Guns, Germs & Steel
Mar. 3rd, 2014 08:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
apharby Jared Mason Diamond
Well organized, insightful, and informative review of the history of the human civilization, attempting to explain "why the Europeans conquered America/Australia &c and not, e.g., Incas conquered Europe".
The author reduces the explanation to the advantages enjoyed by the Europeans stemming from better food production and animal husbandry, which is determined by a better choice of domesticable plants and animals and a east-west expanse of Eurasia (as opposed to north-south expanse of America and Africa).
The anti-European slant, starting with enquoting the word "discovery" when referring to The Age of Discovery, and ending with the author's "subjective impression that New Guineans are on the average smarter than Eurasians", detracts, alas, from the impression of scientific objectivity which he tries to convey.
Well organized, insightful, and informative review of the history of the human civilization, attempting to explain "why the Europeans conquered America/Australia &c and not, e.g., Incas conquered Europe".
The author reduces the explanation to the advantages enjoyed by the Europeans stemming from better food production and animal husbandry, which is determined by a better choice of domesticable plants and animals and a east-west expanse of Eurasia (as opposed to north-south expanse of America and Africa).
The anti-European slant, starting with enquoting the word "discovery" when referring to The Age of Discovery, and ending with the author's "subjective impression that New Guineans are on the average smarter than Eurasians", detracts, alas, from the impression of scientific objectivity which he tries to convey.
