What a terrific book.

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)

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.

A quick take:
Not an easy read by any measure. It does deal with a lot of hardcore, sometimes too dry, but mostly interesting, archaeological/anthropological/biological/genetical/historical/cultural/geographical/economical/technological developments, facts and insights through which Diamond propounds his basic argument: why did human development proceed in such different rates on different continents; why certain societies/countries/regions became disproportionately powerful and innovative (while others lagged behind)
Starting with human evolution; geological transformation making inroads with development of civilizations; domestication of plants and animals; food production; reasons for growth in population in some regions while others seeing deaths in large numbers, owning to susceptibility to particular germs;
leading to factors behind the victory of particular regions/countries/ (race?) over others, this book indeed is an intensive read in terms of research and information.
I need a second or third read to fully comprehend the finer points of Diamond's "whirlwind tour" nearly 13,000 years of history of almost everybody, but not anytime soon though...

Misleading! The actual title should be Germs, More Germs and a bit about Steel And Guns, but not very much on those last two really...I mean, we want to put Guns first because it's more attention-grabbing than Germs, but let's face it, this book is mostly about Germs.

Why has no publishing house knocked down my door trying to obtain my book titling services yet?!

Зброя, мікроби і сталь - це книжка про те, чому різні культури і суспільства сьогодні мають різні рівні розвитку. Чому саме іспанці приперлися завойовувати Мексику, а не навпаки.

Автор - Джаред Даймонд - вчений-фізіолог, який розширив поле інтелектуальної діяльності також на на географію, історію, антропологію і про це все пише книжки. За цю книжку йому дали Пулітцерівську премію. На мою думку, не дарма!

Знаєте, якщо читати про еволюцію, то часто історію розказують по одній накатаній схемі - була собі клітинка, потім багатоклітинний організм, риба вийшла на сушу і т.д. І в процесі цієї розповіді багато “сюжетних ліній” втрачається, як в останніх сезонах GOT. Мінуточку! А що трапилось з рослинами? А де про еволюцію комах? Як з’явились бджоли? Ой, ми покинули рептилій! І т.д. Так само з історією людства, я часто натрапляю на дуже європоцентричні варіанти. Що звісно цікаво. Але це ж ще не все!

І от в цій книжці багато історій зовсім не про Європу. І історії ці захоплюючі! Про подорожі на хитких човнах через Індійський океан, про те, що вирощували на полях північні американці і про те, як Китай став Китаєм, про африканські замєси з пігмеями і бушменами. Мені дуже сподобалась ця множинність фокусів. Це надихає шукати ще інформацію!

Ну і сама тема книжки цікава. Автор показує з прикладами і досвідженнями, що різні спільноти людей розвивались по різному не через те, що хтось ліпший чи гірший, а через вплив навколишнього середовища - географію, види тварин і рослин навколо, тощо. Він показує як сильно сільське господарство плинуло на розвиток історії, і що часом історії завоювань одними народами іншиз,це історії не про військову могутність, а про захворювання до яких немає імунітету.

Один із найцікавіших розділів для мене про початок культивації різних рослин. Я ніколи про це навіть не задумувалась!

Окрема вишенька на тістечку цієї книги - те, що дані про історію різних народів збиралися не лише археологічним способом, але й методом досвідженням мов. Ми вивчали цей спосіб в університеті і я досі його дуже люблю і класно побачити цей підхід в дії.

Книжка написана легко і приємно, дуже раджу!

Though there are clearly many factors leading to evolutionary excellence; Jared Mason Diamond laughs loudly as to biology claims based on inheritance, race, and is an astute historian of solving the problem of why. Writing (being an instrument propelling civilizations upward) are attributed to Mesopotamia, Egypt and China. Forces and the necessity of invention are substantive movers of societies and populations. We must keep in mind, “Humanity exists as a function of diversity…I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you.” Message is universal and beyond constraints of what many term as religion. "Omne bonum a Deo, omne malum ab homine."

"That higher birth rate of food producers, together with their ability to feed more people per acre, lets’ them achieve much higher population densities than hunter-gatherers."
---Jared Mason Diamond

Isolated/nomadic societies created less progeny (non-conducive movements impacting reproduction). Sketchy homeostasis disabled many societies to the terminal benefit of established Eurasian ones. A study may be conducted into metal tools/correlation of population extermination. Settled and safe societies gave the advantage of storing food---thus sustaining Eurasian populations and imparting biological resistance to diseases. Biological homeostasis then facilitated the development of technology and systems of specialized knowledge in metallurgy, literacy and socio-economic organization. Diffusion is attributed to favorable internal/external connections. Study it well.

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]

“History followed different courses for different peoples because of differences among peoples’ environments, not because of biological differences among peoples themselves.”

What do Christopher Columbus, Vasco da Gama, and Francisco Pizarro have in common? Apart from their status as European countrymen, it was the fortuitous confluence of guns, microbes, and steel technology which all but ensured their success at colonizing regions occupied by peoples who lacked such historical fulcrums. It should be unsurprising, given this lethal mixture of offense, why invading states comprised of so few have been able to conquer, kill, or otherwise displace indigenous societies comprised of so many. These asymmetrical collisions suffuse human history, and it’s no secret that its retelling lends specific favor to Eurasian societies rather than those of other landmasses.

In Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, Jared Diamond, famed anthropologist and author of The Third Chimpanzee, seeks to answer why history unfolded so differently among the various continents. Not contented with the proximate explanations above, Diamond forages deeper to uncover the ultimate explanations of why some societies procured that fateful triumvirate and why others did not. Pointedly then, why does history record Francisco Pizarro and his confederates storming the Inca Empire and capturing Emperor Atahuallpa in that momentous 1532 collision at Cajamarca instead of Atahuallpa and his band of warriors sailing east, assaulting the Spanish Empire and seizing King Charles I? Were there initial conditions which facilitated the depopulation of so much of the New World by so few of the Old?

Traditional solutions to these questions have revolved around genetic differences or innate disparities in race and intelligence, and it is these traditional explanations which Diamond hopes to sweep away. With a starting point at the tail end of the last ice age circa 13,000 years ago, Diamond takes a holistic approach to deconstructing the broad patterns of history. This is no picnic of a task. As Diamond himself points out, compressing 13,000 years of tightly coiled history into roughly 400 pages works out to “an average of about one page per continent per 150 years, making brevity and simplification inevitable." (p. 408)

To Diamond’s great credit, Guns, Germs, and Steel represents the metamorphosis of a topic of impenetrable scope into a cohesive, persuasive and not overly prolix piece of historical literature. He begins by surveying the natural differences among the continents, noting the variations in ecological and biological diversity as well as the orientations of the main axes of the continents, all of which had deep import for the evolution of complex human societies, namely the divergence of larger food-producing cultures from smaller bands of hunter-gatherers.

As it turns out, the last ice age played a significant role in the course of our story. Compared with all other natural disasters, ice ages tend to have the most severe and lasting effects on the planet, dramatically disrupting not only climate but the chain of animal and plant life struggling to adapt to the changing circumstances. The Pleistocene drove countless of the planet's large mammals to extinction, especially those indigenous to North America and Australia. Europe and Asia, on the other hand, suffered fewer local extinction events of their large animal species. Following the upheavals of the Pleistocene, a full thirteen of the major fourteen domestic mammals were confined to Eurasia. This propitious outcome presented more options for animal domestication, defined as the regulation of an animal's breeding and food supply.

“Thus, part of the explanation for Eurasia’s having been the main site of big mammal domestication is that it was the continent with the most candidate species of wild mammals to start with, and lost the fewest candidates to extinction in the last 40,000 years.” (p. 163)

Of equal importance is the inequality of wild plant species distributed across the global landscape. Here again, one contender is lopsidedly advantaged in terms of ecological and topographical diversity. Home to the highest seasonal variation as well as the largest zones of temperate Mediterranean climate, Eurasia is saturated with the most diverse plant life.

“The Fertile Crescent and other parts of western Eurasia’s Mediterranean zone offered a huge selection to incipient farmers: 32 of the world’s 56 prize wild grasses. That fact alone goes a long way toward explaining the course of human history.” (p. 139)

Diamond discusses in detail the cultural shift from hunting and gathering to food-producing, emphasizing throughout that it was a gradual process. For those regions amenable to a new and more structured way of life, crop farming and pastoralism offered several benefits over the legacy lifestyle in terms of time, effort and payout. This precipitated an incremental transition from complete dependence on wild foods to a diet mainly supported by agriculture. Peoples inhabiting less fortunate regions of the globe either carried on as nomadic hunter-gatherers or were displaced by invading farmers. Australia is perhaps the best example: as the most infertile and biologically most impoverished of the continents, it has contained the largest population of hunter-gatherers into the modern era.

To illustrate the attendant, socially formative benefits of food production, Diamond enlists the reader on a voyage of deductive reasoning to link the various feedback loops at play. In low-res, highly paraphrased form, it can be sketched as follows: Whereas the hunter-gatherer existence was nomadic, food production gave rise to more sedentary societies. Farming also created food surpluses, which provided for denser human populations. With increases in human densities came a greater variety of roles to be filled within the community, facilitating the appearance of social hierarchy and political structure. At the same time, denser settlements meant more potential for crafting metal tools, inventing writing systems, and pioneering other technological leaps, while sedentism allowed for more time devoted to innovation and skill specialization.

In this way, food production served as a springboard for human innovation, which then radiated to surrounding populations. As the landmass with the most navigable terrain, Eurasia benefited its inhabitants by helping ease the spread of agricultural and other developments. When neighboring cultures convened to trade their goods and wares, technology and ideas were also exchanged, fostering competitive one-upsmanship and ratchet-scale modernization that would eventually sweep the region. Even more critical, when famine and other climate-triggered anomalies struck, Eurasia’s potential for east-west migration ensured that previous developments were maintained and that generational improvements in technology and social complexity kept marching onward.

The Invisible Ally

For all of its benefactions, the advent of agriculture around 8500 BCE sponsored a most pestilential side effect: increased human exposure to deadly microbes living inside domesticated animals and plants. Food-producing societies evolved resistances to these pathogens over time, or they were wiped out. First contact with foreign germs can upset the balance of a society more than any other contributing factor, and this is exactly what happened when colonizing agricultural societies encountered natives who did not share their immunities.

This was, in fact, the most important factor for each of the major collisions throughout history, including the fall of the millions-strong Aztec Empire by Cortes and his mere 600 men, as well as the largest population shift in all of human history: the initial 20 million North American indigenes being reduced by 95% in a matter of a century as a result of European conquest. In terms of their contribution to human depopulation, germs should clearly precede both guns and steel in the book's title.

In sharp contrast with the heavily race-dependent, empirically vacuous speculations still in circulation, Diamond's core idea is that geographic advantage proved the decisive factor in shaping the major outlines of history. Diamond links dominant cultures to the largest native palettes of domesticable biota and to the regions most congenial to technological diffusion. Thus while literacy, political organization, firearms, advanced ship technology, and infectious disease represent the proximate causes of Pizarro's overthrow of the Inca Empire, Vasco da Gama's success in East Africa, and countless other population shifts throughout history, Diamond insists it was their ancestors' home turf and enduring success in cultivating the local flora and fauna which sit at the bedrock of history's narrative.

As is the case with any work of this breadth, any implied monolithic pattern is fraught with qualification. Diamond is careful to mention caveats throughout, such as some of the difficulties involved with homogenizing Eurasia into a unified landmass. He notes that food production should not be synonymous with monotonic progress in any one category, referencing the Japanese injunction against firearms and China's decommission of its maritime fleet in past centuries. The many nuances introduced throughout are a testament to Diamond's attention to detail and responsible scholarship.

Closing Thoughts

One of the most fascinating gifts of history lies in the interactions among past peoples and their ripple effects down through the ages. Guns, Germs, and Steel sits above the vault of human history, providing first-stage explanations to account for its winners and losers. To a great extent, it furnishes a new hermeneutical lens by which to view history, or at the very least a soak test for assessing historical anecdotes. While Diamond was not the first to connect environmental factors to ruling states, GGS is one of the greatest syntheses of the encompassing subject matter released to date. He debunks with crack empiricism the alternative, largely racist hypotheses for history's manifest imbalance of power, leaving a soundly reasoned case in their stead.

I can only add to the avalanche of praise that has been directed toward this book. Guns, Germs, and Steel has forever changed the way I view history and make sense of modern society. It is an academic read, to be sure, but I found it optimally dense so as not to turn away readers less interested in every detail. Some have dispraised Diamond's repetition of common themes, but I personally found this helpful as it allowed the material to ossify more easily in my mind. The book also serves as a model of scientific rigor, with each chapter fastidiously referenced in the ending bibliography.

If I had my say, this would be standard high school reading across the country. GGS makes the short list of books which demand to be read at least once. Polymathic in scope, unwavering in its cogency, Diamond has penned a major contribution to our historical understanding which has stood the test of time. I only wished I had read it sooner.

Note: This review is republished from my official website. Click through for additional footnotes and imagery.

واحد من أهم و اعظم الكتب التي مرت معي طوال مسيرتي بعالم الكتب والقراءة
يعالج بشكل اساسي السبب الذي يجعل بعض الأقوام والحضارات متفوقة على غيرها
لماذا تفوقت المجتمعات الآسيوية والشرق الاوسطية في حقب التاريخ القديم.. ولماذا تفوقت اوربا في آخر 500 سنة

لا اريد ان اكتب اي مراجعة او تلخيص
فهذا الكتاب يقرأ مرة ومرتين وثلاثة...

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 .

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.