Guns, Germs, and Steel

[VetLegion]

The book is subtitled "The last 13000 years of everybody"

As noted, he is a believer that New Guineians are smarter than westerners.

I liked the book very much, especially because I do not read many history books and this one exposed me to some new ideas, especially geographic determinism.

I was not convinced with his writing about animal domestication and plant domestication. It would take a whole book or two just to clarify those.

And as a rule, if TCO says something appeals to pseudo intellectuals - it is worth a read

[Ecthy]

ah well, is there any book that includes cultural and religious influences? they can't be irrelevant.

[JohnT]

They are in Diamonds world. Really - I'm not making it up.

[Ecthy]

strange how the book is still so successful, can't have received a lot of scientific / academic "kudos"

[JohnT]

Well, he does have some very good points and makes some rather convincing arguments in regards to a number of issues.

But, regardless of what his supporters say, he didn't write the end-all, be-all "there's no more to be added" book of historical development.

[Ecthy]

what about "history of the world" by some guy in comparison to this?

I hope you know of which book I speak, the one that was mentioned in my books thread wherein you posted.

[TCO]

Originally posted by skywalker


He says there are selective pressures for intelligence among undeveloped societies, whereas there are selective pressures for resistance to disease among developed societies.

That is reasonable. But it is also reasonable that those pressures may be different in a forest/grass, hot vs cold climate, etc. And he neglects to show data to support his plausible assertion regardless. Also, he says nothing about the time scales involved. Does the last 4000 years of civilization make Western Man dumber? Or is it the 30,000 years of Ice Age foraging that mattered? Or do the last 50 years of welfare for abos, reduce their intelligence. But the big kvetch is no data. No peer-reviewed research cited. Just an assertion. He's a lightweight. For lightweights, he's heavy.

[JohnT]

Originally posted by Ecthelion
what about "history of the world" by some guy in comparison to this?

I hope you know of which book I speak, the one that was mentioned in my books thread wherein you posted.

History of the World is a much better history than GG&S. GG&S devotes its time to explaining how biological and geographical issues shaped how the various civilizations developed, and doesn't go into the development itself.

[JohnT]

The "guy" is J.M. Roberts. I recommend his book highly, as does Boris.

[Ecthy]

So HotW describes what happened and GG&S tries to explain it?

[JohnT]

Yeah, but there's a lot of explaining in HotW. Roberts focused his explaining on cultural, religious (and yes, some geographic) issues, whereas Diamond explains it all merely as a matter of happenstance: Western Europe developed as it did not because of any inherent ability of W. Europeans nor because of any inherent "superiority" of Western ideas/beliefs, but because W. Europe is a geographically ideal place to take over the world, populated by peoples who were more disease resistant than the people they conquered from 1400-1900.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Ecthelion
So HotW describes what happened and GG&S tries to explain it?

HotW = History. Roberts gives a narrative-style, broad history of the entire world since the dawn of man. It isn't meant to focus on details, but it does explain why things happened in a broad sense. He talks a lot about cultural and societal progress, technology, etc.

GG&S = Sociology and Anthropology. A little history, but not real rigorous, academic history. Diamond is more focused on giving broad theories on how human cultures developed in competition with other cultures, why some societies civilized and some remained primitive, etc. Ignore the criticism here (some of it fair and some certainly not) and read it, because at the very least it will make you look at history with a new perspective.

Have you read Toynbee? If you want history, he's the man to go to.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by JohnT
nor because of any inherent "superiority" of Western ideas/beliefs,

This is a bit of a distortion, because one of the obvious things about Diamond's theory is that Western ideas/beliefs were a product of its geographical and biological situation. After all, in a confined, densely-populated region like Europe, ideas will spread much faster and evolve much quicker.

Diamond does not say, IIRC, that Western ideas/beliefs had no function whatsoever in European dominance. But they are subsidiary functions of what he emphasizes, biological and geographic factors. Ergo devoting a book to the biological and geographic makes sense, especially seeing that countless other tomes have dwelt on the ideas/beliefs angle.

[Elok]

Eh. I stick to Larry Gonick if I want to be entertained by history.

[Boris Godunov]

Roberts is a page-turner, IMO. I finished the entire 1100+ page book in about 2 weeks.