[32], Cover of the first edition, featuring the painting, The origin of syphilis is still debated. This summary also includes key lessons and important passages from the book. [23][24] The transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture is not necessarily a one-way process. Domesticated animals had given Europeans one advantage of which they were completely unaware. Why was it the other way around? 2. In 1998, Guns, Germs, and Steel won the Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction and the Aventis Prize for Best Science Book. Welcome back. The book's title is a reference to the means by which farm-based societies conquered populations and maintained dominance despite sometimes being vastly outnumbered – guns, germs, and steel enabled imperialism. Having done field work in New Guinea for more than 30 years, Jared Diamond presents the geographical and ecological factors that have shaped the … Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Guns, Germs and Steel examines the rise of civilization and the issues its development has raised throughout history. Due to the Anna Karenina principle, surprisingly few animals are suitable for domestication. He instead wrote a detailed, engaging account of the history of plant and animal domestication. The funniest story that struck me was the QWERTY keyboard one which apparently is the least ergonomic design but due to its rapid adoption by typists due to capitalist competition and afterwards its ubiquity once computers became important, it is impossible to dislodge. [1], Guns, Germs, and Steel was first published by W. W. Norton in March 1997. The great thing about Guns, Germs and Steel is the detail: Jared Diamond starts with a proposition every good Guardian reader would wish to believe – … In general, it basically discussed how guns, germs, and steel have affected and influenced the shaping of African societies as it is today. [12] Tufts University IR scholar Daniel W. Drezner listed the book on his top ten list of must-read books about international economic history. moment. Still others, he says, "have been decimated, subjugated, and in some cases even exterminated by European colonialists." Eurasians domesticated goats and sheep for hides, clothing, and cheese; cows for milk; bullocks for tillage of fields and transport; and benign animals such as pigs and chickens. Of course he is mostly right, but why in the 21st century is this considered such a novel idea, and why does he have to be so BORING about it? I was also particularly impressed by his view that the orientation of a continent can foster or hinder the spread of farming, a point I had never considered. Diamond's central conception is that the course of history, broadly speaking, is not determined by individual actions, cultural factors, or racial differences, but by the environmental circumstances into which different groups of people accidentally wandered. On the other hand, non-Eurasian germs brought back from Africa and the New World had little impact in Eurasia. Despite the fascinating subject matter I found this book a bit dry. Conquest, and 3. The dominant Out of Africa theory holds that modern humans developed east of the Great Rift Valley of the African continent at one time or another. Broadly speaking, Diamond pulls this off. Diamond also argues that geography shaped human migration, not simply by making travel difficult (particularly by latitude), but by how climates affect where domesticable animals can easily travel and where crops can ideally grow easily due to the sun. by W.W. Norton & Company, Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. My notes are informal and often contain quotes from the book as well as my own thoughts. Why didn’t it happen the other way around? When I wrote Guns, Germs and Steel, I had a whole chapter on Africa and a chapter on diseases in Africa. Writing that Diamond gives meager coverage to the history of political thought, the historian suggested that capitalism (which Diamond classes as one of 10 plausible but incomplete explanations) has perhaps played a bigger role in prosperity than Diamond argues. Guns, Germs and Steel lays a foundation for understanding human history, which makes it fascinating in its own right. Diamond meshes technological mastery with historical sweep, anecdotal delight with broad conceptual vision, and command of sources with creative leaps. [16][17], Another historian, professor J. R. McNeill, complimented the book for "its improbable success in making students of international relations believe that prehistory is worth their attention", but likewise thought Diamond oversold geography as an explanation for history and under-emphasized cultural autonomy. However, Mokyr still argued that Guns, Germs, and Steel is "one of the more important contributions to long-term economic history and is simply mandatory to anyone who purports to engage Big Questions in the area of long-term global history". GERMS AND STEEL THE FATES OF HUMAN SOCIETIES. What is the one factor that allowed Europeans to develop the forces necessary to conquer vast portions of the world? Western Europe also benefited from a more temperate climate than Southwestern Asia where intense agriculture ultimately damaged the environment, encouraged desertification, and hurt soil fertility. [3][18] McNeill wrote that the book's success "is well-deserved for the first nineteen chapters–excepting a few passages–but that the twentieth chapter carries the argument beyond the breaking point, and excepting a few paragraphs, is not an intellectual success." [note 1] The European diseases – the germs of the book's title – decimated indigenous populations so that relatively small numbers of Europeans could maintain their dominance.[2][3]. 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. Guns, Germs, and Steel won the 1997 Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science. Similar circumstances were observed in Australia and South Africa. Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies Jared Diamond New York, NY, W. W. Norton, 1997, ISBN: 9780393038912; 480pp. [30] It was a selection of Book of the Month Club, History Book Club, Quality Paperback Book Club, and Newbridge Book Club. This is an ambitious book. For Mokyr, Diamond's view that Eurasia succeeded largely because of a uniquely large stock of domesticable plants is flawed because of the possibility of crop manipulation and selection in the plants of other regions: the drawbacks of an indigenous plant such as sumpweed could have been bred out, Mokyr wrote, since "all domesticated plants had originally undesirable characteristics" eliminated via "deliberate and lucky selection mechanisms". In 1998, Guns, Germs, and Steel won the Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction and the Aventis Prize for Best Science Book. It’s become a landmark, best-seller book that would win the Pulitzer Prize and be filmed by National Geographic for PBS. Mokyr dismissed as unpersuasive Diamond's theory that breeding specimens failing to fix characteristics controlled by multiple genes "lay at the heart of the geographically challenged societies." Guns, Germs, and Steel: Episode 1 Directions: Before viewing the fi lm, read each question below so you know what information and ideas you should be looking for as you watch Episode 1. Monolithic, isolated empires without serious competition could continue mistaken policies – such as China squandering its naval mastery by banning the building of ocean-going ships – for long periods without immediate consequences. Endemic infectious diseases were also barriers to European colonisation of Southeast Asia and New Guinea. Tomlinson noted that technology spreads and allows for military conquests and the spread of economic changes, but that in Diamond's book this aspect of human history "is dismissed as largely a question of historical accident." The book was well-written (if a bit repetitive at times) and presents eye-opening and inventive analysis that will help me see the world I live in differently. GUNS,. Of the remaining nine, only two (the llama and alpaca both of South America) are indigenous to a land outside the temperate region of Eurasia. London. [31], In 2003 and 2007, the author published new English-language editions that included information collected since the previous editions. Refresh and try again. Addeddate 2014-03-03 04:57:17 Identifier fp_Jared_Diamond-Guns_Germs_and_Steel Identifier-ark ark:/13960/t1xd3gd97 Ocr ABBYY FineReader 9.0 Ppi 300 Scanner Guns, Germs, and Steel Questions and Answers. The combined effect of the increased population densities supported by agriculture, and of close human proximity to domesticated animals leading to animal diseases infecting humans, resulted in European societies acquiring a much richer collection of dangerous pathogens to which European people had acquired immunity through natural selection (see the Black Death and other epidemics) during a longer time than was the case for Native American hunter-gatherers and farmers. 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. Although geography had been nearly eliminated as an academic discipline in the United States after the 1960s, several geography-based historical theories were published in the 1990s.[8]. It seeks to provide a simple rationale to explain why inequalities exist between the peoples of the world. The Holocene extinction event eliminated many of the megafauna that, had they survived, might have become candidate species, and Diamond argues that the pattern of extinction is more severe on continents where animals that had no prior experience of humans were exposed to humans who already possessed advanced hunting techniques (e.g. [9], Northwestern University economic historian Joel Mokyr interpreted Diamond as a geographical determinist but added that the thinker could never be described as "crude" like many determinists. . I will say this: he makes some interesting points about geographical and geological determinism and the potential validity thereof. Smallpox, measles, and influenza were the result of close proximity between dense populations of animals and humans. is because of the geographical features of where each civilization happened to develop. In particular, Eurasia has barley, two varieties of wheat, and three protein-rich pulses for food; flax for textiles; and goats, sheep, and cattle. My first intention reading this book is not to seek knowledge in the real world, but to understand more about the setting/world making of fantasy fiction and science fiction. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, Jared Diamond The book attempts to explain why Eurasian and North African civilizations have survived and conquered others, while arguing against the idea that Eurasian hegemony is due to any form of Eurasian intellectual, moral, or inherent genetic superiority. Diamond, Jared, Guns, Germs and Steel: A short history of everybody for the last 13,000 years. The style is not academic (and did admittedly put me off by using sentences with "!" Biological relatives of the horse, including zebras and onagers, proved untameable; and although African elephants can be tamed, it is very difficult to breed them in captivity;[2][3] Diamond describes the small number of domesticated species (14 out of 148 "candidates") as an instance of the Anna Karenina principle: many promising species have just one of several significant difficulties that prevent domestication. London. Historian Tom Tomlinson wrote that the magnitude of the task makes it inevitable that Professor Diamond would "[use] very broad brush-strokes to fill in his argument", but ultimately commended the book. This is an ambitious book. "[10], Berkeley economic historian Brad DeLong on his blog describes the book as a "work of complete and total genius". If one is to take reality at face value rather than with massive filters eliminating reason and coherence from it, then one cannot possibly justify believing that all humans came from Adam and Eve and that they were white as snow and racially superior to their offspring. Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read. ;Price: £18.99 Although the theory seems outdated and unused, it is important to recognize the role it has had on shaping modern theories. Occasionally in life you can feel a book shifting the way you see the world, shifting what you thought you knew about the world. This is a thought-provoking, deeply interesting, controversial book investigating the reasons behind the bafflingly different rate of development of human societies in different parts of the world. He never said it was geographically disposed towards poverty and backwardness, just that the geography inhibits the spread of domesticated crops that are vital for agriculture and contained much less domestic-able animals than Eurasia, thereby severely limiting the speed of it's development. Nevertheless; Mr. Diamond's knowledge and subject matter expertise would be---in my opinion--beyond reproach. Diamond, Jared, Guns, Germs and Steel: A short history of everybody for the last 13,000 years. Highly recommended. According to the two writers, "Diamond stated clearly that any problematique of this magnitude had to be radically multi-causal and then set to work on one complex of factors, namely ecological ones", and note that Diamond "immediately came in for heavy criticism from specialists working in the disparate fields on which he drew". al. In Guns, Germs, and Steel Jared Diamond presents the biologist's answer: geography, demography, and ecological happenstance. 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