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Strangely not mentioned at all, so I'll put it here: Jared Diamond is the author of Guns, Germs and Steel, his most famous work. It addresses the question of ho
by jessedhillon 14y ago
Strangely not mentioned at all, so I'll put it here: Jared Diamond is the author of Guns, Germs and Steel, his most famous work. It addresses the question of how and why European societies were able to advance themselves so much farther ahead of all other civilizations. There is also an excellent four-part series streaming on Netflix.
- roflc0ptic 14y agoGuns, Germs, and Steel was most certainly not about "how and why European societies were able to advance themselves so much farther ahead of all other civilizations". The concept of "advanced", or being "ahead of" is inapplicable. It's a book about sociocultural evolution. Additionally, Diamond is pretty ambivalent about the "winners". Diamond wrote an essay on the subject of agriculture called "The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race". He closes the essay with "As our second midnight approaches, will the plight of famine-stricken peasants gradually spread to engulf us all? Or will we somehow achieve those seductive blessings that we imagine behind agriculture's glittering facade, and that have so far eluded us?" http://www.ditext.com/diamond/mistake.html http://www.ditext.com/diamond/mistake.html
- jessedhillon 14y agoNo. I'm pretty sure it was about why and how European civilizations were able to conquer technology and the world, and specifically why many of the developments critical to the rise of European supremacy are not found in other societies. Yes, the judgments made in the book tend to be more fact-based and objective, e.g., a gun is more effective than a spear. It is not a screed extolling the virtues of European civilization, nor a litany of the failings of other people. Sorry if that's how you understood my brief. Gotta love HN-contrarianism. Oh have you also heard of Jared Diamond and would now like that knowledge recognized by pedantically contradicting me? EDIT: actually let me update this. It is about sociocultural evolution. However if I had said "he wrote a book about sociocultural evolution," nobody would have understood the primary emphasis of his work. That book is specifically and primarily about identifying the key developments in Europe which allowed that civilization to rise in power. He has spent many years living among primitive societies around the world to explore his hypotheses. As much as possible, concepts like "primitive" and "advanced" are objective qualifiers and not value judgments. When I say it that way, people understand what it's about and want to read the book.
- Tichy 14y agoIt's been a while since I read it, but it think it would be more about why one "tribe" developed guns and the other didn't. (Minor nitpicking by someone who also heard of Jared Diamond).
- potatolicious 14y agoI'm in the middle of the book right now, the author goes to great pains to point out that there is no value judgment being passed on what is better, who is more advanced (in the moral, judgmental sense), or who is right. But at the end of the day, it is a study of how some parts of the world - particularly Europe - came to technologically, and subsequently politically/economically dominate everyone else. I don't think this is an unfair thing to say, and it implies no Euro- or Amero-centrism.
- Tichy 14y agoI didn't disagree with that. I just wanted to point out that his reasoning is much more subtle than just "they had guns and the others only spears". That is exactly the point of the book, because the usual explanation people come up with is "they were too stupid to invent guns". The book explains how intelligence had nothing to do with it.
- jessedhillon 14y agoYes, I think I could have placed more emphasis on the fact that his primary hypothesis is that the conditions sufficient for technological advancement were present in Europe and the Middle East. But absolutely not that there were innate deficiencies in the people who did not benefit from those conditions. He's showing that most of history has been the result of a geographical lottery. Jared Diamond is a very sensitive and empathetic man, and that really comes through if you watch the TV series by the same name. His work is not at all promoting Euro-centric supremacy as a race or culture, merely explaining a set of historical circumstances.
- zubairshams 14y ago
- blaze33 14y agoYeah it was more about why native Americans didn't invade Europe in 1492.
- yk 14y agoI think Collapse is better than Guns, Germs and Steel. It is about the end of isolated settlements, and the path which lead them to their demise. And I think it should be mentioned that Guns, Germs and Steel is rather extreme in suggesting an 'geological determinism.' [1] While his arguments are generally quite good, there is simply quite a bit more happening. A nice book to balance this is Ian Morris, Why the West Rules--For Now. [1] Jarred Diamond actually warns of this determinism fallacy, but the book certainly left me with the impression that such a determinism exists.
- msellout 14y agoI thought Diamond's comparison of Europe and China was especially weak. He wrote it off as that China had an emperor, and thus a single point of failure. He didn't do enough to explain why Europe did not become an empire, or to explain why China's immense bureaucracy did not avoid such a single point of failure.
- yen223 14y agoI remembered he did explain why Europe failed to become a united empire - geography. According to the book, the reason China has a large stable empire was because of China's geography, which was mostly flat and well-connected by the Yangtze and the Yellow river. With few geographical segments, this led to the people being less likely to form 'tribes' and more likely to be united culturally. This is in contrast to Europe, which has a large impassible mountain range in the middle, and lots of peninsulas and small rivers, forming natural boundaries. This led to Europe being more diverse culturally.