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Binding: HardcoverDewey Decimal Number: 303.4 EAN: 9780393061314 Edition: 1 ISBN: 0393061310 Label: W. W. Norton Manufacturer: W. W. Norton Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 512 Publication Date: July 11, 2005 Publisher: W. W. Norton Studio: W. W. Norton Editorial Review: 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: With a new chapter. The phenomenal bestseller—over 1.5 million copies sold—is now a major PBS special. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Guns, Germs, and Steel is a brilliant work answering the question of why the peoples of certain continents succeeded in invading other continents and conquering or displacing their peoples. This edition includes a new chapter on Japan and all-new illustrations drawn from the television series. Until around 11,000 BC, all peoples were still Stone Age hunter/gatherers. At that point, a great divide occurred in the rates that human societies evolved. In Eurasia, parts of the Americas, and Africa, farming became the prevailing mode of existence when indigenous wild plants and animals were domesticated by prehistoric planters and herders. As Jared Diamond vividly reveals, the very people who gained a head start in producing food would collide with preliterate cultures, shaping the modern world through conquest, displacement, and genocide. The paths that lead from scattered centers of food to broad bands of settlement had a great deal to do with climate and geography. But how did differences in societies arise? Why weren't native Australians, Americans, or Africans the ones to colonize Europe? Diamond dismantles pernicious racial theories tracing societal differences to biological differences. He assembles convincing evidence linking germs to domestication of animals, germs that Eurasians then spread in epidemic proportions in their voyages of discovery. In its sweep, Guns, Germs and Steel encompasses the rise of agriculture, technology, writing, government, and religion, providing a unifying theory of human history as intriguing as the histories of dinosaurs and glaciers. 32 illustrations. Average Rating:
 Rating:  - Fascinating!It took me a while to open this book, as I was absolutely convinced that, with a title like Guns, Germs and Steel, the subject could only be war. Eventually, however, I opened the book, and was absolutely fascinated by it. The premise of the book is Yali's question. Yali, a native of New Guinea, has never been out of his country, is "Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people had little cargo of our own?" The answer to this question ... Read More Rating: - Great subject and treatment - shakey scienceI know everyone says this - just adding my voice. The author needs to define his terms - what does he mean by 'smart' when talking about the New Guineans. What does he mean by calling Australia 'backwards'? I wish he developed these vague/biased terms. Rating: - Is Western Society truly superior?I was tempted to give Jared 5 stars based on the extent of his information and his strength of his argument. I gave him only 4 stars because, although I think he is 75% correct, I think he has ignored or denies factors that may be important. Early in his book, Kali, an intelligent New Guinean and would-be shaker and mover asks a significant question. "Why does the white man have more cargo [goods, stuff, useful things] than we do? Jared, correctly in my opinion, refutes the politically incorrect ... Read More Rating:  - Wishful Thinking, finely wroughtA rich gravy of erudition smothers a thin slice of slightly tainted meat, i.e. the thesis (it's all geography & luck) is undoubtedly wrong, or, at the very best, accounts for tiny proportion of the discrepancies he attempts to explain. For detailed analysis, see the # 1 review by Christopher Smith (whom I don't know). There's more critical thought in that review than in the book itself. On the other hand, the "gravy" alone, the research and erudition, is probably worth the price of the book. Otherwise, ... Read More Rating: - Exactly the answers I wanted in twice the length I neededI'd wondered for a long time why certain aspects of history that you learn as facts in school turned out the way they did, e.g. why European diseases basically wiped out Native Americans but not vice-versa. I bought the book because I heard that Jared Diamond answered these types of questions. He does, to an extent. At the very least, he gives convincing arguments for why history turned out the way it did based on the traits of geographic regions. The best part about having read this book is that now I feel like I can ... Read More |
