is of more interest, and what I think deserves greater scrutiny is that Diamond gives no support to ANY form of cultural argument. This is notable because cultural, social, and psychological accounts of human progress have been the heavily favored alternative to genetic arguments. Diamond tries to do away with them all. There is no need for Max Weber's Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (where America's early religious ethics produce a culture that places an exaggerated premium on work and progress). Diamond's thinking also negates Hegel or any philosophy of history that places importance on singular great individuals who raise, shape, and change the direction of civilizations. Indeed, Hegel, Nietzsche, Marx, Mill, Freud, Darwin and a great many other theorists must be put aside with regard to human progress. What we are left with is a world where human variables matter only on the micro level; not on the macro level. The desire and nature to advance is taken as a constant. It is the natural environment that determines the outcome, and survival of the fittest isn't the issue.
I think Diamond makes an excellent case, though hardly flawless, providing a plausible account of how groups could have advanced without regard to their genes, their creeds, or great leaders. You might question why you would want to strip groups of their identity and variability, since in essence Diamond is arguing that one group is as good as the next--all are equally capable. My reading of it is that he takes this approach to avoid the general fogginess that comes from cultural/sociological approaches. In Diamond's theoretical outlook, you need not perform a tribal ethnography to learn why North American Indians weren't prepared for a European invasion. All you really need is to understand the low number of founder crops naturally available to them, the lack of domesticateable work animals, and their comparable isolation geographically.
Many reviewers have argued that Diamond ignores human variables. But that is the very point of the book! I agree that Diamond's theory is extremely reductive and he never conclusively makes the case for why it is impossible that cultural factors influence technological advances. What's more, Diamond's more recent book Collapse proposes just the reverse, asserting that societies and groups often choose and pursue the very actions that lead to their destruction. (For example, the natives of Easter Island misguidedly cut down all the trees on their island, ultimately leading to a famine that devastates the population). Together the two books suggest we live in a world where civilizations grow and progress based on environmental circumstances, while on the other hand they fail and collapse based chiefly on their own ineptitude.
A last point: when you're talking about a book of this status, you don't necessarily read it because it is essentially correct or even that you believe it to be true. You read it because it provides the best and clearest example of a particularly kind of argument. In this case, its hard to think of another book that lays out the anti-genetic, anti-cultural account of civilization more clearly and successfully than Guns, Germs, and Steel. As philosopher Mortimer Adler used to say, great books are not repositories of truth. You read them to hone your critical thinking, as it's only through critical thought that you can get to any truth whatsoever. You don't need to agree with Diamond to get some value from his book; Guns, Germs, and Steel happens to be an excellent place to exercise your mind.
Highly recommended.
|
|
|
|
1 2 Total 2 pages 16 items |
|
|
|
|
|
|
