Guns, Germs, and Steel [the book]

[Ant509y]

Hey, all. I just wonder, how many people have read this book? It's a very good, pulitzer prize winning book about world history, and I was just curious to see how many people here have read it.

 

[trevor]

Good book. I found it interesting that Diamond and Keegan came to the same general, albeit different in the exact method, conclusion that farming and agriculture lead to the development of mass warfare.

 

[Illustrious]

An excellent book.

Not least because Diamond has a thesis (differential access to domesticable crops and animals) that enables him to steer a clean course between two all-too-frequently encountered forms of idiocy.

On the one hand is the Scylla of blind political correctness: "in principle there is no reason whatsoever why a fleet of Incas could not have sailed East and conquered Spain..." etc. On the other is the Charybdis of blind racialism: "the Western Europeans conquered more or less everyone else because they were in some way superior people..." etc.

Diamond is able to demonstrate quite convincingly that (1) yes there is a good reason why it was Europe that colonised the Americas and not vice versa; and (2) that good reason had absolutely nothing to do with the relative virtues or otherwise of the two sets of people.

If anyone here has not read it, they should.

 

[Ant509y]

Yes, it is definantly a good book, which has without a doubt given me the information I have needed to understand much more completely [though not totally perfect, of course... who can understand history which they did not see with their own eyes perfectly?] than ever before, and I definantly think that anyone who wouldn't get bored by it go and read it!

 

[Knight-Dragon]

Yes, I have read the book. Found it to be very interesting.

 

[YNCS]

It's an excellent book. Illustrious gives a good capsule summary of why it's an excellent book.

 

[Zarn]

You guys make me want to read it, now. Thanks alot.

How long is it?

 

[YNCS]

The trade paperback edition is 425 pages long, plus bibliography, endnotes and index.

 

[PinkyGen]

I read it for Cornell. There were actually people who believed the book was racist, which I thought was silly, and others who thought it was at times too PC, also silly. There was some legitimate criticism, such as lack of footnotes. (Of course, the vast majority of Cornellians resented having to read the book anyway, it was *required* summer reading).

 

[HannibalBarka]

Definitly a great book, a must read one

 

[Punkymonkey]

I came across it when i was researching ancient greek and persian armies and i did borrow the book and read through some of the chapters but no the whole thing as i didn't have the time too. My paper was due in like 10 hours from that point, but from what i read it was a pretty good book.