I recently finished Jared Diamond’s book Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. I heard of it over the year and always considered reading it, but finally got the chance recently (mostly after hearing it referenced two different times in the past few weeks, which is kind of odd). The book reminded me of Marvin Harris’ Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches. I am guessing that Diamond and Harris belong to the same school of thought.
The book begins with Diamond being asked a question by a native of New Guinea. The question is how come Europeans ended up with all of the stuff and his people have nothing. Or as Diamond puts it, why did the people of Europe/Asia (Eurasia) end up dominating the world instead of people from Australia, Polynesia, Africa, or the Americas. I think the best question he asks is “why did the Spanish conquer the Incas instead of the Incas sailing to Spain and conquering Europe?” He then lays out four main reasons with multiple examples.
I am not going to dive into the entire book, I suggest just reading it. His conclusion comes down to environmental determinism, meaning that the environment dictates how cultures and societies progress and develop. This makes it seem like all of the great achievements by different peoples was just because of “right place, right time.” Much the same as Harris’ critics get angry about his ideas of cultural materialism, people act like it always has to be one or the other. It seems fairly obvious to me that both ideas are blended together.
Anyways, if you like books about history, anthropology, and the ideas about the rise of civilization, then you should definitely check this book out.
