Who, Why, When and How? (Guns, Germs and Steel - Jared Diamond)

Member Name: Mauri

Product:	Guns, Germs and Steel - Jared Diamond
Date:	01/11/02 (229 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Clearly written, Fascinating reading

Disadvantages: You need an interest in the subject

Dooyoo does work! Earlier in the year another member of the site (or should we say ‘user’ these days) left a comment after I posted my opinion on ‘I’m Not A Racist But…’ telling me that I would find this book interesting. I followed his advice bought the book and now I will tell you what I think of it.

THE BIG QUESTION

OK let’s get philosophical shall we? Why are we here? Is there life after death? How did it all begin? These can be described as the A-list questions for humanity since we developed enough Intelligence to stop sitting around picking fleas off each and think about such things. A slightly less fundamental question (a B-list question!) but one which probably has much more bearing on our everyday lives and our interaction with other people from different cultures, is ‘How did we get from clever apes to where we are today?’ And as a follow up- ‘Why did a one section of humanity manage to impose itself over the rest?’

This is what Jared Diamond attempts to answer in this fascinating book. On the front of my edition it states that this is ‘A Short History Of Everybody For The Last 13,000 years’ and this is exactly right.

HOW DID WE GET HERE?

Diamond starts by looking at the modern world and asking how is it that Eurasian civilization came to dominate the native American, African or Polynesian civilizations sometimes as in the case of the Spanish in central and south America defying all the odds. In order to answer this we have to look at the possibility that Eurasian peoples themselves are in some way superior to other ‘racial’ denominations around the world. This argument would state that Eurasians are cleverer, more ingenious more inventive and have the potential to be better organised that other inferior ‘races’ in the world. This is a very dangerous argument to accept, as it would justify racism, and persecut

ion of less developed societies. In fact this is exactly what happened when European explorers and settlers came face to face with the native populations and the Americas and Africa, leading to violent subjugation and slavery.

Diamond quickly and rightly dismisses this false premise and argues that in many cases once native populations have been introduced to new technologies they have been better at exploiting and developing these than the Eurasian originators. Once we have dismissed the idea that there is fundamental difference in the inherent abilities of different racial groups we are still left with the question why is that the Eurasian people developed in to the most advanced technological society in human history while some human populations were still living a stone age existence.

Diamond begins to answer this question by taking us back 13,000 years, a point in human development were there were no clear cut differences in different peoples around the world. From this starting point he looks at the four main reasons why this subsequent uneven development took place.

HUNTERS AGAINST FARMERS

It is evident from looking at history that there seems to have been a steady developmental progression from nomadic hunter-gatherers to settled communities based on stable food production. Indeed it is safe to say that there as never been an advanced complex civilisation that has sustained itself by the hunter gathering lifestyle.

It would seem to be a natural development for all ancient societies to have developed in this way and yet we find that early people in Mesopotamia developed farming thousands of years before peoples in the Americas and in some parts of the world hunter-gatherer groups still survive. Diamond goes on to make the point that in order for hunters to become farmers they need to be able to domesticate crops and animals for food production. Geographical difference climatic differences and the very orient
ation
of the Eurasian continent on a east west axis as opposed to a north south axis of the Americas and Africa all conspire to make these development considerably easier in Eurasia. These factors coupled with a natural abundance of plant and animals species that easily lend themselves to domestication provide Eurasia with a massive advantage. By contrast Africa, America and Australasia have few if any suitable plant or animal candidates for domestication.

BIGGER IS BETTER

Diamond argues that as a consequence of stable food production primitive societies were able to increase their populations and settle in bigger permanent communities. These early settlements quickly developed into larges towns and cities. A further consequence of larger communities and stable food production was the greater possibility of certain individuals to concentrate on specialist tasks rather than simply on food production. This gave rise to technological advancement. As the lager population units expanded and came across others such as themselves trade became necessary.

The increase in population also made society more potentially violent which then necessitated the imposition of rules or laws leading to a elite growing up to enforce those laws. This increase in complexity also made the societies better able to wage war and gather resources.

GERMS

Despite Europe’s early advantage over other peoples in other continents we should not imagine that the first European explorer to reach America post 1492 and sub-Saharan Africa a few hundred years later entered sparsely populated continents with only stone age hunter gatherer to oppose them. This is far from the truth; both in America and Western Africa powerful well organised civilisations had developed numbering in the tens of millions. Technologically they might not have been quite as advanced but technology itself cannot explain how for instance a handful of Conquistadors could within
a matter o
f a few years subjugate a powerful warlike empire such as the Incas and Aztecs. An explanation as to how this could have happened can be gained by considering the role of germs and disease.

The development of cities and the proximity with which people were living with each other and their farms animals proved to be the perfect breeding ground for new nasty diseases that could never have arisen while a hunter-gatherer lifestyle was followed. Gradually the Eurasian population developed limited resistance to various killers such as smallpox and influenza, unfortunately when contaminated explorers came across the pristine populations in the Americas the natives had no protection and one of the biggest tragedies in human history took place with millions dying from the effects of European diseases.

TECHNOLOGY AND RESOURCES

One final aspect is to consider the circumstances in which technology developed at such pace in Europe. Diamond quite rightly points out that the early technological advancements did not actually take place in Europe but in Asia. These advances quickly spread again due to many optimal conditions both geographical and cultural that existed. Differences in cultures and their ability to accept change did also have a part to play but this was not an overwhelming factor. In many cases due to the landscape or climate technological advances were not needed or sought for and in many cases the raw materials were not there to begin with.

OVERALL

I found this book compelling both in it’s arguments, which are both authoritatively and eloquently made by Diamond but also by his writing style which is very easy to follow and at no time make this vast subject overbearing.

Obviously generalisation have to be made, exceptions to the rules are mentioned and lack of reliable data especially when it comes to the dating of early discoveries and civilisation, are not forgotten but at no time while rea
ding the book d
id I feel that the author was stretching the evidence merely to back his own theory.

Diamond is an anthropologist who has worked for many years in the treacherous areas of New Guinea and he often uses his experiences there to justify or better explain a point. However in writing this book he show an incredible understanding of many other scientific discipline from geology to medicine and he backs this up with a insightful view of history.

The research carried out for this book must have been extensive to say the least. He uses some incredible examples from the historical records to add weight to his central premise; his style is so persuasive that you find yourself wandering why you had never thought of it in these terms before. It is the sign of a very talented writer (often lacking in a scientist) that such complicated and disparate scientific disciplines can be made to seem easy to grasp and logical to understand. It doesn’t surprise me in the least that this book won the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for general non-fiction and the 1998 Rhone-Poulenc Science Book Prize.

Who should read this book? Anyone interested in history, biology, anthropology or almost any other ‘ology’ you care to mention. It is a very readable book and provided you have any interest in any of the subject covered you will be fascinated by it.

In the end I’m not sure if he has answered the original question completely to my satisfaction but that would be a lot to ask, but importantly he never claims that what he is saying is the only interpretation of the facts just a reasonably good theory. I would say that his arguments are compelling and that he as done as much as anyone in the field of science to produce a unified explanation as to why we are the way we are today.

The overall message of the book is that the course of history is far more complex than the history books would lead us to believe. The activiti
es of men and women
play only a limited part in explaining why history has been shaped the way it has. Human history is just as much depended on chance events, evolutionary biology, and climactic change as it is on human action. In the long term this realisation might act to make us more humble and give more consideration to our own minor place in the larger scheme of things.

This book is a brilliant piece of popular science and should be read by anyone who has ever considered his her place in the modern world. You will not be overawed and you might actually end up a little wiser.

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'Guns, Germs and Steel' is published by Vintage UK (Random House) ISBN: 0099302780 (430 pages)
It is available in paperback from Amazon.co.uk priced at £7.19 (+ p & p)

Thanks for reading and rating this opinion.

© Mauri 2002

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