"Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people had little cargo of our own?" Or, put in another way, "why did Europe colonize New Guinea, and elsewhere, instead of the other way around?"

Diamond's theory is that the reasons have little, if anything, to do with biological differences, cultural systems or human effort; it has to do with the location of superior agriculture and domesticable animals. He attempts to prove his theory by examining the world, as it must have looked 13,000 years ago.
Diamond examines three paramount factors:

A.The shape of the continent;
B.The distribution of domesticable wild plants and animals; and
C.The geographical barriers inhibiting diffusion of domesticated plants and animals.

The location that incorporated these three factors led to the earlier decline of the hunter-gatherer lifestyle and encouraged farming. This, in turn, led to social stability, government, learning, and, eventually, armies and explorers.
Diamond identifies Eurasia, which had the good fortune to be situated in an east-west orientation ("axis"), to be the perfect highway for agriculture to spread. The mid-latitude region of Eurasia, had the largest continuous zone of temperate climates and, therefore, was more conducive to the origination of superior and plentiful plants and animals. Thus, Eurasia was "fated" to be the center of farming and, indeed, became the birthplace of civilization.

According to Diamond, continents with a north-south axis (e.g., Africa, the Americas), was not conducive to the spread of agriculture as plants had to move through different climate zones. There is no discussion of the adaptability of plants, even though that is an essential element of domesticability. The ubiquitous potato now thrives in many areas foreign to its place of origination.

Diamond's theory based on the domestication of wild animals is a little stronger. The early domestication of animals in Eurasia eventually led to human resistance to certain diseases acquired from animals. European explorers had developed significant immunities to diseases to which the people in the New World had no resistance. Thus, smallpox wiped out an entire civilization, or at least rendered the people defenseless to invaders.

Diamond argues that the contiguous nature of the countries in the east-west axis, as well as their temperate environments, led to rapid dispersion of plants and the domestication of animals. Actually, there are many inhospitable barriers within Eurasia, which, under Diamond's theory would block diffusion. However, Diamond does not address this factor.

Diamond also fails to explain, adequately, why Australia, which has a climate similar to the mid-lateral region of Eurasia did not begin farming until much later.

Diamond concludes that Eurasia was fated to be the winner in the worldwide historical competition because of geographical and environmental advantages. Then approximately 500 years ago, Europe pulled ahead of China and assumed sole dominance. The lack of competition within homogeneous China was given as the reason Europe became sole victor in the end.

There are several major problems with Diamond's theory. The first is the absence of any provable, corroborating evidence. Under his theory if the New Guinean man and his descendants had switched places with the Europeans 10,000 years ago, those people would have become the colonizers, instead of the colonized.

The book also is heavily biased by the author's "reverse" racism views. In response to the question of whether there are any biological differences today between Aboriginal Australians and Europeans, Diamond states:

"The objection to such racist explanations is not just that they are loathsome, but also that they are wrong. Sound evidence for the existence of human differences in intelligence that parallel human differences in technology is lacking. In fact ... modern "Stone Age" peoples are on the average probably more intelligent, not less intelligent, than industrialized peoples."

The author's choice of the word "loathsome," an emotionally loaded word, to describe racism sets the tone for this very politically correct book.

This reviewer's impression is that Diamond has a pre-determined conclusion, and he relies on certain theories to support it, but ignores those same theories when they don't support his conclusion. In the end, Diamond does not establish a credible response to the New Guinea man's questions. To the extent the book purports to be a scientific study of history, the author has made a very basic error: he attempts to explain a "fact" - that there are no biological differences among different groups of people - without first establishing that that indeed is a fact.

Guns, Germs, and Steel is an interesting, politically correct story of the evolution of civilization, but I would not recommend it as a scientific study of history. Though fairly easy to read, the book is very repetitive and unnecessarily long to make the author's point. One hundred or more pages easily could have been cut.


Totally lacking in credibility...   June 1, 2006
 78 out of 95 found this review helpful

Imagine my surprise when I found out that this book, which I'd been looking forward to reading for so long, isn't a science book at all. It's more of a convoluted political treatise in which the author uses every trick in the book to support his beliefs. He makes completely false statements, omits even the most obvious arguments refuting his position, passes off his poorly formed opinions as fact, and uses some of the most tortured logic I've ever had the misfortune to read.

But you're saying the same thing I did when I read the few negative reviews of GG&S: Who is this guy to criticize Jared Diamond? So let me give you some concrete examples of what I mean.

I think my favorite statement in this book, because the author managed to achieve absurdity on so many different levels with it, is that kids today are getting dumber because they watch too much TV.

Let's examine that for a moment. First, the fundamental assumption is flat wrong. Average performances on IQ tests (the best measure at this point) have been rising since the test was first administered. If you don't believe me, look it up--it's called the Flynn Effect. Now, normally, a statement this odd would have sent me scrambling to the footnotes, but there are none. Undoubtedly because they would interfere with Diamond's ability to just make stuff up.

Second, because we have the historical test numbers and we know the dates for the invention and proliferation of television, we can see that there is no correlation with IQ. And finally (okay, I admit to being a bit snarky here) they made a TV show out of this book. Why do I think Diamond would except that particular program from his hypothesis?

We then have his now vaguely infamous and typically unsupported idea that the people of New Guinea are smarter than Europeans because they live in a more violent and dangerous society which selects for intelligence as opposed to European society which tended to select for disease resistance.

While I recognize that this kind of reverse racism is the holy grail of the politically correct "scientist", there's a reason why thinkers much more weighty that Diamond won't touch this subject with a ten foot pole. If we accept Diamond's theory, how long until someone points out that survival in dangerous, violent societies probably selects physically strong, violent people over intelligent ones? Think of it this way: If you had to hire someone to carry your life savings across Somalia on foot, would you choose A: the captain of your high school chess club, or B: a former Navy SEAL in prison for beating a guy to death with a tire iron? So now we're suddenly suggesting that certain races are more prone to violence than others. Oops.

Diamond's proof for the fact that some societies domesticated plants and animals while others didn't seems to revolve around the fact that that we still haven't. So, for instance, because we still haven't domesticated the bison, it follows that it's impossible. No consideration is given to the fact that bison range pretty well without domestication and that cattle are so cheap, tasty, and plentiful, there's no real point. He also holds up the fact that recent efforts to domesticate the eland in Africa "have not caught on." I spend a lot of time in Africa, and let me tell you that the failure of the Africans to achieve something in no way means it's impossible.

Probably the most entertaining of Diamond's arguments on this subject, though, is his contention that a breeding program designed to genetically diversify the endangered California condor has produced no economically useful product. Why he would expect a program charged with creating a better wild animal to produce a domesticated one, I have no idea.

The examples go on an on. It was so bad that I began to question even the interesting sections that rang true to me--such as the scientific description of how plants are domesticated. I constantly wondered if he was leaving out certain species and methods that were available to the aboriginals in order to further his deterministic philosophy.

If you (completely understandably) find this review unconvincing and are about to press the `buy' button, I'd suggest that you also purchase Victor Hanson's "Carnage and Culture" which was written to refute GG&S. Or at least listen to Diamond's debate with Hanson on NPR, (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1132838.) You'll be amazed at how every time Diamond throws out one of his theories, Hanson is able to disprove it so simply and convincingly that Diamond doesn't even bother to argue. And this is despite the fact that Hanson is obviously trying to softball his responses in an effort to not make Diamond look like and idiot on national radio.

Finally, a word on the Pulitzer. I was so amazed by the fact that GG&S won, I looked up who votes on these prizes. Turns out it's a basically a bunch of journalists--not scientists or even people knowledgeable in the field. Explains a lot...


Biased politically-correct tripe   February 17, 2004
 57 out of 82 found this review helpful

Jared Diamond claims that Europeans advanced further than Native American, Asian, African, etc. because the Europeans developed plow-driven farming sooner and thereby developed organized societies sooner. Also Europeans developed immunities through frequent contact with various domestic animals and consequently defeated other peoples by bringing diseases with them. Entirely valid thesis, except that Diamond proceeds to pick any evidence supporting it, and ignores anything that contradicts it.

Why did Britain conquer India? Indians were certainly more resistant to diseases in India, had BETTER domestic animals (elephants to pull canons, for instance), and had just as sophisticated social structure. And during the Indian Mutiny their weapons were just as good as the British ones. Yet the outnumbered British prevailed. The central point of Diamond's book is Pizarro's capture of Atahualpa (168 Spaniards against 80,000 Incas). Diamond attributes that stunning victory purely to superior weaponry - ignoring the fact that with 500 to 1 advantage completely unarmed people (and Incas WERE armed, if poorly) can easily swarm armored arquebusiers by sheer mass. Incas were paralyzed by their delusional view of reality - in other words, their CULTURE. And culture seems to be either a dirty world, or a non-existent one to Diamond. He does no even consider that cultural differences, such as tradition of rational inquiry, have anything to do with military victories.

The book is rife with such omissions. The Mongols conquered China and half of Europe and they were a nomadic, non-agricultural people. Diamond gives them exactly one sentence ("Mongol empire stretched 6,000 miles"). African tribal societies had farming and domesticated animals for centuries before the Europeans arrived. China had all the advantages Europe had, yet according to Diamond lost out because (get that!) its smooth coastline allowed no refuge to dissenters from the government that suppressed innovation (and why would it do that?). European coastline is convoluted, so such dissenters could hide. No mention of European governments which encouraged innovation (culture again!) and prospered as a result.

As for Diamond's claim early in the book that New Guineans are more intelligent that Westerners, that's just pure racism - especially in view of his repeated claims elsewhere in the book that no humans groups innately differ in intelligence. Except these two, apparently. He thinks that the violence of New Guinean society - that any encounter with a stranger could turn deadly, - bred out the stupid ones. Assuming that is true, one wonders why did New Guineans never grow smart enough to END such violence?

Even worse is Diamond's mention of his experiences on a Midwestern farm where all white farmhands were hard-drinking scum, and the only decent person was a Native American. That's just gratuitous white-bashing, so common on liberal college campuses. Without that and the "New Guineans must be smarter" bit, I would have given the book 2 stars ("intriguing idea, poorly executed"). As is, it deserves the lowest rating possible.


Love it or hate it, you should read this book   September 24, 2002
 54 out of 62 found this review helpful

As an avid reader with absolutely no previous contact with the field of anthropology, I found this book to be mesmerizing. Justin Diamond has achieved great success with "Guns, Germs and Steel" (national best-seller, Pulitzer Prize), but it has also made him the target of strident, often venomous criticism...

Diamond's general thesis is that the West conquered the world rather than vice versa because of a fluke of nature. In short, Eurasia was home to an important number of crops and animals that readily lent themselves to successful domestication. This domestication resulted in mass food production, which the author claims is the "ultimate" cause of Western dominance. Food production, in turn, led to a number of "proximate" causes related to the rise of the West: farms and animal herds led to stationary populations and excess food to support a specialized class of bureaucrats and soldiers; it also increased population density, which, along with close contact with animals, led to germs and the subsequent genetic resistance of Westerners to those diseases. Finally, Diamond concludes, the unique East-West axis of Eurasia and the absence of any impenetrable geographic barriers fostered the spread of new crops, technologies, etc., which gave rise to many competing communities, whose competition further increased the western lead over the rest of the world.

Diamond's arguments are persuasive on the surface, and even the biggest skeptic will have reason for pause after reading his book. However, the final chapter reveals that he can't really resolve a fundamental question: why did Europe, rather than the Middle East, India or China come to conquer the world? Almost the entire book is dedicated to explaining why the Eurasian landmass was blessed with the prerequisites for large civilizations rather than the Americas, Africa and Australia. His terse explanation for why Europe in particular dominated leaves much to be desired and explained.

In this reviewer's opinion, the recent book by classicist Victor Davis Hanson ("Carnage and Culture") provides a plausible epilogue for Diamond's piece. Hanson completely and explicitly rejects Diamond's geographic determinism, but I don't think the two theses are incompatible or in any way mutually exclusive. In fact, it seems to me that Diamond and Hanson support one another, as the latter's assertion that the war-making efficiency of liberal democracies beginning in the Hellenistic period explains Europe's ultimate triumph.

In closing, as an introduction to anthropology and a cogent depiction of one school of thought on the rise of the West this book is marvelous. Approach it with an open-mind, reflect on the thesis and the supporting evidence, and then draw your own conclusions. Love it or hate it, you owe it to yourself to read this book.


Thought provoking synthesis of human biology and history   December 8, 1999
 51 out of 62 found this review helpful

As a evolutionary biologist I found Guns, Germs and Steel an excellent read and very thought provoking. As some of the few critics have pointed out, some of his ideas are not new. What is new is that Diamond was able to bring all these ideas together and synthesize them into something quite new and fasinating. The development of human cultures was surely influenced by geography and environment. Diamond has given an incredibly well thought out explanation and theory. The book might seem to some a bit long, perhaps repetitive, but I found it engrossing. It provoked thought (it now makes sense why native Americans were so suseptible to European diseases and not so much the reverse!), overturned my previously held beliefs and meshed human biology and history very well. A must read for biologists, historians, and the general public. And as to the rare reviewer who suggests the book is 'politically correct', from most of their reviews, I have gotten the feeling they hate it because it threatens their closely held world views. All the more reason it deserves the accolades it has received!