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POLITICA >>Guns, Germs & Steel | ||||
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Politica is a forum for independent analysis of political events around the World |
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Diamond, J.
1998. Guns, Germs and Steel - A Short History of Everybody
for the Last 13,000 Years. Vintage, London, UK. Rating: JJJJ About the Author: Jared Diamond is most famous for his scientific work on island biogeography, and other contributions to ecology and evolutionary biology. He is professor of physiology at the University of California Medical School. Books by
the same author: The
Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpanzee |
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Review When an ecological scientist presents his vision of world history, the result is enlightening. He is more interested in searching for ultimate causes than the lives of such and such king, queen or leader. Using this method, he manages to answer the tantalizing question: why did civilisations in different parts of the planet follow such different destinies. Why wasn't Europe conquered by the Aztecs or the Aborigines? Why was agriculture first developed in the Middle East and not in Sub-Saharan Africa? The answer lies in the geography and the ecology of the different regions of the world, not in racial differences. For example, tribes living in proximity to horses were able to use these animals for immediate military advantage, while those in the Middle East happened to be within reach of a large number of plants which were easy to domesticate. Diamonds history of the world takes us from the highlands of New Guinea to the Amazonian jungles, and puts Europe back in its place as just a peninsula of the Eurasian supercontinent. Jared Diamond's book helps us to remember that the structure of Human societies, the balance of power between them, and history in general cannot be viewed in isolation from the natural world from which our species arose, and of which it is an inextricable part. A final nail in the coffin of racists, nationalists and xenophobes of this age. |
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