Book Review: Jared Diamond’s ‘Guns, Germs and Steel: The fates of human societies.’
I finally got to the end of Jared Diamond’s Guns,Germs and Steel. To e fair, I struggled with it quite a bit as I went through it but I…
I finally got to the end of Jared Diamond’s Guns,Germs and Steel. To e fair, I struggled with it quite a bit as I went through it but I couldn’t really put my finger on the problem at the time, but with a bit of distance I think I have an idea. I had contradictory sentiments.
On the one hand, it’s an enjoyable book with many fascinating historical facts and narratives. For instance, I enjoyed his discussions about the domestication of plants and animals. It’s the kind of evolutionary biology stuff which I’m crazy about, even where it may sound incredibly banal.
On the other hand, the book has a very wide scope. Inevitably, so many important things are glossed over. In many cases, this left me with more questions than answers. To be fair, this may also a downside of listening to an audio book rather than reading a hard copy. 🤔
As for the key role that guns, germs and steel have played in human history, we already know much about this from African history. But as one reviewer has noted, perhaps he should have added another totem to make the analysis more complete: Coca-Cola! Because really if you’re trying to explain why, as he says, ‘write people have so much cargo and black people (Africans) so little’, you can’t do that without considering capitalism. … and, by the way, that might also suggest the need to reframing the question: Some people (white and black) have way more cargo that others.
I ranted about the book on Twitter and my friend Ken Opalo suggested to read it simply as a theory of technology transfer and leave everything else out. If only I’d got that advice while I was embarking on the journey. … perhaps, that’s the book Diamond should’ve written!