Guns, Germs, and Steel

Rating:
Summary: Solid writing, solid logic.
Review: This is a great read, so long as you don't get bored by detail (I don't!). The author is very capable of taking a seemingly boring topic, and creating an entire book around it.
To any person who thinks human variables trump geography and other environmental variables, it important to remember that without the geography to creates the environment that people operate in. I know it sounds stupidly simple, but think about it. One person could not dominate Europe for a great period of time, because of Europe's geography. One person could, however, control all of China, because of China's geography. Thus, without the geography to create the environment, there is no way for any one person to affect the future of the continent.

Rating:
Summary: Politically Correct, but Still Well Worth Reading
Review: Writing a review on this book is a little like delivering a soliloquy during the Super Bowl. With 655 reviews before mine (and more to come I would assume) I am basically talking to myself. However, I really liked this book, so I'll still throw in my two cents.

Let me start off by saying that it is really a terrific book. It gives a tremendous survey of archaeology and what you might call the "pre-history" of the world. History, of course, is based on WRITTEN history, which only covers the last few thousand years. So, this book basically surveys everything else. The author does touch on some fairly recent events, such as the Spanish conquest of Mexico, but he covers it as the collision of a society that has writing with a society that doesn't. He also covers it from the perspective of the society WITHOUT writing. So, it still fits under the umbrella of "pre-history".

(As an aside, for anyone interested in the REST of the story, I highly recommend "A Brain for All Seasons" by Dr. William Calvin, which surveys the development of "anatomically modern humans": a sort of "pre-history" of "pre-humans".)

Professor Diamond was also astute enough to pick a thesis with which almost no one disagrees, and since he writes well and tells his story in an interesting way, he has been showered with awards and acclaim - from the Pulitzer Prize to the National Medal of Science. He has also, I am sure, become a millionaire in the process - if he wasn't already. (I have no problem with that, I think we should all try to do well for ourselves, if we can.)

His basic thesis is this: there are essentially no innate differences in ability between people the world over. The average Australian aborigine is just as intelligent and able as the average New Yorker. (I would say more so - I am not all that found of New York.) So, although there ARE some tremendous differences in the abilities of different societies, you will have to look elsewhere to explain them. Professor Diamond explains all differences in the military, technological, economic (etc., etc.) abilities of different societies as the result of geography. He certainly has many good points, but I agree with other reviewers who have said that this idea isn't original (it's actually centuries old), and Professor Diamond completely disregards cultural differences which I believe are important. Geography can't explain EVERYTHING.

This doesn't mean that I disagree with Professor Diamond's main point: people have pretty much the same (average) innate abilities the world over. I agree completely. In fact, you have only to drop your typical urban city-dweller in the middle of a howling wilderness and see how long it takes him to die (not long, typically) in order to demonstrate the truth of this idea for yourself. So called "primitive" hunter-gatherers actually had an amazingly sophisticated body of knowledge about their environment. It is actually quite amazing how poorly equipped humans are to survive in the world, and yet they have flourished everywhere on the basis of their mental abilities.

This brings me to my one and only complaint about this book. As I said, I agree with Professor Diamond's main point. So does virtually everyone else. However, Professor Diamond insists on writing as though the typical person (read: White, European) thinks that they are innately superior to everyone else in the world. The sub-text of this book is "you are all racist pigs, and I am going to educate you as to why you are wrong."

Seriously, who thinks that? (Okay, you have a few Neo-Nazis hiding out in the wilderness, living - ironically - a primitive hunter-gatherer type of existence, but I seriously doubt that any of that small number are interested in reading a book - any book - by a UCLA professor.) I truly resented the implication that because my skin is pale and my ancestors lived in Europe, I must be a racist pig - as if racism, somehow, were an innate characteristic of pale Europeans.

Yet Professor Diamond duns this into you over and over throughout the book. He truly writes as though he were debunking a popular and widely believed idea. The back cover of the edition I bought even quotes Paul Ehrlich saying that this "book demolishes the grounds for racist theories of history." All I can say is that if Professor Diamond (and Professor Ehrlich, for that matter) really believe that "racist theories of history" still need demolishing, then they truly live intellectually cloistered lives. They must not conduct much in the way of intellectual discourse with any but their academic colleagues.

Racist theories of history did indeed have their day in the sun, starting somewhere in the 19th century and ending - abruptly - in 1945. Racist theories of history provide an interesting study of the way in which an idea can take hold of the popular imagination on the basis of no evidence at all. Racist theories of history are interesting today as a cautionary tale of some innate intellectual shortcomings of the human species, but they don't need demolishing any longer. They were demolished over sixty years ago by the bombs of the Eighth Air Force and the RAF and the guns of the Soviet Army. (Racist theories of history also provide an interesting study of the way in which the credibility of ideas is influenced by military victory or defeat.) No doubt racism has its fringe of adherents, but let me point out that EVERY idea, no matter how silly, has its fringe of adherents somewhere in the world.

I guess that's just proof that we human beings aren't as smart as we could be. I give this book three stars because the author wears his politics on his sleeve, but it is still an interesting book and well worth reading. It is the sort of book, though, that you just read once. If I didn't already own it, I think I would just check it out from the local library.