Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond
|
List Price: Our Price: $15.38 You Save: $9.57 (38%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $13.99 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
Book Review: Panorama of History....................
Summary: 4 Stars
Jared Diamond has written a comprehensive readable book describing some of the prominent reasons that societies have failed in the past and often succumbed to invaders. It seemed well written to me and although I thought the title a little pretensious, the subject matter is good.Book Review: Marxist View on History
Summary: 1 Stars
What drives history and shapes human civilizations? This book suggests that geographic and environmental factors are largely the driving forces. This is is direct contrast to human factors, such as widely held ideas embodied in a society's culture.
While environmental facts are not always inconsequential, the thesis that material factors trump human factors when it comes to defining the course of history is tragically wrong. What explains the flourishing of civilizations that occurred during the Renaissance in Western Europe? Did the environment drastically change or was it the fact that many of the leading intellectuals of Europe, such as Thomas Aquinas, influenced the culture to start valuing reason over blind faith? What causes civilizations such as modern day Japan, South Korea or Ireland to flourish despite not existing on resource-rich chunks of land? Why is Chile so much more prosperous than the rest of the nations in South America? Is it because Chile happens to have substantially more resources or is it because there is significantly more economic freedom there?
More importantly, the "value" of an environment is a function of the ingenuity of its human inhabitants. Before chemists discovered the vital properties of anthracite coal or crude oil, these resources were nothing but a bunch of black rocks and black goo. No nation of savages, no matter how much coal they have under their land, will flourish unless if they learn how to exploit their surrounding resources. In other words, a human factor is undeniably essential.
The only value from reading this book is that it recounts a substantial number of interesting historical events. However, you can obtain this information from other books. The incorrect thesis of this book devalues all of the interpretations of history contained within this book. I do not recommend this book at all.
Lastly, why did I call this a "Marxist" view? Because the idea of history being driven by environmental and geographic factors is very similar to Marx's view of dialectical materialism. Dialectical materialism views that social and economic changes are driven largely by material forces. I see no substantial difference between Diamond's thesis and this Marxist view.
Book Review: Progress of Civilization
Summary: 2 Stars
The problem with attributing human social development to externalities is that it glosses over the essential differences between all societies- that is how labor is socially organized and who decides how to allocate and use the social surplus. While geography tempers social development, it is the method of social production that is the overwhelming determinant of social success. Slave societies out produce hunter-gatherers. Feudal out-produces slave, and wage labor out produces slavery and feudal systems.
What is more more instructive is how current social relations restrict and hamper social development by wasting social production on useless activities like military ventures and individualized social decision-making. e.g. Individuals riding in cars instead of individuals sharing mass transportation, a more socially efficient transportation system.
Book Review: A long but also highly educational read!
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a must read for those who are interested in both history and the future of humankind!Book Review: Why Didn't the Incas Invade Spain?
Summary: 5 Stars
The Aborigines of Australia built mankind's first known watercraft 40,000 plus years ago, yet today they are the most primitive stone age people of any continent. Why is that?
Did the mother of invention arise from people living in harsh tropical/desert climates forced to invent in order to survive? Or did it arise in colder climates more readily because people were trapped in their warm home with nothing else to do but experiment? Was it both?
Most critics of this book sound to me like they have only read the summary on the back of the book. Their arguments are preconceived.
Even if you are one of those critics, read it. Disagree with it afterwards if you still want to, regardless I think it will add new perspective to human history for you. If you decide you want to write your own book based on how genetics and anthropometry shaped human history, by all means do so. I'd gladly read that too.
But don't just shrug if off before hearing him out. That's selfish cynicism and counterproductive to scientific understanding.