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Summary: Politically correct, otherwise completely incorrect
Review: Flaws everywhere. He calls the European Union ECC in 1997. What kind of historician is who does not know the Mastrich Treaty? In 1992 the ECC was renamed to EU, EUROPEAN UNION. He refers the ECC (the EU) as the tiniest and unsuccessful move for a united Europe, such <<tiniest>> move, for example, is the Euro, the European currency adopted by 12 members states. Lovely!
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Summary: What in the world ?!
Review: This book is the worst book I have ever read. It is slow and basically repeats the same message throughout each chapter. Whats the point? It's also to long and could be a great book for people who a lot of time to waste but i think it is written poorley and it a bore. If you need a bad book to put you to sleep this is it!
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Summary: The unsaid truth about history, evolution and chance
Review: Frankly, many books on history, biology, geography, or even evolutionary psycology, seem to skirt around the issue of why Europeans 'won', why the West dominated the world and other 'races' did not. This books finally ties all the loose thread together, giving a whole image, if in sketch, of the ramifications of those subjects as currently understood.Some of the not so favorable reviewers seem not to have read the book, or seem to be in basic disagreement with evolutionary theory or scientific theory. Diamond is apparently well versed in history, biology, archeology and evolutionary thinking. If not, he is a pretty good con man. His avoidance of teleology alone makes this book several notches above other works I have seen. "Farming gives more food, so people turned to farming" is not allowed here, since the proto-farmers would have no idea of how it would turn out! There are some faults. In the later chapters Diamond is not nearly as meticulous as he is in earlier sections. His sketches become 'sketchier' and apparently more open to criticism. However, I could find no real factual mistakes, especially in reviewing some source documents . In some cases he does not seem to 'demonstrate' his work, only giving the premise and conclusions. Since earlier sections were demonstrated in detail, the conclusions drawn are obvioius. I was just somewhat disappointed that Diamond did not detail those conclusions. These faults are trivial. The display of Pacific Islander history was particularly enjoyable. Compairing and contrasting the resulting myriad societies, and their interactions with each other and finally the 'outside' world sets the tone for the rest of the book. The other sections, describing areas of the world, too are gems to anyone seriously interested in history. If you want a clearer understanding of history, and wish not to rely on religious or racist ideology to bolster claims of superiority, read this book.
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Summary: Auido Book Review.
Review: May be it's just mine, but the last tape's second half didn't play at all. I was disappointed for not been able to finish the book. Overall, it was nice, and I agree with the author greatly, though I got very confused with the huge amount of info quiet often. By the way, I could hear the Reader turing pages during the last two tapes, pretty cool.
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Summary: Unbelievable!
Review: Since the majority of people actually believe this stuff, here is what you can expect to find in your future:
"Well, I've reworked the 4th dimensional math used by Einstein in his equations for gravitational relativity," you say.
"Yes, I can see that your ancestors had a lot of cattle," your Ivy League supervisor replies. "But we wanted to promote someone 'intelligent' for this position. That's why we're giving this promotion to a New Guinea CANNIBAL."
Yes - that's right, CANNIBAL! Among people with an intelligence that can actually be 'measured' with a test, as opposed to those with an intelligence that must be (for any number of reasons) merely 'insisted' upon, New Guinea natives are MOST well known as being the very same HEAD HUNTERS and CANNIBALS that you have seen portrayed on "Gilligan's Island".
Is it only me? Or could there be a more horrifying future? Or should I say 'present'?
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Summary: Boring
Review: This book takes one chapter worth of material on a very interesting subject and repeats it over and over to the point where the reader is bored sensless. I couldn't even finish the thing. I learned from this that the Pulitzer prize is no mark of excellence. Don't waste your time.
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Summary: An Important Book For All
Review: This Pulitzer-Prize-winning work disproves racist theories of human-evolution. 'Guns, Germs, and Steel' discusses everything from human origins, geography and climate of areas, plant and animal species available to early societies, the formation of alphabets, the formations of diseases and immunities to them, and more. The book is loaded with theories that are backed up with fact after fact after fact, while Diamond's writing style and wit keeps the reader turning the pages. Diamond takes you across the world, and draws a lot from his time spent in New Guinea. This is a very important book and should be taught at the high school level. I'm looking forward to what Diamond will publish next!
Rating:
Summary: Very good, but slightly biased
Review: Very informative and well written. However, the author's own experiences in his contacts with New Guinean hunter-gatherers may have led him to abandon his otherwise objective and critical views. We are all equal, but hunter-gatherers are more equal than others. Also, his account of the capture of the Aztec monarch by the Spanish draws upon data (for example, one the numerical odds and the relative importance of technological, epidemiological and cultural/political factors) which are by no means undisputed (see for example: George Raudzens, "Main Reasons for Early Colonial Conquests, 1493-1788", in: G. Raudzens (ed.), Technology, Disease and Colonial Conquests, Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries: Essays Reappraising the Guns and Germs Theories. Leiden [etc.]: Brill, 2001, pp 31-57, which also refers to Diamond's book). Nevertheless, 'Guns, Germs, and Steel' presents a gripping narrative, especially the "Speedboat to Polynesia" chapter. It synthesizes information from vastly different fields that the average person wouldn't think of, and may prove an eye-opener to many.
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Summary: Apparently...
Review: Apparently, if you take the author at his words, the Europeans have their ACCOMPLISHMENTS and the rest of the world has their JUSTIFICATION as to why they don't have any ACCOMPLISHMENT. And, it had nothing to do with HARD WORK, LEARNING or NATIVE INTELLIGENCE but had everything to do with CATTLE, GEOGRAPHY and EAST-WEST TRADE ROUTES. Simple, right?
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Summary: Review of Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates o
Review: The author's intent in writing Guns, Germs, and Steel is to explain how the different peoples of the world came to be the way they are. His intent is to prove his own belief that the reason mankind is the way it is because of its geography. By geography it means that different geographical areas with varying climates and natural resources directly influenced the path that mankind took in becoming the way it is today. It is, in a way, an attempt to explain human history in a way that it could have been predicted. However, it is arrogant to think that it was man's destiny to be this way. It is arrogant to think that the Spaniards were meant to conquer the Inca's and Aztec's and not have the Inca's conquer them. Luckily, the author points this out and makes it his intent to discover why it is not the other way around. If the events that are told are factual, he came upon the idea of explaining human history when a politician from New Guinea named asked him why the white man discovered such technological wonders instead of, say, a New Guinea highlander. The author realizes that most answers given would seem racist and sets out to discover why. Basically, he intends to answer Yali's question. He intends to look at human history as a science. He intends to only make assumptions based on scientific evidence and on a basis of solid genetics and logic. He intends to write a book to end all history books. He intends to give an argument so solid, so carefully planned, that no one could possibly argue with it. He intends to think of every possibility and examine every one of them to finalize its validity. In short, he intends to write a history of man that explains how we became the technology driven, world controlling, diverse peoples that we are. The author goes about explaining humanity by carefully examining every theory as to why different cultures in different regions evolved so differently from each other. Naturally the first thing he disproves is that there is a difference genetically in the peoples themselves. His discoveries prove quite contrary to the racist beliefs of the past. Modern medicine has taken the "civilized" world out of natural selection. However, the "uncivilized" portion of the world is still very much at nature's whim. Natural selection certainly doesn't favor the stupid or weak, so genetically the "uncivilized" are probably far superior to the "civilized". Analysis based on logic such as this takes up most of the book. Eventually the author settles that the turning point in deciding uncivilized versus civilized for a society is when that society adopted agriculture and a sedentary lifestyle. He deduces that a sedentary, agricultural lifestyle encouraged technological advancements and allowed for population growth and expansion. A certain amount of land can support more agricultural people then hunter-gatherer people. Through sheer numbers agriculture and therefore "civilization" spread across the world. Naturally the areas to discover agriculture first became more advanced quicker. Therefore natural resources played a big role. However, for this to be accepted as fact one must first analyze why agriculture arose in some areas and not others, how plants are domesticated and so on and so forth. Every explanation leads to ten more needed explanations which leads to 100 more explanations which continues for a couple hundred pages. Everything is thought of and no detail or factor of human history is left out, right down to how plants were probably domesticated through surprises found in excretions, the main way plants go about spreading from place to place. The details are accompanied by numerous graphs, tables, maps and pictures, which either repeat the details or explain them even more. The author goes about his task so meticulously and carefully that the details begin to bog everything down. Where the author is going with the information or why he is explaining so many details is often never explained. Some details seem unnecessary and irrelevant. Whatever point the author is trying to make is often lost in the details. The author goes about his task of explaining humanity by analyzing events in history and going into great detail as to how we came to be the way we are. However, the way it feels is that the author wants to bore the reader into submission in believing his view. The book is successful in what it was trying to accomplish, in that it logically explains how humanity came to be the way it is. However, it is not successful in being at all enjoyable. I felt as though I was being bombarded with facts and smothered with useless information. I suppose I was persuaded to believe that geography and its contributing factors lead to humanity being the way it is, but does it really matter? Were the hours I spent reading this book at all necessary? Was this book necessary? This book leaves me with questions like that. This book leaves me unsatisfied. Not once did it even try to answer or even pose the question as to whether civilized or uncivilized life is better. Not once does it attempt to tackle whether civilized life is more worthwhile or enjoyable or more rewarding. It seems to only answer questions that it can answer and avoid all that it can't. It seems afraid to try to answer questions of a more philosophical nature. The book concentrates so much on being only facts that it bored me to death. It hides from speaking opinions so much that it also hides from being even remotely interesting. Opinions may at times be controversial, but they are never boring. How this book won the Pulitzer Prize I do not know. This book was a boring collection of facts and logic. I would advise the reader of this review to ignore this book completely. Don't read this book unless you are in desperate need of a long nap.
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