3 ms·

There's a book by that title. I havn't gotten a chance to read it yet, but was told its very good. https://www.amazon.com/Guns-Germs-Steel-Fates-Societies/dp/0

by w-ll 8y ago

There's a book by that title. I havn't gotten a chance to read it yet, but was told its very good. https://www.amazon.com/Guns-Germs-Steel-Fates-Societies/dp/0393317552 https://www.amazon.com/Guns-Germs-Steel-Fates-Societies/dp/0...

wolf550e 8y ago
Beware, historians don't like the book: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/historians_views#wiki_historians.27_views_of_jared_diamond.27s_.22guns.2C_germs.2C_and_steel.22 https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/historians_views...
- c3534l 8y ago
  The criticism seems to be mostly that it's too broad and lacks nuance rather than being something akin to pseudoscience. When I read the book I never thought the book was meant to be the be-all and end-all of history, so I never really understood that criticism. Yes, history is complicated. I'd just keep that in mind. It kind of reminds me of when people criticize the book Code for not being a technical enough discussion of computer hardware.
  - jcranmer 8y ago
    That's not really the criticism. Jared Diamond is very extremely wedded to the environmental determinism theory (this becomes more obvious after you read Collapse; it's somewhat more muted in Guns, Germs, and Steel), and this theory has serious gaping holes that Diamond never really addresses. One of the problems of GG&S in particular is that the book presupposes that the European colonization of the Americas was inevitable. For anyone who's actually studied that topic--and Diamond pretends that no one has ever done that before, which is a big fat lie--the most immediate and important conclusion is that it was not inevitable. Pre-Columbian history is already a topic where pretty much everything you were taught is completely and totally wrong [1], and Diamond takes these wrong facts as axiomatic, and people constantly suggest Guns, Germs, and Steel to help reinforce the explanation--it's no wonder there's a large amount of exasperation on the topic. [1] If you want a good book on this, read Charles Mann's book 1491. It's also a great way of showing how a non-specialist in history can competently approach the topic.
    - c3534l 8y ago
      I'll check it out. But yes, Jared Diamond definitely believes in maybe not determinism per se, but definitely geographic, erm, importantism.

by w-ll 8y ago

wolf550e 8y ago

Beware, historians don't like the book: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/historians_views#wiki_historians.27_views_of_jared_diamond.27s_.22guns.2C_germs.2C_and_steel.22 https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/historians_views...

c3534l 8y ago
The criticism seems to be mostly that it's too broad and lacks nuance rather than being something akin to pseudoscience. When I read the book I never thought the book was meant to be the be-all and end-all of history, so I never really understood that criticism. Yes, history is complicated. I'd just keep that in mind. It kind of reminds me of when people criticize the book Code for not being a technical enough discussion of computer hardware.
- jcranmer 8y ago
  That's not really the criticism. Jared Diamond is very extremely wedded to the environmental determinism theory (this becomes more obvious after you read Collapse; it's somewhat more muted in Guns, Germs, and Steel), and this theory has serious gaping holes that Diamond never really addresses. One of the problems of GG&S in particular is that the book presupposes that the European colonization of the Americas was inevitable. For anyone who's actually studied that topic--and Diamond pretends that no one has ever done that before, which is a big fat lie--the most immediate and important conclusion is that it was not inevitable. Pre-Columbian history is already a topic where pretty much everything you were taught is completely and totally wrong [1], and Diamond takes these wrong facts as axiomatic, and people constantly suggest Guns, Germs, and Steel to help reinforce the explanation--it's no wonder there's a large amount of exasperation on the topic. [1] If you want a good book on this, read Charles Mann's book 1491. It's also a great way of showing how a non-specialist in history can competently approach the topic.
  - c3534l 8y ago
    I'll check it out. But yes, Jared Diamond definitely believes in maybe not determinism per se, but definitely geographic, erm, importantism.