Jared Diamond
Paperback | Pages: 425 pages Rating: 4.03 | 269989 Users | 10227 Reviews
Be Specific About Books Supposing Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (Civilizations Rise and Fall #1)
| Original Title: | Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies |
| ISBN: | 0739467352 (ISBN13: 9780739467350) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Series: | Civilizations Rise and Fall #1 |
| Literary Awards: | Royal Society Science Book Prize for General Prize (1998), Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction (1998), California Book Award for Nonfiction (Gold) (1997), Puddly Award for History (2001) |
Relation In Favor Of Books Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (Civilizations Rise and Fall #1)
"Diamond has written a book of remarkable scope ... one of the most important and readable works on the human past published in recent years." Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and a national bestseller: the global account of the rise of civilization that is also a stunning refutation of ideas of human development based on race. In this "artful, informative, and delightful" (William H. McNeill, New York Review of Books) book, Jared Diamond convincingly argues that geographical and environmental factors shaped the modern world. Societies that had a head start in food production advanced beyond the hunter-gatherer stage, and then developed writing, technology, government, and organized religion—as well as nasty germs and potent weapons of war—and adventured on sea and land to conquer and decimate preliterate cultures. A major advance in our understanding of human societies, Guns, Germs, and Steel chronicles the way that the modern world came to be and stunningly dismantles racially based theories of human history. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science, the Rhone-Poulenc Prize, and the Commonwealth Club of California's Gold MedalList Of Books Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (Civilizations Rise and Fall #1)
| Title | : | Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (Civilizations Rise and Fall #1) |
| Author | : | Jared Diamond |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Special Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 425 pages |
| Published | : | 2005 by W.W. Norton & Company (first published May 9th 1997) |
| Categories | : | History. Nonfiction. Science. Anthropology. Sociology |
Rating Of Books Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (Civilizations Rise and Fall #1)
Ratings: 4.03 From 269989 Users | 10227 ReviewsCrit Of Books Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (Civilizations Rise and Fall #1)
What a terrific book. 😍One sentence review: Human history is a function of geography. Detailed review to follow!This may be the most over-rated book in the history of book rating. The point he is making is that we in Western Civilazation haven't built skyscrapers, made moon landings, mass produced automobiles, eradicated polio (or for that matter lived indoors with running water) while aborigines in certain remote outposts still hunt and gather in isolated tribes because we are inherently any smarter or more industrious than those individuals. Of course he is mostly right, but why in the 21st century is
This is an ambitious book. It seeks to provide a simple rationale to explain why inequalities exist between the peoples of the world. What makes its approach fresh is that the analysis is from someone who is neither an economist nor a historian. Broadly speaking, Diamond pulls this off. His style is readable and his arguments well laid out. His conclusions about the importance in early human history of having the right plants and animals to promote the vital first step for a civilisation that
In short, Europes colonization of Africa had nothing to do with differences between European and African peoples themselves, as white racists assume. Rather, it was due to accidents of geography and biogeographyin particular, to the continents different areas, axes, and suites of wild plant and animal species. That is, the different historical trajectories of Africa and Europe stem ultimately from differences in real estate. - Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and SteelThis is one of those books that
Stopped on page 88 for the time being, because, man, do people ever suck. We historically sucked. But since humans used to invade other humans' territory and do a lot of killing, at least things have changed now.Oh, wait.
Author Jared Diamond's two-part thesis is: 1) the most important theme in human history is that of civilizations beating the crap out of each other, 2) the reason the beat-ors were Europeans and the beat-ees the Aboriginees, Mayans, et. al. is because of the geographical features of where each civilization happened to develop. Whether societies developed gunpowder, written language, and other technological niceties, argues Diamond, is completely a function of whether they emerged amidst
This is what happens when you take an intelligent person, and casually make a few mentions of a field of study they have no knowledge of.Mr. Diamond, NOT an anthropologist, takes Marvin Harris' theory of cultural materialism and uses it to explain everything in life, history, and the current state of the world.Materialism is a way of looking at human culture which, for lack of a better way to explain it easily here, says that people's material needs and goods determine behavior and culture. For
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