Instead, follow the data: Pinker shows that life, health, prosperity, safety, peace, knowledge, and happiness are on the rise, not just in the West but worldwide. It is a lucid and enlightening summary of his life's work. This may sound like less of a critique of the audiobook although this could have been aleviated by shorter, more concise chapters and more of a guide to the reader. Evidence seems to indicate that all people's are capable of food production and even modern hunter gatherers seem to be naturally moving that way. Dvorak keyboard is one example. The deep value of this guide is that Diamond's thesis is simply not simply nonproductive speculation.
I'm to going to compare Jared Diamond to Charles Darwin. Diamond addressed only the means that enabled the colonial powers to dominate, not the reasons why they chose to do so. Diamond instead looks to geography, and natural history for explanations. It will change the way you think about thinking. This density also allowed for more technological advances, more exposure and protection against herd diseases, so that when cultures collided, the more advanced societies were able to dominate. A major reassessment of world history, it compelled us to look at the past from a different perspective.
There are heroes - and then there are Greek heroes. How does the universe fit within us? Additional Thoughts This is a list of interesting notes, side stories, or additional thoughts that were sparked as a I read the book. Guns, Germs, and Steel is crammed with facts and densely written. Buy This Book: Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond Or,. Only one can actually be the earliest, of course. Shortlisted for the British Book Awards, Book of the Year, 2007. This, in turn, led to the spread of more agricultural societies across the globe.
Diamond argues, convincingly, that the much greater availability of domesticable plants and large animals in Eurasia than in sub-Saharan Africa and the Americas. ReviewGuns, Germs, and Steel: The Fate of Human Societies Audiobook by Jared Diamond received critical acclaim. The New Silk Roads brings this story up to date, addressing the present and future of a world that is changing dramatically. Although he doesn't know anything about the subject at first , he is eager to learn, and takes information that he gets from the world's leading experts and explains it to us in a way that makes it exciting and relevant. Nevertheless we aint able to ignore the outcomes of the particular diseases let loose on the Unites states. That is, the different historical trajectories of Africa and Europe stem ultimately from differences in real estate.
Having done field work in New Guinea for more than 30 years, Jared Diamond presents the geographical and ecological factors that have shaped the modern world. Is the ideal of progress obsolete? What should we teach our children? For example, it takes 10,000 pounds of corn to create a 1,000 pound bull. Guns, Germs, and Steel summary This is my book summary of Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. I read it shortly after it came out in hardback and lent my copy one too many times so I was excited to read it again. The many islands have widely varying landscapes and climates. It could all havee been absolutely mind changing.
Right after establishing this kind of strong base, Diamond drops into duplicating ideas concerning the formation of large-scale communities. We barely made it an hour before he asked me to pick something else to play, since the dull monotonous performance was actually making him tired at the wheel. At times however I did become a bit bored, thinking that the point the author was making was being beaten to dead. He simply can't resist interposing his personal experience and special insights into the narrative rather than simply let the story stand on it's own. I don't know whether it was Diamond's prose style or the relatively slow start but for whatever reason I just couldn't get past the first 50 pages.
Specialties, sub-specialties, and sub-sub-specialties abound. How have our brains evolved alongside our cultures? He makes way too many sweeping generalizations and says that is the reason why so and so country is rich today. He discusses as to why the Eurasian and North African civilizations have been survived and conquered others and emerged as more dominant. Just because you get the basic premise of Natural Selection does not mean you shouldn't read Darwin's classics. But as with all sociological research, it is still limited in its scope and breadth. In these pages you travel around the world and witness, how such factors have favored some sections of humanity more than others. Diamond evenhandedly reviews human history on every continent since the Ice Age at a rate that emphasizes only the broadest movements of peoples and ideas.
Much of the information is interesting but it was hard to stay focused. Is it still worth reading? This the spread of agriculture was once again impacted by the environment. If you had told me I was going to be left gaping by linguistic analysis, natural experiments or the result of reviews by evolutionary biologists I wouldn't have believed you but I am agog as what I've heard and the implications it has meant for all the histories of different societies. However, it was quite difficult for things to spread to the Americas because of large oceans and the only close landmass being in cold climates and at high latitudes unsuitable for farming. It's well narrated; I stuck with early sections that did a good job of scene setting but gave me problems in print and by the end I was so fascinated by the combination of detailed research and sweeping vision that I listened to it again. Academic critics howled However, academic critics howled shortly after the publication of Guns, Germs, and Steel: They referred to supposed errors in geography and history, which I find largely pointless.
A story all should know, not all can endure What a wealth of information! He is trying to find ultimate causes--before humans got extremely sophisticated mental ideas like religious beliefs. His theories have helped change the whole nature of the study of social biology, and have forced thousands to rethink their beliefs about life. A major advance in our understanding of human societies, Guns, Germs, and Steel chronicles the way that the modern world came to be and stunningly dismantles racially based theories of human history. Overall a really interesting and engaging listen but I can see how the writer's style might really grate with some. If you download this you'll possibly move on to others of this type.