3.5 stars. May be because I read this after the Hariri, Gladwell and Mukherjee books; it felt not as intriguing and exciting as others in GR have experienced. The fact that it comes in sections not tied to one another makes reading less enjoyable. Nevertheless it was a good book with a lot of information.

Why didn't the indigenous people of the Americas, Oceania, and sub-equatorial Africa conquer Europe and its people? Why was it the other way around?

Why didn't agriculture, cities, the wheel, writing, craftsmanship of metal processing originate in Europe? Why did it instead originate in the Fertile Crescent (Mesopotamia) and its surrounding areas? These are some very intriguing questions discussed in Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (1997) written by Jared Diamond.

This book is a brief history of the human evolution of the last 13,000 years with a focus on social evolution, ethnology, and ecology. The book also pays special attention to the regions which boarder the vast Pacific Ocean.

Well, the Europeans discovered and conquered the Americas and Oceania because they were a more advance civilization. The Europeans had firearms, metal weapons, logistical technology that conquered land and sea, written language, centralized political power, and contagious diseases with which they infected and killed the natives, as the Europeans have already become genetically resistant to and acquired an immunity to those contagious diseases.

The reason why the cradle of civilization originated in the Fertile Crescent is due to its specific geographical characteristics of the environment that had more favorable ecological conditions compared to other regions and Diamond states that it had nothing to do with the biology of those people. This region had access to metal based material for their tools and weapons. They were surrounded by animals that could be domesticated for defense, labour, and food. Last but not least, the Mesopotamians had local available plants that were edible and easily cultivated. All in all, in general, the Eurasians had a more favorable environment, a head start, a greater population, larger continent, and this is why they had an advantage on the people of the Americas, Oceania, and sub-equatorial Africa. I am assuming this is part of the story, but I can name several counter arguments. I was expecting a lot more, and I just wasn't satisfied with the arguments presented, nor were they all convincing. I can't recall any creative ideas or clever theories in this book. The influence of culture was discussed, but hardly religion or genetics.

Diamond also very briefly discusses how the development of technology was amplified by a cumulative effect which reminded me of how well Richard Dawkins in The Blind Watchmaker (1986) explained the various positive feedback loops and the cumulative effect in biological evolution.

The book is well-written and informative, this is a given, but many things are unnecessarily being repeated throughout the book with too many recapitulations. It could all have been more concise.

(3.5/5.0)

Diamond's history is wonderful, full of new science, strange facts, and great anecdotes. The polemics get repetitious and a bit defensive at times, but can be safely skimmed. This would have been a better book had it been written as straight history, letting the facts speak for themselves - but it's still well worth reading. Recommended.

[Excerpted from my 1998 review, which I should clean up & repost sometime]

Καταπληκτικό βιβλίο. Με λεπτομέρειες και επιστημονική ακρίβεια.

Tüfek, Mikrop ve Çelik, herkesin okuması gereken kitapların başında yer alan bir kitap. Son zamanlarda çok popüler olan sapiens gibi taraflı ve eksik bilgiler yer almıyor. Vermek istediğini kitabın adında da söyleyen, net bir kitap. Kitabın, kafanızda oluşmuş, unutulmuş bir çok soruya cevap verdiğini söylemeliyim. Özellikle benim için bir kaç önemli soruyu yanıtladı ve nedenlerini açıkladı.
Okuması çok kolay bir kitap ama çok fazla konuya değindiğinden biraz geniş bir zamana yaymanız iyi olabilir. Bir ayı geçen bir sürede tamamladım ve arada bir çok kitap okudum. Bu şekilde ilerlenince kitaba daha iyi doymuş oluyorsunuz.
Sadece antropoloji ile ilgilenenlerin değil, neyin nasıl olduğunu ve neden böyle geliştiğini soran ve sorgulayan bu eşsiz kitabı tavsiye ederim.

Çevremde gördüğüm kadarıyla peynir ekmek gibi satılan, alınıp kitaplığa süs olarak konulan ama pek de okunmayan kitaplardan birisi. Genelde video ya da fotoğraflarda arkadaki kitaplığa ön yüzü bakar şekilde konulma işlevi var. :) Tübitak baskısından okudum. Vakti zamanında Tübitak Yayınları bilimsel kitaplar için bulunmaz nimetti. Şimdi etliye sütlüye dokunmadan çocuk kitapları basan bir yayınevine dönüştü. Neyse konuya dönelim.
Kitabı tarım devrimi ve devletlerin ortaya çıkması üzerine yaptığım araştırma için tekrar hızlıca okudum. Özellikle hırsızkrasi ya da kleptokrasi olarak adlandırdığı merkezi devlet organizasyonunun anlatıldığı bölümden çok yararlandım. Yazmakta olduğum yeni kitabımda araştırdığım önemli bir konu da devletlerin ortaya çıkışıydı. Diamond özellikle “kalabalık-karmaşık toplumlarda alt tabakadan kaymak tabakaya bu kadar fazla refah aktarılmasına rağmen hırsızlar nasıl başarılı olabiliyorlar?” sorusunu sormuş. Bu soru bana çok tartışılan tüfek, mikrop ve çelik konusundan daha da ilginç geldi. Eğer televizyon gazete okuyup yahu niye insanlar bazı gerçekleri görmüyor diye kafa kırıyorsanız bu bölümü tekrar tekrar okumanızı tavsiye ederim. Televizyonu kapatıp pencerenizi açın, derin bir nefes alın ve zihinsel değişimlerin yıllar değil yüzlerce yılda meydana geldiğini hatırlayın. Kısacası bir şeyler değişecek ama muhtemelen biz görmeyeceğiz.

Not:
Jared Diamond ya da Yuval Noah Harari kitaplarını Türkiye’de yazabilir miydiler? Yazsalar da bastırabilir miydiler? Muhtemelen yazdıklarını yayınevlerine satılmayacağı düşüncesiyle kabul ettiremezlerdi.
Muhtemelen yayınevini arayan Jared Diamon’a editörler hocam kağıt fiyatları çok arttı basım maliyetleri arttı diye dert yanarlardı. Peki o kitabı yazanın emek ve birikiminin bir maliyeti yok mu. Yok malesef. Kimse bunun adını bile anmıyor.

n  
كان استنتاجي الرئيسي أن المجتمعات تطورت بشكل مختلف في قارات مختلفة, بسبب اختلافات في البيئات القارية وليس في البيولوجيا الإنسانية.


باختصار, فإن استعمار أوروبا لإفريقيا لا علاقة له بالاختلافات بين الشعوب الأوروبية والإفريقية ذاتها كما يفترض العنصريون. بل يعود إلى مصادفات جغرافية وبيو−جغرافية بشكل خاص, وإلى اختلاف المناطق والمحاور وأنواع النباتات والحيوانات. أي إن الاختلاف في المسارات التاريخية لإفريقيا وأوروبا ينشأ في النهاية من اختلافات في الأرض والعقار.



المخترعون موجودون لدى كل الشعوب, لكن بعض البيئات توفر مواد للابتداء بها كما توفر ظروفا أكثر ملاءمة لاستخدام تلك الاختراعات

n

هذا ملخص الكتاب
اما كيف يكون ذلك ؟
فهو ما سودت به اكثر من ستمئة صفحة

الصراع بين العوامل الوراثية والبيئية وايهما الاكثر تأثيرا صراع عميق
في هذا الكتاب نفهم ان للبيئة اليد الطولى في حال المجتمعات اليوم ، بشكل مذهل حقيقة .

لايمكن ان اوفي الكتاب حقه ولا اسعى لكتابة مراجعة علمية شاملة
لكنه حقا ممتع
التاريخ بالمقياس الكبير
رحلة عبر يورو-اسيا والامريكتين وافريقيا واستراليا وبابوا نيو غينيا واليابان والصين
عبر العالم كله باختصار
تعلمت الكثير وفهمت الكثير
الصدف التافهة تترك آثارا خالدة ،حقا حقيقة طريفة

الحياة جميلة جدا ،والطريقة التي تطورنا بها مذهلة وملهمة لاقصى الحدود

من أفضل قراءات السنة

كتاب عظيم عظيم ، يوسع الافاق ويساعد في ربط الخيوط المتباعدة ،فتخرج منه بفهم أعمق وأجود وأكثر علمية للمجتمعات الانسانية
يوصى يوصى به ..

I felt cheated by this book. It started off with such promise and like a fat person with a box of chocolates in front of them, I couldn't wait to get wired in. At one point, I decided that this book was worthy of four stars. By the midway point though I was tired. Tired of the repetition. How many times does Jared Diamond have to refer to the fact that he believes the rise of food production to be the main determinant of success for a society, before he believes the reader might believe him. It just seemed like in this book, it was (at least) one time too many.

Diamond attempts to answer an age old question; what determines a society's position in relation to the others on Earth? The problem with the approach he uses is that it is just not robust enough to be worth sharing. My first problem is that just because things are the way they are, it doesn't mean they had to be. Unless otherwise convinced (and I would take some convincing) I just can't lend any weight to the idea that history is anything other than chaotic, influenced by countless factors, many of which we remain unaware. I just could not shirk off the impression that Diamond was coming up with a theory and then shoehorning facts into the theory to lend it credence. One example of this is the idea that societies rate of progress is determined largely by what way round the landmass they inhabit lies. He fails to mention The Alps, The Mediterranean, the Himalayas or the large temperature gradient between parts of Eastern Russia and Western Europe, as potential barriers to the diffusion of ideas between societies in Eurasia, instead choosing to blithely ignore them to fit his chosen hypothesis. To me that's a bit like saying that rather than teeth evolving to fit our diet, they evolved to improve our smile and hence give us more chance of attracting a mate. In other words, making up a theory to fit the facts and using the facts themselves as justification and choosing to ignore existing evidence.

To reinforce this impression in my mind, Diamond concludes by trying to justify his flimsy just-so explanations in a very patronising and unconvincing manner, suggesting that the main reason for disagreeing with them lies in a misunderstanding of the historical sciences and it's methods by the majority of people. He even goes as far as including the likes of evolutionary biology and astronomy in with history, suggesting that if we believe in the findings of the former disciplines, we should give more weight to the theories of the historical sciences (history). It is my belief that the findings within both astronomy and evolutionary biology are subjected to rigorous experimental testing, a belief which Diamond clearly does not hold. I could almost feel my faith and trust in Diamond as a scientist die inside me by the time I had turned the final page.

The whole thing is pretty flimsy. A few theories, which are either extroardinarily simple (geographical difference makes the difference in societies developments not the people) or flawed and/or lacking evidential support (the axis of the continent which a society inhabits makes a considerable impact upon it's development).

Finally the book is by and large, overwhelmingly dull. Diamond repeats himself like a broken record and wading through his prose feels at times like wading through thickened treacle on rubber stilts.

If you are looking for definitive answers to the central question of this book, answers that you feel assured are reasonably likely to be robust and accurate, this book does not provide them. It contains nuggets of trivia but that wasn't the reason I picked this off the bookshelf to read it and I think that would apply to most prospective readers.

Timely excerpt from the book....

Evolution of epidemic infectious diseases

The main killers of humans since the advent of agriculture have been acute, highly infectious, epidemic diseases that are confined to humans and that either kill the victim quickly or, if the victim recovers, immunize him/her for life. Such diseases could not have existed before the origins of agriculture, because they can sustain themselves only in large dense populations that did not exist before agriculture, hence they are often termed ‘crowd diseases’.

The mystery of the origins of many of these diseases has been solved by molecular biological studies of recent decades, demonstrating that they evolved from similar epidemic diseases of our herd domestic animals with which we began to come into close contact 10,000 years ago. Thus, the evolution of these diseases depended on two separate roles of domestication: in creating much denser human populations, and in permitting much more frequent transmission of animal diseases from our domesticates than from hunted wild animals. For instance, measles and tuberculosis arose from diseases of cattle, influenza from a disease of pigs and ducks. An outstanding mystery remains the origins of smallpox: did it reach us from camels or from cattle?

===============

On a different note, forensic anthropologists made some stunning discoveries on the outskirts of Lima, Peru, that essentially challenge Diamond's hypothesis about the conquest of the Incas. This documentary explains.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JZKU...

This book that reads like a transcript for a documentary, analyzing why some civilizations flourished and others did not in all of human history. It is well-written and well-organized. Diamond examines such topics as the development of agriculture, domestication of animals, geographical location, the surrounding environment, proliferation of languages, transmission of diseases, and so much more. To fully appreciate this book, I think it requires a strong interest in sociology, anthropology, history, biology, archeology, or, preferably, a combination of many of these areas. It contains a wealth of information and is conveyed in an impartial manner. Diamond makes a compelling case against the various rationales that have been used to justify racism. I found it fascinating.

Diamond attempts to "provide a short history of everybody for the last 13,000 years," AND answer the question of why some cultures thrive while others perish or are conquered by others. There is a mind-boggling amount of information presented: some of it is fascinating, some of it seems repetitive, and overly long. When my husband, who is a big fan of "farming books," thinks that there was WAY TOO MUCH about agriculture. . . well, that kind of tells you something.

I listened to this on audio, (all thirteen discs!), and one line really caught my, um, ear:

n  Some societies seem hopelessly conservative, inward looking, and hostile to change.n

Wow! Hmm . . . right now I can think of a country that is fast adopting isolationist policies, a country that is constantly looking to the past as "the ideal time," and whose politicians are doing all they can to turn back the clock, denying climate change, shunning education as "elitist," and deleting scientific data from public websites, all in an attempt to stick to the "old ways" that have been so profitable for so few.

Did Jared Diamond, writing in the late 1990's, just describe the United States today?

And will we become like one of the more primitive societies, sitting and watching while the rest of the world makes strides in science, technology, and the development of clean energy sources? Yes, our agriculture is mighty nice, and, yes, we have plenty of steel and tons of guns, but with our scientific community both muzzled, and strapped for cash, will we be able to fight off new diseases, epidemics, or attacks by biological weapons? Will we become one of those once great cultures Diamond discusses that once flew high, then crashed and burned?

The choice is up to us, and I'm not feeling too optimistic.

This book was recommended to me by a friend who likes the books with grand themes. Spanning the period since the beginnings of animal domestication and settled agriculture, it attempts to answer the question as to why particular regions of the globe developed when they did, socio-economically speaking, and why others never developed societies more advanced than hunter-gatherers. Diamond, a professional scientist and amateur historian, adduces a plausible argument based on environmental givens, an hypothesis with a great carrying capacity.

This environmentally-deterministic study is counterbalanced by his later work, 'Collapse', which treats of the matter of the success and failure of human societies. Here social practices, human behaviors, are determinative, but once again in terms of environmental givens.

The subtext to both volumes, what I read into them throughout, was an argument against genetic determinism--in other words, against racism.