Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies

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.

This book contains all the good stuff that a scientific approach can provide to the fundamental issues of life and history. Diamond puts all his cards on the table, presents his method of reasoning in a very clear way, clearly defines his starting-point questions, tests the hypotheses on his study object and weighs the value of his findings. This is like science should always be: clear, open and honest.

Diamond is wondering where the dominance of the Eurasian continent in world history is coming from. In essence, his assertion is that Eurasia had a clear comparative advantage over other continents due to a number of geographical, biological and environmental factors: it was much larger in scope, it had more plants and animals suitable for domestication, and the East-West orientation of the continent (without too many geographical barriers) made the spread and confrontation of ideas, technologies and germs more easily.

Diamond's argumentation is strong and cannot be wiped off the table. But his angle should better not be regarded as the only one: Diamond rightfully is endorsed by its critics as a geographic-ecological determinist. I would like to refer to the very interesting discussion between William H. McNeill, the nestor of World History (and my all-time favorite historian) and Diamond in the New York Review of Books (http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1997/...- Upside-down) and the more balanced follow-up by McNeill's son JR McNeill (The History Teacher Vol. 34, No. 2 ,Feb., 2001), pp. 165-174).

The weakness of Diamond's approach is especially clear when you focus on the past 500 years and you wonder why specifically the Europeans, on the western side of Eurasia, took the upper hand on the eastern Asian side. Diamond's arguments on this evolution remain inadequate, especially because to me cultural factors were absolutely decisive in this period.

This fascinating discussion has developed in what became known as the "Great Divergence"-issue. About the same time as Diamond’s “Gun, Germs…” David Landes published his book The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor, with a rather provocative different approach, highlighting Western inventiveness. This triggered a whole series of corrective studies (Kenneth Pomeranz, John Gunder Frank, John Darwin, ...), and it seems that we can now go for the synthesis, even though a debate like this will never stop completely. Diamond has put on the fire with this book, and despite its flaws we ought to be grateful to him.

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.”

My three-star rating has nothing to do with the quality of the ideas in this book; I think they're all top-notch. My lukewarm response has to do instead with their presentation.

Jared Diamond's prose is very readable but prolix. How, one might ask, could I find prolix a book which purports to condense the entire history of humankind into 425 pages? (As Diamond himself points out, compressing 13,000 years of history into roughly 400 pages works out to "an average of about one page per continent per 150 years, making brevity and simplification inevitable" (408). My answer is simply that Diamond does not actually condense 13,000 years of human history into 425 pages but rather picks and chooses which years with which corresponding phenomena on which continents are most relevant to his thesis. In order to prove that "history followed different courses for different peoples because of differences among people's environments, not because of biological differences among peoples themselves" (25), Diamond traces the domestication of plants and animals, the origins of agriculture, the emergence of crowd diseases such as Bubonic Plague and measles, the rise and spread of techological innovations like metallurgy and writing, and the seemingly autocatalytic process that promotes the development of large complex political entities from small, less complex ones. But "Guns, Germs, and Steel" is not a comprehensive treatment of the Black Death any more than it is a primer for understanding the development of metallurgy. In other words, he skips a lot, which I agree is inevitable; however, my beef is that in addition to skipping a lot, he repeats himself a lot, in effect writing a book that is not so much too long or too short as it is inefficient--prolix.

Diamond states the same ideas over and over again, and he always articulates BOTH the affirmative and the negative formulations, seldom omitting words that really could be ommitted without interfering with itelligibility: "History followed different courses for different peoples because of differences among people's environments, NOT because of biological differences among peoples themselves" (25); "the availability of domestic plants and animals ultimately explains why empires, literacy, and steel weapons developed earliest in Eurasia AND later, or not at all, on other continents" (92); "the reason for the failure of Native Americans to domesticate North American apples by the time Europeans arrived lay neither with the people nor with the apples....INSTEAD, the reason Native Americans did not domesticate apples lay with the entire suite of wild plant and animal species available to Native Americans" (156). While I agree that such a writing style is very clear and understandable (readable), surely after the first articulation of each idea and component, bolstering idea, Diamond could speed things up a bit?

But no, in fact, his 18th chapter (the penultimate chapter, not including epilogue, and entitled "Hemispheres Colliding") is an entirely redundant reformulation of ideas previously articulated, often referencing the exact same examples already referenced. This is evidenced by Diamond's tendency to include phrases like "in Chapter 9 we encountered," "as I explained in Chapter 11," and "as we saw in Chapters 5 and 10..." This, along with his tendency to provide overview (as in the Prologue: "Part 4...applies the lessons of Parts 2 and 3") as well as suggestions like "if we begin by comparing Figure 19.2 with Figure 19.1..." that contribute to the unfortunate impression on the part of the reader that he/she is reading the incomplete novelization of a textbook--a hitherto unknown literary hybrid.

This is not to say that Diamond has not ultimately provided a service to humanity by writing "Guns, Germs, and Steel" or that his arguments are unconvincing or that he never provides us with an arresting phrase or that the book is devoid of colorful and illustrative anecdotes. The very basis for the book rests in a personal experience of Diamond's in New Guinea in 1972 ("Yali's Question"); and I especially like the phraseology of the final sentence of Chapter 19, "...the different historical trajectories of Africa and Europe stem ultimately from differences in real estate." And one certainly cannot fail to be struck by the originality of some of his ideas, such as the orientation of the continents' major axes (East-West vs. North-South) having played a greater role in the differences between human societies than we have previously recognized. Overall, this book is very accomplished and worth reading.

However, Diamond gradually chips away at the various misconceptions, errors, and prejudgments that cloud our understanding of human prehistory and history in the manner of a slow-moving stream or a very patient archaeologist. Maybe he imagines that this gradual approach is necessary for changing slow-moving or simply out-of-touch minds in which repetition might accomplish what erudition might not, though I really can't imagine such individuals, let alone the genuine racists whose views Diamond is avowedly rebutting making it through the book. But really (to borrow a page out of Diamond's intellectual repertoire), I believe this book could be intellectually stronger, aesthetically superior, and ultimately more influential if Diamond repeated himself less while articulating more.

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.

A refreshingly different approach to the theses on the evolutionary history of cultures.

Please note that I put the original German text at the end of this review. Just if you might be interested.

Those are revolutionary theories that open themselves up to the reader, and that wipe the floor with old, racist concepts about the emergence of advanced civilizations and states. Using indisputable geographical and biological facts, the author provides a viewpoint that would have opened up only to the most creative minds without such explanation.
Due to the size and the partial length of the work, I would recommend budding non-fiction fetishists to sharpen their view of the partly autobiographical colored inserts and dry statistical or very specialized remarks. In case of lack of time or discomfort, read them over and enjoy the fillets even better. It may, of course, be appreciated the entire menu, only the lengths will give my well-intentioned advice probably one or the other time right. Especially with such excellent literature as the present one, it would be a shame if the reading experience is diminished or in the worst case even prematurely ended.
In addition to the actual flora and fauna of the various described regions of the world, the West-East or North-South axis is the decisive factor for the rise and fall of the peoples as a primary geological fate. The luck or bad luck with well-domesticated animals or due to exceptional stubbornness for the livestock utterly unsuitable representatives of the herbivores or productive, resistant or little throwing off, sensitive plants plays another critical role.
Looking at the continents, only in Eurasia does the West-East axis lie at about the same latitude and in similar climates, which significantly facilitates the exchange of plants and animals via trade routes, since they find much better survival conditions in similar environments than if they would be transported across a north-south axis from Norway to South Africa or from Chile to Canada. This greatly facilitated the transition to agriculture and livestock farming and the associated opportunity to feed specialists such as artisans, warriors and scientists through surplus food and jump on the train to the big state.
In contrast to the natural conditions that exist on Earth, the effects on the environment are not negligible. In Latin America and other countries, these plants are relatively sensitive. Moreover, even if that were not so, an exchange which goes beyond the different climates, may work or not. In Africa are incredibly many areas as well as tropical jungle or dry savanna not so recommended for animal transport. It is similar in Latin America, though not so extreme.
This is also a military event, but not as good as it used to be in the past. As the author so genuinely quotes, only a more benevolent nature of bison or rhinos would have been enough to change the course of world history. If Huns and Mongols were able to build world empires on pure horses, compared to the potential and much more robust mounts of the South, the military possibility of up to nearly one ton of massive bison and over three tons of rhinos would have been far more resounding. Imagine these animals in their thousands and the style of a paladin horse armored with a hail of arrows whirling riders.
From the meticulous descriptions of various facts, there are still multiple ideas for alternative world history that could not be more beautiful, since they are based on verifiable basics, unlike far-fetched, improbable conjectures and doctrines.
The author rightly deserves the reputation of being a top-notch science writer, and not just because of his impressive work so far. However, also and primarily for the series of hammer blows, which he sends down on the incarnate anachronisms long ago to be sent by a paradigm shift in the intellectual nirvana, representative of his guild, which has little to counter to his revolutionary thinking approach. Besides anyone from the university, there are still many guts to hallucinate something of cultural superiority or other racial, verbal diarrhea.

Eine erfrischend andere Herangehensweise an die Thesenbildung über die Entwicklungsgeschichte der Kulturen.

Revolutionäre Theorien sind es, die sich dem Leser auftun und die mit alten, rassistischen Konzepten über die Entstehung von Hochkulturen und Staaten den Boden aufwischen. Anhand unabstreitbarer geografischer und biologischer Fakten ermöglicht der Autor eine Sichtweise, die sich nur den kreativsten Köpfen ohne derartige Erläuterung eröffnet hätte.
Aufgrund des Umfangs und der teilweisen Länge des Werks würde ich angehenden Sachbuchfetischisten empfehlen, den Blick für die teilweise autobiografisch gefärbten Einschübe und trockenen statistischen, beziehungsweise sehr fachbezogenen Ausführungen zu schärfen. Um diese bei Zeitmangel oder Unlust überlesen und die Filetstücke dafür noch umso besser genießen zu können. Es darf selbstverständlich auch das gesamte Menü genossen werden, nur die Längen werden meinem gutgemeinten Rat wohl das eine oder andere Mal Recht geben. Gerade bei so hervorragender Literatur wie der vorliegenden wäre es eine Schande, wenn das Leseerlebnis dadurch geschmälert oder im schlimmsten Fall gar vorzeitig beendet wird.
Neben der eigentlichen Flora und Fauna der verschiedenen beschriebenen Weltgegenden bildet als primäre geologische Schicksalsinstanz die West-Ost- beziehungsweise Nord- Südachse den entscheidenden Faktor über Aufstieg und Fall der Völker. Das Glück oder Pech mit gut domestizierbaren Tieren oder aufgrund großer Halsstarrigkeit zur Viehzucht absolut ungeeigneten Vertretern der Herbivoren beziehungsweise ertragreichen, widerstandsfähigen oder wenig abwerfenden, empfindlichen Pflanzen spielt eine weitere wichtige Rolle.
Betrachtet man sich die Kontinente, so ergibt sich einzig in Eurasien eine auf etwa den gleichen Breitengraden und ähnlichen Klimazonen gelegene West-Ostachse, die den Austausch von Pflanzen und Tieren über Handelsrouten wesentlich erleichtert, da diese in ähnlichen Umgebungen wesentlich bessere Überlebensbedingungen vorfinden, als wenn man sie über eine Nord- Südachse von Norwegen nach Südafrika oder von Chile nach Kanada transportieren würde. Dadurch wurde der Übergang zu Ackerbau und Viehzucht sowie die damit einhergehende Möglichkeit, durch Überschuss an Nahrung Spezialisten wie Handwerker, Krieger und Wissenschaftler zu ernähren und auf den Zug zum Großstaat aufzuspringen, wesentlich erleichtert.
Als wäre das nicht genug der von der Natur vorgegebenen Ungerechtigkeit, befinden sich auch noch die meisten der ertragreichsten Saatpflanzen und Nutztiere im eurasischen Raum, während selbige auf anderen Kontinenten rar gesät sind. In Lateinamerika sowie Afrika sind sowohl gut für den Hausgebrauch geeignete Großsäuger als auch ertragreiche Pflanzensorten relativ selten. Und selbst wenn dem nicht so gewesen wäre, hätte ein Austausch über die verschiedenen Klimazonen hinweg kaum funktionieren können.
So sind in Afrika sowohl extrem aride Gebiete als auch tropische Dschungel oder schlichte Savanne für keinen Tiertransport zu empfehlende Routenpunkte und auch den Pflanzen dürfte es übel bekommen. In Lateinamerika verhält es sich ähnlich, wenn auch nicht ganz so extrem. Dass sich das militärisch einst unersetzliche Pferd auch noch just der südlichen Hemisphäre entsagen musste war ein weiterer wesentlicher Nachteil.
Wie der Autor so treffend anführt, hätte nur ein gutmütigeres Wesen von Bisons oder Nashörnern vonnöten sein müssen, um den Lauf der gesamten Weltgeschichte zu verändern. Wenn Hunnenheere und Mongolen auf, im Vergleich zu den potentiellen und wesentlich robusteren Reittieren des Südens, schlichten Pferden Weltreiche errichten konnten, wäre das kriegerische Potential von bis zu fast einer Tonne schweren Bisons und bis zu über drei Tonnen schweren Nashörnern noch wesentlich durchschlagender gewesen. Man stelle sich diese Tiere zu Tausenden und im Stil eines Paladinpferds gepanzert mit Pfeilhagel schwirren lassenden Reitern vor.
Es erschließen sich anhand der minutiösen Schilderungen verschiedener Sachverhalte noch diverse Ideen für Uchronien, die schöner nicht sein könnten, da sie im Gegensatz zu weit hergeholten, unwahrscheinlichen Vermutungen und Lehrmeinungen auf nachweisbaren Grundlagen beruhen.
Dem Autor gebührt, nicht nur aufgrund seines beeindruckenden bisherigen Werks, zu Recht der Ruf eines Wissenschaftsautors der Spitzenklasse. Sondern auch und gerade für die Serie an Hammerschlägen, die er auf die, als fleischgewordene Anachronismen längst durch einen Paradigmenwechsel in das intellektuelle Nirwana zu schickenden, Vertreter seiner Zunft niederprasseln lässt, die seinen Denkansetzen wenig entgegenzusetzen haben. Außer irgendjemand aus dem Universitätsbetrieb entblödet sich wirklich noch, etwas von kultureller Überlegenheit oder anderer rassistischer, verbaler Diarrhöe zu halluzinieren.

I have found this book a bit difficult to write about. It is interesting in that it has gone into areas that I have never really considered. Would I have given thought that the ability to domesticate plants and animals was a consideration when thinking of the continental differences between the east west axis of Eurasia compared to the north-south divide in both the Americas and Africa? Probably not.


I suppose this is a book that is more based on the environment of peoples over the last 13,000 years and with that their opportunities to use that environment that they just happened to be born into. Interestingly the book gives little consideration to capitalism as a factor in some parts of human kinds march to modern prosperity. I suggest that each reader will make of that what they will in terms of how they view their history. In the end a touch long but a minor quibble. I will read more by the author eventually.

In his book "Guns, Germs, and Steel," Jared Diamond provided a STRANGE TYPE OF BIBLIOGRAPHY. There are no references to research sources in the body of the text to support whatever statements the author makes.

Instead, there is a section titled "Further Readings". There are some references in this section, but there are no direct matches between those works and statements in the text. A lack of references makes this text more readable for casual readers, and that helps the book's sales.

However, at the same time, any statements in the text effectively become just opinions of the book's author without support from other researchers. With that, the information in the book becomes less credible, and respectfully, the hype about the book becomes overrated.