Full Title: Germs, Guns, and Steel: the Fates of Human Societies
An amazing analysis of the development of human civilization, and how and why Western/Eurasian Culture came to dominate most of the world. Diamond tackles the tough and ticklish questions that confront anthropologists and social scientists alike: why didn't South American cultures ever really develop the wheel? How did European technology get so far ahead of mainland African technology, if humans evolved first in Africa? Why did some cultures stay stone-age while Eurasian cultures leapfrogged up to the Industrial Revolution?
Dismissing out of hand the racially based arguments that sometimes rise up out of the academic muck, he presents a scientific and insightful theory of social evolution based on simple geography, demography, and ecological happenstance (the phrase "geographic accident" pops up a lot). His science is solid, his research thorough, and his presentation unassailable (someone will assail it, no doubt, but I personally don't see how).
This is a book for the genuine student of cultural development - dilettantes need not apply. But if tables of things like "World Distribution of Large-Seeded Grass Species" get your heart rate up, then this book is for you! I found it very well written, overall. Some parts drag down in direct relation to their scientific complexity, but Diamond's payoff is always worth waiting - and wading - for. I highly recommend this book for jaded students of history as well, who need a respite from the darker theories and stupid arguments that tend to pass for scientific dialog these days. Diamond certainly makes no apologies or excuses for anyone or any group, but what he does do is show the cause-and-effect reasons of how things came to be, in a new and fascinating light.
(For that matter, if you want to go back a bit further down the evolutionary ladder, check out Diamond's The Third Chimpanzee , which in his words, is about "How the human species changed, within a short time, from just another species of big mammal to a world conqueror; and how we acquired the capacity to reverse all that progress overnight." Humans really are just the third species of chimpanzee. Not a cousin of, or "kind of like", but are. Doesn't that change your perspective on life? Personally, I think it is fabulous to see us all as chimpanzees….everything makes so much sense!)
