A short review of a book by Jared Diamond.

Guns, Germs, and Steel is not a new book - it was published in 1997 and even won a prize or two at that time. But for numerous reasons, I missed it back then. I saw the book being mentioned at TPM during discussions about Diamond's more recent works, but when two friends independently mentioned Guns, Germs, and Steel to me several weeks ago, I decided to buy the book and read it for myself. I did not regret that decision.

The informal subtitle of the book is A short history of about everyone for the last 13,000 years, which is highly appropriate. Guns, Germs, and Steel is a high level view of human history; it's not a view from 50,000 feet, it's a view from space.

Diamond is looking for the answer to a big question: why did human history happen the way it happened, and more precisely, why did the Western European civilization end up taking over the rest of the world instead of being taken over by, say, the Chinese or the Aztecs - especially when Europe wasn't even the most advanced continent until roughly 1,500AD.

The author starts examining human history about 13,000 years ago because that coincides with the rise of food production, domestication of plants and animals, and a move from simple tribal hunter-gatherer or nomadic societies towards more hierarchical village- and later city-based societies. Diamond gives very compelling explanations for why food production arose in the Fertile Crescent and few other areas, but not for example Australia or California.

These reasons have nothing to do with what kind of humans lived where (there is a thread of anti-racism winding through the entire book) and everything to do with facts of geography and climate. For example only several large mammals can be domesticated... and none of them happened to live in North America or Australia.

With food production and more complex societies came a positive feedback cycle involving higher population densities, more complex societies, and especially technology. This development independently started in several parts of the world, but was often brought to an abrupt halt by European colonists. We can only speculate what eg. Mesoamerica would look like in the year 2,000AD if the Europeans hadn't arrived.

Diamond builds a strong case for Eurasia being by far the most "lucky" continent due to its size, climate, and quite importantly, East-West orientation of the continental axis (in contrast to the Americas and Africa). Exchange of crops, animals, and technology sped up the development of both European and Asian civilizations.

The author provides compelling explanations for his theses, as well as a number of small case studies of human populations developing along diverging paths due to different environments. The book is generally very light on dates and names and is instead focused on general trends. However, there is a number of interesting examples of historic events, such as the conquest of South American and Mesoamerican civilizations by a shockingly small number of well armed and almost insanely daring Spaniards.

The reference to guns and steel in the title may be obvious, but what about germs? World War II was the first large war in history where humans managed to kill more humans than diseases and epidemics did. Especially the conquest of the Americas by white Europeans was greatly aided by the germs they (unintentionally) brought to the New World. Again, the author explains why it was the Europeans infecting the American Indians with nasty diseases rather than vice versa; read the book if you want to know the explanation.

For a book that is primarily a scientific work, Guns, Germs, and Steel is surprisingly readable. There is a substantial amount of information and the book contains a number of supplementary maps, tables and photographs, but the writing isn't dry. The reasoning is easy to follow and the explanations make good sense.

I would recommend the book to anyone with the slightest interest in history (and that should be everyone). Again, Guns, Germs, and Steel is not a typical history book; it examines the broad patterns of human history rather than any specific periods, countries or personalities.

Perhaps this is also an opportunity to mention other, somewhat similar books I have read... A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson - exactly what the title says. A far more general book, concerned with the history of the entire Universe and Earth, less so with the history of humankind. The Science of Discworld by Terry Pratchett, Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen. Highly recommended for any Discworld fans, even though the title is misleading - this book is really about our world. The first volume deals with the Universe and Earth, the second volume (The Globe) focuses on the evolution and history of humans from prehistory to possible future. The third volume (Darwin's Watch) I haven't read yet and hence cannot report on. I should also mention A Study of History, a single-volume work by Arnold J. Toynbee and Jane Caplan, a book that is somewhat similar to Diamond's in scope but providing a much closer view of the history of world's civilizations.

And as always, I'm interested in hearing about which similar books I might want to be reading next...