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June 23, 2003
Review: (book) Guns, Germs, and Steel
As I've said in the Past, I don't get racism. More to the point, perhaps, I don't believe that there are any real biological differences between the "races". Perhaps there would have been if given another 100,000 or million or so years of independent development, but that was never going to happen. Which brings me to Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared DiamondÂ…
The name of the book is the answer to a question: "why did Europe win"? The answer (and the name of the book) could have just as easily, though less alliteratively, been "readin', 'ritin', 'rithmetic". Mr. Diamond pushes this answer backwards, at every step asking the same question so fammiler to parents of three-year-olds "why"?
The answer he comes up with is geography. It's one that I took as an a priori assumption in a previous paper, so I felt right at home. Nonetheless, Mr. Diamond did a masterful job making his case...
The most interesting point is that Mr. Diamond puts Europe and Asia into one continent "Eurasia", which is geologically sound but culturally awkward. He may be overstating the case a bit were this a more social inquiry, but since he is mainly concerned with crops and livestock, his seems to be a worthwhil presumption. One of the basic points he makes is that since Eurasia is "wider" than it is "tall" crops at any given latitude have a much wider range in which to grow. This is a significant help with both crop and chattel diffusionÂ…
Just about everything in the book comes down to that basic point (latitude), and its meanings. For instance: Mr. Diamond makes the case that the Americas were fairly well doomed; they didn't have very good crops (save corn, which was just being domesticated as the Europeans landed), and had no real chattel animals. Thus the fastest anyone could get around was by foot, and societies couldn't grow very large because everyone had to work for food. North America became a breadbasket only after the Europeans brought oxen and "amber waves of grain"...
And so it goes, throughout the book. Mr. Diamond spends time discussing language, social formation, idea diffusion, and other such topics. He doesn't talk often about types of societies, leaving the real meat of that topic for the very end of the book. Fortunately the gaps in Mr. Diamond's book were filled in nicely by Slate contributor Robert Write's excellent book NonZero: the Logic of human destiny. The end of Mr. Diamond's book asks the tantalizing question of "why Europe and not China?" An answer is even offered. For more detail, however, take a look at Write's book...
Ultimately Mr. Diamond's book is well written, full of insight and intellectual stimulation. He makes the assumption that I am not a biology major, but that also I am not an idiot. The book is thus written in layman's terms, but beyond that 10th grade level that is standard newsroom fare. Highly Recommended...
Rating: This book gets 5 guns, don't steal it, and it won't give you germs out of a possible 5.
Posted by Andrew at June 23, 2003 01:20 PM
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