ถ้าคุณอยากเข้าใจประวัติศาสตร์มนุษย์ให้ดีขึ้น บางครั้งการถอยออกมาดูแผนที่จะช่วยให้เราเข้าใจอิทธิพลอันยิ่งใหญ่ของภูมิศาสตร์ที่มีผลต่อประวัติศาสตร์ และเข้าใจสาเหตุเบื้องหลังที่แท้จริงของความมั่งคั่งและความยากจนต่างๆ ในโลกปัจจุบันได้ดีขึ้น -> อันนี้คือใจความหนังสือ และหนังสือก็ตอบคำถามประเด็นเหล่านี้ได้ดี

คนเราแตกต่างกันตั้งแต่เมื่อไร? ทำไมยุโรป-เมกา รวยกว่าแอฟริกา เก่งกว่าจริงหรอ (ไม่จริง) ถ้าอย่างนั้นอะไรที่เป็นตัวกำหนดว่าประเทศไหนจนและประเทศไหนรวยละ แน่นอนว่ามีหลายคำตอบมากๆ และหลายปัจจัย แต่ปัจจัยหนึ่งที่แน่ชัดคือ "ไม่ใช่ประเทศไหนฉลาดกว่าหรือโง่กว่า" แต่เป็น "ใครโชคดีกว่ากัน" (เศร้ากว่าเดิม)

เราอาจจะเคยอ่านหนังสือเศรษฐศาสตร์ที่พูดเรื่องประเทศไหนจนและรวยมาบ้างแล้ว คำตอบที่พบเห็นได้บ่อยคือ ประเทศรวยมีสถาบันที่ดี/สถาบันเช่น การเมือง การศึกษา อะไรงี้เป็นต้น แต่เล่มนี้จะเจาะลึกมากกว่านั้น แล้วอะไรที่ทำให้บางประเทศมีสถาบันการเมืองที่ดีกว่าแต่อีกประเทศไม่มี นี่ต่างหากที่น่าสนใจ เพราะการแก้ปัญหาแค่บอกว่า อ่อ ประเทศยูคอร์รัปชั่นเยอะหรอ เราไม่กำจัดการโกงกันเถอะ แล้วก็ส่งเสริมเงินทุนต่างๆ โดยไม่ได้เข้าใจปัจจัยเบื้องหลังก็ไม่ได้แก้ปัญหาอะไรเท่าไรนัก (ถ้ามันแก้ ประเทศยากจนอย่างซิมบับเวก็ควรรวยแล้ว) หากเราเข้าใจเบื้องหลังของเบื้องหลังของปัญหา (รากของปัญหา แหม เขียนอะไรอย่างนั้น) มันอาจจะไม่ได้ทำให้ปัญหาแก้ง่ายขึ้น (ปัญหาเรื่องความเหลื่อมล้ำไม่เคยแก้ง่าย) แต่อย่างน้อยมันอาจจะแก้ได้ตรงจุดมากขึ้น และมีประสิทธิภาพมากขึ้น

นี่คือข้อดีของหนังสือ และเป็นข้อดีข้อเดียวที่ทำให้เรา "ทน" อ่านได้จนจบ 555555 เพราะหนังสือน่าเบื่อมาก ใครบอกเซเปี้ยนหนาและน่าเบื่อเหมือนหนังสือเรียน คือ มาเจอเล่มนี้ก่อนเพื่อน หนากว่าและน่าเบื่อกว่าอีก 55555 แต่มันก็ทำให้เราเข้าใจประวัติศาสตร์ภูมิศาสตร์อย่างย่อย่อเท่าที่หนังสือหนา 600 กว่าหน้าจะทำได้ แน่นอนว่ามันไม่ละเอียด (คือ ถ้าละเอียดกว่านี้ก็คงอ่านไม่จบ) แต่มันก็ครอบคลุมที่จะทำให้เราเข้าใจภาพกว้างของแผนที่โลกว่ามันเป็นไปอย่างไร การเคลื่อนที่ของกลุ่มอำนาจผ่านทางแผ่นดิน

ในท้ายๆ เล่มจาเร็ดเองก็อธิบายเพิ่มว่า แน่นอนว่าภูมิศาสตร์ไม่ใช่ทั้งหมดของปัจจัยในการเปลี่ยนแปลงทางอำนาจหรือกำหนดสิ่งต่างๆ มันก็ยังมีปัจจัยด้านวัฒนธรรม หรืออื่นๆ เข้ามาเกี่ยวข้องอีกด้วย แต่หนังสือเล่มนี้ไม่ได้มีกล่าวถึงเพราะถ้าจะเขียนถึงอาจจะหนากว่านี้จนยกอ่านไม่ไหว

ปล. เราชอบช่วงเข้าบทที่ 4 ที่สุด เพราะมันคือการเอาบทใหญ่ทั้ง 3 ก่อนหน้ามาเชื่อมโยงเข้ากับภูมิภาคต่างๆ ของโลก ทั้งจีน แอฟริกา และญี่ปุ่น โดยเฉพาะญี่ปุ่น สนุกสุด 5555 คงเพราะรู้สึกว่าใกล้ตัวด้วยมั้ง

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 instance Jews stopped eating pigs because it became so costly to feed pigs they themselves were starving.

On the surface, materialism seems very logical. Like any theory it has to be at least somewhat probable sounding, and since people are used to thinking of life, these days, in terms of materialistic values already, Harris' theory sounds logical and likely very often.

But like every other time you attempt to explain everything that ever happened in the history of man with one theory, this falls desperately short of reality. Materialism is likely ONLY when coupled, sensibly, with other theories and, need I say it, actual PROOF, of which Diamond has little.

As an exercise in materialist theory this book is magnificent. I would recommend this book ONLY to people in Anthropology with a great understanding of theory, less educated or unwarned people might think this book is fact rather than an exercise in speculation.

As an explanation of why the world is the way it is, it is an utter and complete failure.

3,5 den 4 eder mi bilemem :D Ağır bir okuma oldu benim açımdan. Çok akıcı olduğunu düşünmüyorum kitabın

On the Onerousness of Zebra Domestication and Other Such Digressions on the Nature of Wildly Divergent Cultural Outcomes Contingent on Flora and Fauna Nurtured by Disparate Geographical Conditions - Exordium.

I, Zoologist supreme, heave into view of my motley assemblage of eager young minds. Hands clasped behind my back, the profile of my chin angled just so as I strafe back and forth before the striated equine beast. A creature whose eyes, even now, intimate a kind of crazed potential energy sufficient to launch a pound of bacon into the asteroid belt or turn the pelvic bones of zoo keepers into kinetic blossoms of calcified shrapnel with nasty kick that’s been honed over evolutionary time to deliver maximum deterrence to predator’s foolish enough to linger in the crosshairs of its muscled booty.

“Children, here is a bit of interesting zoological trivia.” (Antagonizing the animal by stomping my feet and gesticulating wildly in its general direction with a stick.) “The Zebra, depicted in most media as a tranquil herbivore of little combat acumen is...” (Wrestling to pry the stick away from its violent gnashing) “Is, in fact, a killing machine.” (Disgorging mauled walking prosthesis, smoothing hair and readjusting safari hat.) And is one of the most dangerous animals we hold captive in these environs. Tim, if you will...” (Tim, nervous like a dog shitting peach seeds, approaches the rear of the Zebra, his butt cheeks compressing an invisible diamond.) “Witness the Hipotigris of the Plains, unassuming, a sedge eating pacifist, taken from the Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania. Get a look at that coat. Hypnotic, isn’t it? Theories abound about the functional utility of these stripes, from thermoregulation to camou..”.” (Tim absorbs vicious hoofing to abdominal wall, propelled backwards several feet and losing approximately one shoe, one safari hat, and half his daily calories to the kleptomania of sudden violence and subsequent bodily propulsion.) “That’s good, Tim.” (Nodding towards Tim as he seeds the air with dust clouds of painful commotion.)

Tim’s dolorous guttural melody proves disconcerting enough that he must be removed via gurney, followed by the administration of milk and cookies to the weeping elementary students.

“The lesson is; Do Not Be Fooled. It is a fact that if I maneuver into range of its bite, like so...” (Advancing towards the muzzle of Zebra with perfect nonchalance) “It will unsheathe its enameled arsenal, and, like an enormous Pitt bull of Rorshached hide, will seize my carotid and not relinquish its hold until - one - of - us - is - dead.” (Creature inserts clavicle into mouth and chews powerfully.) “LET this... (Hissing of air between teeth) “... the following epexegetic tumult, or codicil, HAHA GALLOWS HUMOR, you see, serve as...” (HNNNNNNNNG) “...an extramural history lecture of sorts.” (Wipes froth of drool from shoulder, repositions hat.) “PISS CHRIST IN THE LOUVRE, I AM IN DREADFUL PAIN, CHILDREN!” (Struggling to maintain posture, vacillations between consciousness and shock induced repose intensify). “Imagine, for a moment, the critical role that animals have played in the flourishing of certain cultures. The economic impact. The ability to develop means of subsistence which push local populations past the threshold for cities, with their attendant complex forms of commerce and divisions of labor, to form. Which allows for the saturation of ingenuity and accrual of capital necessary for big industrial projects, for IAGO! IAGO! YOU TRAITOR! MY BONES ARE BEING PULVERIZED BY A FREUDIAN DENTATA OF DENTURES! (Now struggling against Zebra’s rapacious death grip, swatting with hat.) How this was the necessary precondition for the spread of virulent pathogens and immunities conferred. Now suppose that instead of horses, one had only these... Only these... (Into this wild Abyss/ The womb of Nature, and perhaps her grave--/ Of neither sea, nor shore, nor air, nor fire,/ But all these in their pregnant causes mixed/ Confusedly, and which thus must ever fight,/ Unless the Almighty Maker them ordain/ His dark materials to create more worlds,--/ Into this wild Abyss the wary Fiend/ Stood on the brink of Hell and looked a while,/ Pondering his voyage; for no narrow frith/ He had to cross.)

Would they have the requisite technology to produce guns? Durable alloys for blade and armor? Large disciplined armies? Would they, unbeknownst to them, engage in biological warfare by trialing a miasma of humanity’s most dire diseases? Children! Would they...” (reaching forth with bloody arm and intoning as if possessed demonically) “Would they be here tomorrow, to greet me yesterday?” (Losing consciousness and collapsing.)

Scene transitions to heavily bandaged patient with gnawed safari hat sitting slightly off kilter, lowering a book and acknowledging the camera with a grimace of pain.

“A fascinating exploration of disparate cultural outcomes proceeding from the assumption that the primary differences, rather than being innate to their respective peoples, were the products of geographical confluences which left the distribution of plants and animals amenable to the process of domestication fundamentally uneven.”

THIS BOOK ATTEMPTS TO PROVIDE A SHORT HISTORY OF EVERYbody for the last 13,000 years. The question motivating the book is: Why did history unfold differently on different continents?...

Diamond immediately takes great pains to shoot down any ideas of one race being more intelligent than another. Yes, some thought so, but they've been refuted for long enough that I thought he belabored the point. This section does introduce us to his method of argument which is to set up straw men & knock them down. I don't care for it much since the questions aren't always honest or complete.

Eurasia is an iffy area for Diamond's purposes. It often includes northern Africa, but generally not eastern Asia or northern Europe. This makes sense in the context of the plant & animal species available to the humans of the time. Eurasia had the most species of both that could readily be domesticated. Of all the plants, only a few were readily domesticated. In Eurasia, the number made for a critical mass which led to earlier civilization. Giving up hunter-gatherer often isn't an advantage to individuals, but is to the tribes/clans as a whole. More food reserves, more specialization (leaders, soldiers, farmers), better able & pressure to compete & share discoveries.

It's amazing how few plants & animals can be domesticated - only 14 large animals by his count. There isn't that much megafauna (animals generally averaging over 100 lbs) that early man didn't wipe out & most of those evolved with man. They survived because they learned early & well to fear & avoid or live with us. In almost every case where they didn't, such as in Australia & the Americas, they went extinct shortly after we showed up.

Successful domestication is based on the Anna Karenina Syndrome, a name given due to the first line of the novel.
Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
IOW, a happy family has many things right while it only takes one of any number of things to make an unhappy one. Plants & animals must have everything right to become domesticated, especially early on. Wheat needed very little modification & we domesticated it (or vice versa) very early while we still don't domesticate oaks because they take so long to mature, breeding characteristics*, & it's so hard to economically pick their acorns due to their size & competition with other animals.
(* A complex of genes controls tannin production, so it's very difficult to breed a non-bitter acorn. If only 1 gene were in control, we might have domesticated them (pecans) even if it were a recessive one. Oaks just had too many things wrong.)

The proximity to animals & each other also led to more disease. The originating groups of humans survived with immunity, but when they met another group without similar immunity, the new group was often wiped out. Obvious examples are the natives of the Americas & the spread by Europeans of small pox & other diseases.

Eurasia also had the most contiguous land along generally the same latitude. This helped spread domesticated plants, animals, diseases, & ideas. North to south, like sub-Saharan Africa or Mexico to South America, is a problem since temperature, hours of daylight, & general climate varies too greatly for many plants & animals to survive a slow expansion across them. While humans could adapt to environments from desert to jungle, their plants, animals, inventions, & diseases often couldn't/didn't.

Different environments also slowed humans so not only weren't inventions spread, but there wasn't the pressure to develop/adopt new methods or die. Sub-Saharan Africa is considered an entirely separate area, almost a continent of its own, from northern Africa in terms of evolution. Australia, New Zealand, & Tasmania were all distinct from the rest of the world & even each other.

So, the answer to the central question is civilizations developed differently due to their environments:
1) The number & variety of plants & animals that were available to domesticate.
2) The ease of diffusion & migration within the continent & 3) between continents.
4) Continental population size.
He really should add a 5th - plain luck. As he points out, in the early 15th century, China was ready to explore the world, but political infighting in their unified government killed the exploration party almost a century before Columbus set out. While Columbus was originally turned down, he had multiple governments to try, one of which eventually opened the doors to expansion which led to many of them - all European - competing around the globe to grab the prizes.

The audio edition of this book is abridged, although I hadn't realized that when I started listening & it sure seemed long enough. It wasn't until I got the ebook to see some of the maps & reread certain sections that I realized how much had been cut out. Just the epilogue of the ebook seems to cover the subject matter well enough.

Table Of Contents:
Prologue: Yali's Question: The regionally differing courses of historyt13
Ch. 1t Up to the Starting Line: What happened on all the continents before 11,000 B.C.?t35
Ch. 2 A Natural Experiment of History: How geography molded societies on Polynesian islandst53
Ch. 3tCollision at Cajamarca: Why the Inca emperor Atahuallpa did not capture King Charles I of Spaint67
Ch. 4tFarmer Power: The roots of guns, germs, and steelt85
Ch. 5tHistory's Haves and Have-Nots: Geographic differences in the onset of food productiont93
Ch. 6tTo Farm or Not to Farm: Causes of the spread of food productiont104
Ch. 7tHow to Make an Almond: The unconscious development of ancient cropst114
Ch. 8tApples or Indians: Why did peoples of some regions fail to domesticate plants?t131
Ch. 9tZebras, Unhappy Marriages, and the Anna Karenina Principle: Why were most big wild mammal species never domesticated?t157
Ch. 10tSpacious Skies and Tilted Axes: Why did food production spread at different rates on different continents?t176
Ch. 11tLethal Gift of Livestock: The evolution of germst195
Ch. 12tBlueprints and Borrowed Letters: The evolution of writingt215
Ch. 13tNecessity's Mother: The evolution of technologyt239
Ch. 14tFrom Egalitarianism to Kleptocracy: The evolution of government and religiont265
Ch. 15tYali's People: The histories of Australia and New Guineat295
Ch. 16tHow China became Chinese: The history of East Asiat322
Ch. 17tSpeedboat to Polynesia: The history of the Austronesian expansiont334
Ch. 18tHemispheres Colliding: The histories of Eurasia and the Americas comparedt354
Ch. 19tHow Africa became Black: The history of Africat376
tEpilogue: The Future of Human

It's important to remember that this book was first published in 1997, before the mapping of the human genome & subsequent discoveries which invalidated many of the hypothesis that he mentions, such as parallel evolution, & has nailed down our origins & migrations across the globe far more accurately. His synopsis & maunderings in the beginning are interesting only from a historic point of view, although he seems to pretty much have the basics right, so it doesn't invalidate his later conclusions. It does stretch that section out a lot, though. It's cool to see how well a different science has nailed down so many questions & in such a short time.

Overall, very good, but a bit dated & long. Grover Gardner did a great job reading this & I'd suggest the abridged version backed by a book since the maps help & reading more in some areas was good.

Geographic determinism

Been waiting a long time to get to this book. Diamond attempts to answer the pertinent question: why did western European countries come to dominate the modern world? This book is the answer to the racist assertion of racial and biological determinism, that white European countries were inherently more clever to devise methods to take over other countries. The answer that Diamond is simple: white European countries fell ass-backwards into bounteous lands full of large livestock that hadn't been killed off and was actually amenable to domestication. The seasons of land masses were more easily cultivated to create durable crops. When people can farm, they increase population density and can create division of labor beyond hunter/gatherer. This lends to advanced warfare and other social pressures that may spurn innovation.

With higher population density comes the phenomenon of people living in their own sewage and with their animals resulting in something that hunter gatherer societies lack: exposure and immunity to pathogens. Thus western societies were a neat package of unwitting biological and social welfare that easily conquered the rest of the world by virtue of happenstance of where they developed.

It's a fascinating theory that many may also find problematic. Diamond explores a lot here in a very scholarly way with mountains of anthropological evidence. This is a long but engaging read. I'd highly recommend.

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.

جرد دایموند دانشمند و نویسنده آمریکایی در کتاب اسلحه ، میکروب و فولاد با دانشی که بر جغرافیا دارد تلاش کرده است به سوال بسیار مهم علت پیشرفت برخی جوامع و مسلط شدن آنها بر دیگران پاسخ دهد ، دایموند برای شرح دادن دلایل خود به تاریخ پیدایش بشر از 13000 سال پیش پرداخته و به تدریج جلوتر آمده است . او برای پاسخ این سوال از علوم زیادی مانند باستان شناسی ، زیست شناسی ، زبان شناسی ، ژنتیک ، تاریخ و جغرافیا استفاده کرده است و در پایان تفاوت امروزی بین جوامع و کشورهای مختلف را در جغرافیا و خصوصیات محیط زیستی آنها می داند . او در همین حال نظریه برتری نژادی ، اخلاقی ، فرهنگی را رد می کند .
از نگاه آقای دایموند در قاره اوراسیا تمدن و تکنولوژی از بقیه نقاط جهان سریعتر پیشرفت کرده است ، هلال حاصلخیز ، شمال آفریقا و جنوب اروپا نقاطی بوده اند که به دلیل جغرافیا ، سرسبزی ، تنوع گونه های جانوری و حاصلخیزی زمین و پرورش یافتن ، گندم ، جو و سایر غلات موفق به تولید غذا به اندازه نیاز و سپس مازاد شدند . آنها به این گونه از مرحله شکارچی گذاشتند ، حال آنکه در جوامع دیگر مانند جنوب آفریقا ، یا قاره آمریکا یا استرالیا یا گینه نو ، جوامع ابتدایی و از گونه شکارچی – گرد آورنده بودند .
جوامع شکارچی که امروزه تعداد کمی از آنان در آفریقا پیدا می شوند به دلیل شرایط زندگی و جبر جغرافیا ، به دنبال گونه های گیاهی خاص و شکار حیوانات می رفته اند . به خاطر این نوع زندگی آنان ساکن منطقه ای خاص نشدند و بیشتر در جنگلها زندگی می کردند ، فاقد مسکن دایمی و همچنین ذخیره غذا بودند و جمعیت آنها به کندی و سختی رشد می کرد ، نیاز خاصی به پیشرفت تکنولوژی نداشتند و برای مثال نیزه و یا تیرکمان برای آنها کافی بود و از همه مهمتر به دلیل جمعیت وتراکم کم در برابر بیماری های یکجا نشینان به هیچ عنوان مصونیتی نداشتند .
اما در مقابل در مناطق حاصلخیز ، با پیشرفت کشاورزی ، مازاد تولید به دست آمد و تولید اضافه به نوبه خود به افزایش باروری و رشد جمعیت منجر شد ، در گام بلندی دیگر ، انسان موفق به اهلی کردن گونه های مختلفی از پستانداران از جمله اسب ، گوسفند ، گاو ، خوک و سگ شد و بعدها با استفاده از اسب در امور نظامی برتری خرد کننده ای پیدا کرد ، همینگونه انسان با استفاده از نیروی عضلانی حیوانات موفق به زیر کشت بردن مساحت بیشتری اززمین شد . به تدریج عصر سفال گری و پیدایش ظرف به انسان یکجا نشین قدرت انبارش بیشتری داد و انسان را مجبور به ساکن شدن در دهکده ها کرد ، با افزایش جمعیت دهکده ها به چیزی تبدیل شدند که دایموند آنرا خان سالاری نامیده و در این دوران بوده که بشر موفق به کشف برنز شده . سپس دولت ها پدید آمدند ، نگارش رشد و پیشرفت کرد و آهن و عصر آهن آغاز شد .
اما در میان جوامع شکارچی پیشرفت به کندی حاصل شده ، دایموند علت آنرا در مجموعه ای محدودتر از حیوانات و گیاهان وحشی مناسب اهلی شدن ، موانع بزرگتر بر سر راه گسترش فن آوری و وجود مناطق کوچکتر و منزوی تر از جمعیت های متراکم تر انسانی نسبت به اوراسیا می داند .
بنابر این با پیدایش نگارش ، رشد شهر نشینی ، کشف آهن و استفاده گسترده از آن ، امکان ذخیره غذا ، استفاده از نقشه و پیشرفت در کشتیرانی ، این اروپایی ها بودند که آمریکا ، گینه نو ، آفریقا و استرالیا را مستعمره کردند نه بومیان آمریکا ، استرالیا یا گینه نو .
مابقی داستان برای خواننده آشنا تر است ، کریستف کلمب که اهل ایتالیا بوده با ناوگان اسپانیا دنیای نو ، قاره آمریکا را کشف می کند ، سپس هرنان کورتس با نیروی بسیار کوچک امپراتوری آزتک را در مکزیک کنونی شکست داده و البته میکروب ، ویروس و بیماری های شهرنشینان اروپایی تعداد بسیار بالایی تا (95%) جوامع بومی را که مصونیتی نسبت به این بیماری ها نداشتند را از بین می برد . اندکی بعد فرانسیسکو پیزارو با همان دلایل مشابه و با تعدادی بسیار کم امپراتوری اینکاها را شکست می دهد و شهر لیما پایتخت فعلی پرو را مقر حکومت خود می کند .
می توان گفت اصل و ریشه کتاب اسلحه ، میکروب و فولاد همین است ، مازاد تولید ، پیشرفت کشاورزی ، اهلی کردن حیوانات ، یکجا نشینی ، دهکده ها ، خان سالاری ، دولتها ، رشد و پیشرفت ��گارش و کشف و استفاده از آهن ، در کنار پیشرفت در دریانوردی ، کشتیرانی و نقشه خوانی انسان در اوراسیا و خصوصا در اروپا را در موقعیتی قرار داد که موفق به استعمار آمریکا ، استرالیا و آفریقا شد .
در حقیقت کتاب در قرون وسطی باقی مانده و بعد از تسخیر آمریکا ، استدلال های آقای دایموند هم تمام شده و او دیگر هیچ حرف تازه ای ندارد . برای مثال دایموند توضیح نمی دهد که اسپانیا پس از رسیدن به اوج قدرت به خاطر چه دلایلی به کشوری کاملا ورشکسته تبدیل شد به گونه ای که تا ابتدای قرن گذشته جز فقیرترین کشورهای اروپا به شمار می رفته است . اما دلایل سقوط اسپانیا امروزه تقریبا کاملا روشن است و همانگونه که در کتاب  معمای فراوانی  شرح داده شده ، مجموعه ای از سیاستهای اشتباه اقتصادی و نه جبر جغرافیا بوده که اسپانیا را از پیشرفت باز داشت .
امروزه می دانیم که مجموعه ای از دلایل و سیاستهای اقتصادی ، جغرافیای سیاسی ، طبیعت و محیط زیست و سیاستهای داخلی کشورها بوده که آینده آنها را رقم زده و جغرافیا هم یکی از آنها بوده است . جناب دایموند تنها عامل جغرافیا را در نظر گرفته و به راحتی دلایل دیگر را نادیده گرفته است . در حقیقت دایموند هم همانند جیمز رابینسون و دارون عجم اوغلو در کتاب  چرا ملتها شکست می خورند  تلاش کرده فرمولی یکسان برای تمام کشورها و ملت ها بیابد .
دکتر زیباکلام هم در دوگانه تحسین برانگیز  ما چگونه ما شدیم  و  غرب چگونه غرب شد  به شرح مجموعه دلایلی پرداخته که ایران را عقب نگه داشته و برخی از کشورها را بر دیگران برتری داده ، استدلال های او هم قابل درک و هم برای خواننده ای از خاورمیانه ملموس هستند . به همین ترتیب دکتر کاظم علمداری هم در کتاب  چرا ایران عقب ماند و غرب پیشرفت کرد  اگرچه نگاهی انتقادی و چالشی به کتب زیباکلام دارد اما در کنار آن نظریه های جدیدی هم طرح کرده است . کتاب دکتر دایموند اسلحه ، میکروب وفولاد اگرچه نگاهی جامع به دوران پیشا تاریخ ، عصر برنز و عصر آهن دارد اما متاسفانه با مقوله پیشرفت شگفت انگیز غرب در دو قرن گذشته و عقب ماندن شرق به همان میزان کار چندانی ندارد و در بهترین حالت در ابتدای قرن هجدهم مانده است .
شاید بتوان مزیت کتاب اسلحه ، میکروب و فولاد را در زاویه دید متفاوت آن دانست و به همین دلیل کتابی ایست متمایز که خواننده علاقه مند به مباحث توسعه را با نگاهی از نوع دیگر هرچند نه الزاما درست آشنا می کند .

Germ Guns & Steel

It is a thesis,
His thesis being; that all animals are created equal… but not all animals sleep in a bed with sheets.
Why?
Because in addition to needing tree for wood to make looms, herders to shear sheep & weavers to make sheets, you also need (DHU) SHEEP.
Yep, if you are unlucky enough to be born on a continent or onto part of a continent with only anteaters, there is no fucking way you are going to get sheets, no matter how smart you are.
All well and good…but not so very readable...
We all believe that. Or want to believe it. Or pretend we want to believe it and it’s nice to have such a dry, logical explanation.
Oh some of his facts are interesting, (like the spread of animal to human diseases. In fact I ran right out and made my next store neighbor stop suckling her piglets!)
But generally his writing is like his name, Diamond, hard, cold & brilliant, but not particularly gripping.
Now Pollan (Botany of Desire,) not only has a more gripping style, but, to my mind at least a much more unique and interesting premise.
OK so the idea of Co evolution is not new... But the idea that we humans are involved, not just as manipulators but as part of the co in co evolution is an idea.. An idea that disturbs…
Some Physicists & chemists are not unlike religious folks, They believe man is the measure of all things.. All right, maybe not man, but chemists & physicists.
They believe that all is knowable & that we will eventually know it. (Or rather they will, they tell us the bits we need.)
So they can read Germs , Guns & Steel.. But they can’t even get through the prologue of Botany of Desire.
OK I’m talking about 2 of the 3 physicists I know… Not I grant you a large sample.
But I was reading the biography of Wilson the noble prize winning Harvard ant-omoglist (Myrmecologist) & even he talks about the great war between biologists & micro-biologists. They wouldn’t even talk to each other unless it was to say
“So where did you get your research from… Reader’s Digest”? Ugly, ugly, ugly.

So either there is co- evolution.. Which we sort of get, but can’t totally understand… or God is sitting in heaven designing flowers to look like bee genitalia


Jared Diamond, who has his own Pulitzer for Guns, Germs And Steel, described (Wilson) as "one of the 20th century's greatest thinkers."
I have my own issues with E.O. Wilson, not the charges of racism, misogyny & eugenics, which I believe were unfounded, but with his early scientific experiments.
He wanted to create a “living lab.” To investigate how far, fast & wide evolution would spread insect & crustacea life to islands.
So he took some tiny islets in the Everglades and doused them with Malathion, exterminating the entire insect & crustacean population. Crustacean…so it must have gotten into the water.
Now that’s what I call killing the horse before the cart

A Game Changer: The First Book of Historical Anthropology that Incorporates Geography, Agriculture, Animal Domestication, and Disease Exposure into Our Understanding of How Different Cultures and Continents Experienced Differing Rates of Development, and the Dramatic Clashes When Such Cultures Collided
This book will demolish your preconceived notions about why some civilizations and peoples have thrived, while others have not. Diamond explores the key role that environments and geography play in shaping different cultures, and the ultimate factors that affect cultures most, like: availability of domesticable plants and animals, shift from hunter-gatherers to farmers, ease of population movement due to geography, north-south vs. east-west axes of the continents, exposure to various animal-born diseases and resultant immunity, development of writing and metal-working, etc. His carefully-laid argument builds a compelling case that many societies have benefited greatly from their environment, and that their success is not necessarily due to an innate superiority. The implication too is that cultures that currently dominate the global scene may not always retain that position if they destroy their environments, an idea that is more fully explored in his next book Collapse.

I first read this book back in 2013 and it really opened my mind to seeing history and cultures and development through the lens of geographical factors. Needless to say one of the fundamental reasons Jared Diamond wrote it was to dispel the centuries-long belief that much of the dominance of advanced Western societies stems from racial/genetic superiority rather than environmental factors. This time I'm revisiting it via audiobook in 2020 with a lot more books of historical anthropology under my belt, and it remains a real powerhouse book of fresh ideas.

That is not to discredit the many discoveries, innovations, and efforts of Western civilization over the millennia, but rather to bring a more balanced view of the world, reminding us of the many early technological innovations that arose in China, the advanced pre-industrial societies of the Americas such as the Aztecs, Incas, and Mayans, the early societies of the Fertile Crescent, and so forth. His arguments are so lucidly developed and well-argued that you might be led to believe that it was only these environmental factors that explain why some cultures thrived and become dominant in the modern world while others did not. This would be inaccurate of course.

There are many "ultimate" factors that supersede the "proximate" factors, such as the focus of industrial Western societies on innovation, technological advancement, rule of law, focus on scientific reasoning over religious dogma, acceptance of cultural and ideological diversity, and the constant drive for growth and expansion spurred by capitalism, whether for good or bad. So there are plenty of nay-sayers that discount much of Diamond's arguments. I think that is missing the point. He is not providing the all-encompassing answers to why some societies thrive while others struggle in the modern world. Rather, he's trying to redress the underlying preconceptions of racial/cultural superiority that have prevailed until now so that we can reassess things from a much balanced perspective. It's the starting point for further analysis of why the world has developed the way it has, and more importantly (as he addresses in more recent books), how we can shape future developments in a more sustainable way given that understanding.

Rating: 3.5* of five, rounded up because the PBS adaptation was better than I had expected it to be

I read this in the 1990s and was blown away by the fact that environmental determinism was back in the forefront of the have-vs-have-not debate. Well told tale. Persuasive, goodness knows. Maybe even partially correct, who knows, since we're facing the consequences of climate change on our civilization and they aren't good. They're only going to get worse, too. So who do we look to for models of how to change our food production?

Anyway, the 2007 revision isn't different in any significant way to the 1997 version and you'll get a lot out of reading it. I still think the 2005 PBS version is the easiest to absorb because there are no awful dreary tables and the pretty pictures are pretty. Plus, let's face it, Peter Coyote sounds great.

But do absorb the information somehow. This horror movie is real and will be your grandchildren's reality if you live in the "First World" now.

From the prologue:
"Authors are regularly asked by journalists to summarize a long book in one sentence. For this book, here is such a sentence: 'History followed different courses for different peoples because of differences among peoples' environments, not because of biological differences among peoples themselves.'"

This is a broad thesis, and the author has a lot of ground to cover. Go big or go home, eh? Diamond hopes to cover ALL peoples from ALL environments, and so he takes us from New Guinea to Spain to North America to China and everywhere in between, from 11,000 BC to 1972 (and up to 2003 if you read the afterword). If the traditional narrative of human history has been biased in favor of White Europeans, Diamond is deliberately biased in the opposite direction. He stresses early on that no group of people has any innate biological advantage over another, and does his best to keep the analysis of How We Got To This Point neutral and focused on differences in continental resource distribution.

Maybe it's because I've come to this work nearly 20 years after publication and have already heard these main ideas summarized elsewhere but, in this reader's opinion, Diamond covers way too much. He bit off a huge mouthful, and now he wants to talk with you, and all the words are muffled and a little difficult to understand. But you listen because it's the polite thing to do and you do learn something, at least what little sticks from the huge volume of info coming your way. Check this paragraph out as an example, from the very first chapter:

"That illustrates an issue that will recur throughout this book. Whenever some scientist claims to have discovered 'the earliest X' -- whether X is the earliest human fossil in Europe, the earliest evidence of domesticated corn in Mexico, or the earliest anything anywhere -- that announcement challenges other scientists to beat the claim by finding something still earlier. In reality, there must be some truly 'earliest X,' with all claims of earlier X's being false. However, as we shall see, for virtually any X, every year brings forth new discoveries and claims of a purported still earlier X, along with refutations of some or all of previous years' claims of earlier X. It often takes decades of searching before archaeologists reach a consensus on such questions."

I get the feeling that, if I had tried to include that sort of writing in an undergrad history paper, the professor would quickly call BS and scribble something disapproving in the margins. I really wish Diamond had tightened up his editing and cut some of the wordier stuff down. But if you feel like reading 440 pages (if you read the afterword) of that nature, then you might enjoy yourself more than I did.

2.5 of 5 stars. Informative but rambling and repetitive, and hardly as energetic or compelling as Diamond's other (shorter) books.