Someone mentioned that I might really enjoy reading Jared Diamond’s “Guns, Germs, and Steel”.

The book chronicles the most recent 100 000 years of modern human history with a focus on the last 30 000 years. Diamond discusses early migration of people as hunter-gatherers throughout the world, tool manufacturing, the subsequent rise of agriculture (independently in several areas at various times), animal husbandry and ultimately the rise of chiefdoms, empires and states. Diamond tackles such a diverse array of topics, treating them in a logical cohesive fashion that let me follow his train of thoughts and theories surrounding the ultimate fate of our world. Diamond tackles some loaded questions, namely, why does there appear to be have and have-not cultures in the world? Why, for example, did the Spaniards conquer the Incan empire of Atahuallpa at Cajamarca in 1532 instead of Charles I waking up one morning to the booming cannons of Atahuallpa’s Navy? Indeed, why didn’t the Inca even have ships and vessels? Treating these topics from all angles (people, environment, culture, proximity to others, etc.) helps Diamond give fair and equitable treatment to loaded topics, especially when dealing with the notion that Eurasian states and peoples are somehow inherently better than the peoples they ultimately subjugated. Diamond’s discussion makes it clear that there were many factors, plenty of which were environmental and effectively coincidental that lead to the early rise of Eurasian dominance and it becomes plausible that if we were to have left some other cultures to their own devices on parallel if somewhat delayed tracks, they appeared to be converging on similar technological and cultural advances. Fascinating stuff, especially for a change of pace from my usual bits and blinking lights.

• Title: Guns, Germs, and Steel
• © 1999, 1997 by Jared Diamond
• Author : Jared Diamond
• Publisher : W. W. Norton & co.
• Year : 1997
• ISBN : 0-393-31755-2 (trade paperback) Amazon Google