Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by J. M. Diamond

18 februarie 2012 • Books

Book of the Week 8 

“Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies is a captivating book by an evolutionary biologist, trying to shed light on why certain civilizations fared better than others. The structure of the book has a scientific flavor about it, is explicitly biased towards geographical determinism, but far from providing peremptory arguments on the subject. The examples are thoroughly expanded with a lot of detailed information, inspired by diverse civilizations painted in different times. The reader clearly feels that the book is the result of in depth research. ” Lucian Isar

On YouTube there is a very nice series of 18 episodes inspired by Guns, Germs, and Steel. Episode 1 can be retrieved here.

Abonare la articole


1 Comentariu

28-02-2012 la ora 8:23 pm

Guns, Germs and Steel is dfetniiely a good book. The PBS special is good, except for the last half of the last show. It gets kind of maudlin toward the end as he tries to think of a moral, positive way to end it.Collapse is interesting, but kind of boring once you get through the first few chapters, more of the same through the rest of the book. Let me know what you think once you get through it.