Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond



The first of a set - "Guns, Germs and Steel" and "Collapse"

Published by  W. W. Norton and Company (April 1, 1999)

Most readers of those two books read Guns, Germs and Steel before Collapse in the order in which they were published. I, however, read them in reverse order of publication. Many were critical of Collapse because it was too close to Guns, Germs and Steel in theme and topics covered. I suppose that I am a bit disappointed as well, but not too much.
The author
Yes, they cover some of the same material, but really they are the twin sides of the same coin - the rise of societies and the fall of societies. With a little bit of editing, Jared Diamond could have merged these two books into one and created one monster-sized tome (800 plus pages) on the rise and fall of societies around the world.

 Diamond's theses are cogent, coherent and clear. Really, it is a wonderful volume for the student of world history who wishes to take some steps into the deeper end of the scholarship pool. Despite the easy writing style (Personally, I've never had much respect for some serious scholars who seem to delight in making their texts as dense and difficult as possible), these are lofty thoughts that are often painstakingly laid out.

 On occasion, Mr. Diamond's descriptions were a little too detailed (especially concerning the domestication of grains) and I found myself skimming several pages. But, those moments were rare and normally I found it to be interesting in the least and from time to time I had an "Aha!" moment while reading.

 If you enjoy this one, be sure to read Collapse.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Guns, Germs and Steel.

 I give this one 5 stars out of 5.
Reviewed on October 3, 2006.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts over the last 30 days

THE BALLOT and the BIBLE: HOW SCRIPTURE HAS BEEN USED and ABUSED in AMERICAN POLITICS and WHERE WE GO from HERE (audiobook) by Kaitlyn Schiess

Image
Published in 2023 by ChristianAudio.com. Read by the author, Kaitlyn Schiess. Duration: 6 hours, 27 minutes. Unabridged. I first heard about Kaitlyn Schiess on one of my favorite podcasts: The Holy Post . She is one of the three regular hosts of the show and often serves as their in-house theologian. She is well-suited for this role because she offers well-considered answers and she thinks them through before she answers, rather than just shooting her mouth off - all the more impressive when one considers that she is by far the youngest member of the podcast. I was drawn to The Ballot and the Bible because: 1) I am concerned the rise of Christian Nationalism in America and the damage it does to the Christian witness; 2) I knew that Schiess would give thoughtful answers. The intermingling of Christianity and politics is not a new phenomenon in the United States (or in the rest of the world - but that is not the focus of this book.) Schiess looks at the intermingling of faith and politi
Read more

ILLEGAL (graphic novel) Written by Eoin Colfer and Andrew Donkin. Illustrated by Giovanni Rigano.

Image
  Published in 2018 by Sourcebooks Young Readers. Illegal is the fictional story of two young brothers from Ghana: Ebo and Kwame. While it is fictional, it is based on lots and lots of true stories. Most Americans are very aware that immigrants/refugees are fleeing from their native countries and arriving at the border of the United States and are not aware that a similar thing is happening in Europe.  Europe has a similar refugee/immigrant situation. People are fleeing from the wars in Syria, Sudan, and Yemen. There are also refugees fleeing the brutal poverty and political situations in sub-Saharan Africa. Like in the United States, these immigrants/refugees depend on very shady people to move them closer to their goals. In this story, two young brothers named Ebo and Kwame live in a village in Ghana. They are orphaned and living with a useless, drunken uncle. They have an older sister that has already crossed the Sahara Desert and the Mediterranean Sea to look for work but they don
Read more

INCREDIBLE HULK: PLANET HULK written by Greg Pak, illustrated by Carlo Pagulayan, Aaron Lopresti, Juan Santacruz, Gary Frank, and Takeshi Miyazawa.

Image
Originally published by Marvel Comics from 199-2007. Synopsis: Hulk is banished from Earth after helping The Avengers, The Fantastic Four, and others defeat a common enemy by using Hulk's brute strength. Hulk has been rendered unconscious and placed on a spaceship. Reed Richards (Mr. Fantastic) leaves a video message for Hulk to find on the spaceship when he arrives at his destination - a planet with no intelligent life.  Reed knows that it is a wish of both Dr. Banner and Hulk to be someplace where  Hulk cannot hurt anyone and no one can hurt Hulk.  But, a wormhole opens up and sucks Hulk's spaceship to a different destination - the planet Sakaar. Sakaar is ruled by a despotic, deranged emperor. He rules a planet with multiple species - all of them hate each other because he pits them against them against one another. He has discs attached to their bodies to control their impulses and allow him to deliver pain at will. He wears a suit of armor that Iron Man would envy and he r
Read more

BENITO MUSSOLINI: A LIFE from BEGINNING to END (World War 2 Biographies) (kindle) by Hourly History

Image
  Published by Hourly History in 2017. Mussolini and Hitler in 1937. Nowadays, Benito Mussolini is best known as Hitler's far lesser partner in the Pact of Steel (signed in 1939), the formal treaty of the Axis Powers. He is often seen as the weaker partner that may very well have drug the entire alliance down due to incompetence.  But, back when Mussolini took power in Italy in 1922, he was seen, by some, as the vanguard of the future of political organization in Europe - a movement called fascism . He was at least begrudgingly admired by people all around the world.  This is, perhaps, the most balanced of all of the Hourly History biographies. I was mostly interested in a brief look at how Mussolini came to power and what he did once in power. The biography was a little skimpy on Mussolini's years in power before World War II and it won't please students of the war to see how little they discuss of his wartime policies and decisions. That being said, I thought this was a p
Read more

VANISHING EDGE (National Parks Mysteries #1) (audiobook) by Claire Kells

Image
Published by Dreamscape Media, LLC in 2021. Read by Natalie Naudus. Duration: 9 hours, 13 minutes. Unabridged. Synopsis: Felicity Harland is a former FBI agent just turned investigator for the Investigative Services Branch (ISB.) ISB is the criminal investigation unit for the National Park Services. They investigate serious crimes that happen in National Parks.  Harland has been called to Sequoia National Park because 2 customers of an ultra-glamping camping service has disappeared in a remote mountainous location called Emerald Lake. No one knows if they are dead, have intentionally gone missing, or have simply wandered off into the wilderness. No one will say anything about who the supposed victims are because this service is ultra-exclusive and treats the names of its customers like its a national secret. Harland, along with an old crusty park ranger, and an ex-Navy SEAL who has just joined the park service search for the missing pair. What they discover next leads them to one sus
Read more

Appaloosa DVD

Image
A western for grown-ups. It's not about the guns, horses or bullets. It's about friendship, sex and, ultimately, love. Movie released in theaters in 2008. Be warned right now - this movie review is mostly one giant spoiler. Here's the non-spoiler parts right up front. This is a movie that strives to look authentic. The two main characters have known each other for years and have no need for a lot of dialogue - they know each other well, they know each other's habits and their conversations are spare. Many reviewers have missed the whole point of Appaloosa . It was not about two buddies/lawmen bringing peace to a town, although that does happen (mostly) and the gun fights are quick, brutal and ugly. The movie is about what happens when such a partnership is disrupted by a woman. Look at the DVD cover art and you can see it symbolically represented - there is Renee Zellweger standing between Mortensen and Harris. ****Spoiler alert****The rest of the review is jus
Read more

THE BREAKER (Peter Ash #6)(audiobook) by Nick Petrie

Image
Published by Penguin Audio in 2021. Read by Stephen Mendel. Duration: 12 hours, 10 minutes. Unabridged. Synopsis Fugitive good guy Peter Ash is hiding out in the open in the city where his adventures began in book number one of the series - Milwaukee. In The Breaker Peter Ash has an assumed identity with very good fake papers. His girlfriend June has joined him, resuming her career as a reporter with the local Milwaukee big city paper. Of course, his friend Lewis is around as well. In the previous books Peter Ash is dealing with untreated PTSD from his time as a soldier in Iraq and Afghanistan. Too many searches in too many small confined areas has left him with severe claustrophobia. Peter is working on the claustrophobia, though. Peter, Lewis, and June are at the Milwaukee Public Market for lunch. It is indoors, but it is very open concept with a lot of open space above. He's been eating there to get used to being inside.  The Milwaukee Public Market Lewis and Peter notice a fig
Read more

THE PRINCESS, the SCOUNDREL, and the FARM BOY by Alexandra Bracken

Image
  Published in 2019 by Disney LucasFilm Press. The Princess, the Scoundrel, and the Farm Boy is a YA re-telling of Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope.  It is told from the perspective of three different characters: Princess Leia, Han Solo and Luke Skywalker - in that order. The book starts out, like the movie, with the attack of Leia's ship and the fight as stormtroopers board it and stays with her through the destruction of Alderaan. The middle of the book starts with Han in the cantina looking at the results of Ben Kenobi's handiwork with a light saber. It stays with Han until they escape from the Death Star. At that point, it switches to Luke and stays with him until the end. This is more than a simple re-telling of the movie, though. That book was already written by George Lucas (ghost-written by Alan Dean Foster) a long time ago. There are lots of direct quotes from the movie ("I recognized your foul stench when I was brought on board." "That's no moon..
Read more

RESOLUTION (Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch #2) (audiobook) by Robert B. Parker

Image
Published by Random House Audio in 2008 Read by Titus Welliver Duration: 4 hours, 40 minutes Unabridged At the end of Appaloosa, the first book in this series, Hitch and Cole have parted ways. Hitch ends up in the town of Resolution, a mining/lumbering town with some small unsuccessful ranches/farms scattered around. Hitch is hired by the owner of a local hotel/saloon to keep the peace inside the saloon. Soon enough, Cole shows up. He is on the outs with his girlfriend again. She has issues - she just has to throw herself at the most powerful man in the room and Cole had finally had enough of it and killed a man she was with. For Cole, this is devastating. He has always followed the law, even if it is arbitrary law that he has written himself. Killing this man broke the law and Cole is now a man who cannot follow his own code. So, Cole just hangs out with Hitch and ponders the meaning of laws and rules and the Social Contract for half of the book. In the meantime, Hitch is
Read more

BLOOD MONEY: A LUCKY DEY THRILLER (audiobook) by Doug Richardson

Image
Published in 2019 by Velvet Elvis Entertainment. Read by Tim DeKay. Duration: 9 hours, 35 minutes. Unabridged Synopsis: On a lonely country road in Kern County, north of Los Angeles, a police officer is murdered while he is trying to help 2 crash victims. The police officer is the little brother of a hard-charging officer named Lucky Dey and Lucky is determined to get the murderer at all costs. They determine that the driver of a black semi hauling a matching black refrigerated trailer is probably the murderer. The evidence points towards it heading to Los Angeles. Lucky rolls into down at 100+ MPH, meets up with a contact/babysitter from LAPD and they soon figure out that this is even more of a mess than they thought it was... My review: The general idea of Blood Money was good, but just too busy. I think the story was told through at least eight different characters and that just diffused the action and drive of the story too much. On top of that, almost none of the characters are l
Read more