How to understand history with 3 books

[Heraclitus]

http://www.amazon.com/Guns-Germs-Ste.../dp/0393317552
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns,_Germs,_and_Steel



http://www.amazon.com/000-Year-Explo.../dp/0465002218
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_10,000_Year_Explosion





http://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Societies-Choose-Fail-Succeed
/dp/0143036556/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1277490657&sr=1-1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaps...ail_or_Succeed


I think one could easily reduce the number of total years spent on teaching history in primary & secondary school for gifted or at least advanced students to 4. Two years of introduction to the general global and local history, one year studying these three books (together with a bit of a summary of the more interesting findings of cliodynamics) and the last year studying national and modern history.

Also what do you think of these three books? In many ways they are bound to dissapoint culture fetishists or some of the more esoteric analysis of history (like my avatar's books) since they together reduce much of history to be a interplay of geography, economics and biology.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Interesting to see you recommend a book in which the author suggests that the average primitive tribesman in New Guinea is more intelligent than the average Westerner.

I'd add this- http://www.amazon.com/Catastrophe-In...345408764#noop

[Heraclitus]

Interesting to see you recommend a book in which the author suggests that the average primitive tribesman in New Guinea is more intelligent than the average Westerner.

I'd add this- http://www.amazon.com/Catastrophe-In...345408764#noop

Thanks for the recomendation.



I'm a somewhat a fan of Jared Diamonds. His books are an accesible read and do much to highlight why the world today is as it is. My only criticism of him is that he dosen't dwell enough on the natural interplay of the material he covers (effects of things like local geography, flora and fauna) with natural selection and selfdomestication in humans once agriculture and civlization kick off. He does do a bit of that as well mentioning diseases and I think lactose tolerance so I'm not a harsh critic.

The New Guniea tribesman thing is limited to the "cago" intro of the book. It in itself sounds reasonable. Dogs have smaller brains than wolves. Humans have smaller brains than Humans 20k years ago. Why wouldn't domestication result in dumbing down? However many breeds of dogs are much easier to train than wolves or other breeds (some of which are dumb), it all boils down to selection procceses hapening for behavior and abilities. He seemingly implicitly suggest natural selection stopped once more adavanced technology entered the picture but then he later mentions many biological adaptations to diseases and diet. Why as Diamond tells us how ancient tribes where less tolerant of inequality, wouldn't later farmers also be selected for tamnes and selfishness as well as resistance to diseases?

[MrFun]

Do try to catch up, Hera - I have owned a copy of Guns, Germs, and Steel for years now.

Although, you and some others may be overrating Jared Diamond a bit.

[Heraclitus]

Do try to catch up, Hera - I have owned a copy of Guns, Germs, and Steel for years now.

Although, you and some others may be overrating Jared Diamond a bit.

I've had the book for years too. I'm just mentioning it since I was thinking which books I would use if I wanted to present the gist of why I think the world today is as it is. Jared's books are easy to read, anyone with a high school education should be able to understand them.


I think Collapse is overrated and I have several criticism of it but its still a ok book on the subject.

[Imran Siddiqui]

How to understand half of history with 1 movie:

[Caligastia]

Interesting to see you recommend a book in which the author suggests that the average primitive tribesman in New Guinea is more intelligent than the average Westerner.

I was thinking the same thing.


Hera,

Based on what you've posted in the past, I would have thought Jared Diamond would be too much of an environmental determinist for your tastes. I'd be interested to hear your opinion of this critique:

http://www.lrainc.com/swtaboo/stalkers/ml_ggs.html

[ShaneWalter]

I haven't read Guns, Germs, and Steel, but I didn't really like Collapse. Not that it was a terrible book, but it seemed like he cherry picked certain countries and incidents to support his theories, while ignoring other things that wouldn't support his theories.

[Hauldren Collider]

Guns, Germs and Steel is actually quite insightful, unlike our retarded friend heraclitus. Maybe that's why he looks at bell curves so much--he's still trying to construct the gaussian function in such a way that he isn't in the lower 10th percentile

[Hauldren Collider]

How to understand half of history with 1 movie:

QFT

[Heraclitus]

I was thinking the same thing.


Hera,

Based on what you've posted in the past, I would have thought Jared Diamond would be too much of an environmental determinist for your tastes. I'd be interested to hear your opinion of this critique:

He is too much of an environmental determinist. But come to think of it, I'm a environmental determinist in many ways. The main difference is that I remember that different environments over generations quickly produce different adaptations (I'm talking here about the rapid evolutionary change that takes place once equilibriums are disrupted).

He knows but decides to be quiet about that fact that not only did in the past population movments result in some genetic changes, genetic changes in the past also resulted in some population movements.

He assumes all humans where exactly the same a few k years ago. And not only where all humans exactly the same all humans are basically unchanged since then.

Guns, Germs and Steel needs to be read together with The 10 000 year explosion for someone to understand the full picture. Not only didn't humans all start out exactly the same 20 000 thousand years ago but that we are significantly (genetically) different today than where the humans who lived in historical times (Homer's and even Shakespear's era) let alone prehistoric times.

As a interesting note, the authors of the book (it was written in 2009) got it right on Neanderthal admixture when it wasn't obvious at all that it did take place. They also point to genetic causes for the scientific revolution.

I read the book a week or so ago and I was impressed how closley it matched some of my pet theories of human history (I think I talked about it in a post somewhere).

http://www.lrainc.com/swtaboo/stalkers/ml_ggs.html

From your link:

Third, as I will explain, everything valid in this book [Guns, Germs and Steel] fits nicely into, indeed enriches, the hereditarian view of history.

This.

Prof. Diamond does not notice that, even if the first settled Eurasian societies differed from those of genetically similar Africans and Mesoamericans only because of environmental reasons, the individual traits favored within these societies might over time have pushed their populations onto divergent genetic tracks.

One of the recomended books deals with this quite a bit.


Overall I agree with the criticism you linked to.

[Heraclitus]

I haven't read Guns, Germs, and Steel, but I didn't really like Collapse. Not that it was a terrible book, but it seemed like he cherry picked certain countries and incidents to support his theories, while ignoring other things that wouldn't support his theories.

Collapse was the indeed the worse book. Perahps I should have left it off the list and made a post titled "2 books you need to understand history".

[Drake Tungsten]

Only a simpleton would include Jared Diamond on a list this rarefied.

[MOBIUS]

Not to mention telling us about something we've all read ages ago...

[duke o' york]

I'm a somewhat a fan of Jared Diamond's.

Really? Choosing two of his books of the three best describing the whole of human history might suggest otherwise.

Who were the other contenders? Diogenes Laërtius and Dan Brown?