Guns, Germs and Steel

The Fate of Human Societies

De: Jared Diamond

Narrado por: Doug Ordunio

Pulitzer Prize, General Nonfiction, 1998

Guns, Germs and Steel examines the rise of civilization and the issues its development has raised throughout history.

Having done field work in New Guinea for more than 30 years, Jared Diamond presents the geographical and ecological factors that have shaped the modern world. From the viewpoint of an evolutionary biologist, he highlights the broadest movements both literal and conceptual on every continent since the Ice Age, and examines societal advances such as writing, religion, government, and technology. Diamond also dissects racial theories of global history, and the resulting work—Guns, Germs and Steel—is a major contribution to our understanding the evolution of human societies.

©1997 Jared Diamond (P)2011 Random House

Compelling pre-history and emergent history

This is a fascinating and foundational work that takes a topic (for me) shrouded in obscurity (how and why did civilization emerge in the pattern it did around the globe), and provides a vivid, detailed, and substantially convincing explanation. Thanks to GGS, I see world and cultural history with new eyes. That is pretty much the highest praise I can think of for a book.

I have a personal policy of ignoring (or at least trying to ignore) negative narrator reviews, as I find them always overstated. This reading is on the dry/flat/dull side, but it is still professional. The book is great and one of the most stimulating I have ever listened to. It is dense, but if you don't like fact, analysis, and theory, you wouldn't seek out this sort of book. Extremely highly recommended. It will change the way you see the world.

Great book, not the best reading

If you could sum up Guns, Germs and Steel in three words, what would they be?

This book really gives you a good sense of the forces behind the destiny of different cultures on earth: why some have developed into powerful colonialist nations, and others never even developed agriculture. Jared Diamond is very thorough and convincing, although by three-quarters through you pretty much get the point and it kinda feels like he's bashing you over the heahead with his argument, but it's still kinda fun.

What didn’t you like about Doug Ordunio’s performance?

I felt like at times the reader didn't fully understand what he was reading. Occasionally the cadence of a sentence will sit in a weird spot and you kinda have to repeat it to yourself to fully understand what the author meant. This makes the engaging and otherwise fully accessible text a little hard to digest.

Absolutely Eye Opening!

This book delivers an extremely rare and satisfying feeling, that of having something you've always been aware of but never realized brought out of your blindspot and onto center-stage. Racism is a sensitive topic in today's political climate, yet this book was able to pluck all the uncomfortable questions I had and lay them bare before me with a humbling obviousness. Whatever residual inclinations of racism I had were absolutely annihilated by this book.

Here's an uncomfortable question: why did Australian Aboriginals never progress past hunter-gatherers, but when Europeans landed in Australia they quickly established farms, ranches, towns, and cities? The answer is obvious, really. The Europeans accomplished this by planting European crops and bringing European farm animals. In the hundreds of years since arriving, Europeans never built yam plantations or domesticated the kangaroo - the truth is that Europeans have done no better of a job of surviving in Australia *with Australian resources* as the Aboriginals.

This book isn't just fascinating, it's life-changing.

The right kind of audiobook

Audiobooks are usually consumed while doing other things --- driving, jogging, cooking. For the most part these are mindless tasks so it works, but occasionally the brain is required or ambient sound intrudes, and you miss something. For me this disqualifies as audiobooks most fiction and all dense non-fiction. A good audiobook should be full of interesting but simple ideas, and not have too many names or numbers to keep straight. Some repetitiveness than would grate in print is welcome. In these respects this book is ideal. It takes the theory of geographical determinism and the factors of east-west axis, domesticable animals and plants and provides a non-racist, non-cultural reason for why Europe conquered the world. Anyone with any amount of curiosity about how the balance of world power ended up the way it did would find this idea interesting. Highly recommended.

Never would have read all this

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

Yes. Great ideas and context for why the world has become how it is today.

What about Doug Ordunio’s performance did you like?

This is very dry material. He did as good of a job as any could (i imagine) reading it.

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

Nope!

Any additional comments?

This book is a great 'read' for information. The author is very thourough. He circles around on a topic for 5 minutes before landing. This is because of his research and giving a full explanation. I prefer cliff notes.

That said, I've wanted to read this book for years now and much prefer having listened to it!

A robust academic rebuttal to racism

A clear argument against any notion that one race is inherently superior to another. Exquisitely illustrates how early physical environmental factors had a snowball effect ultimately resulting in the state of nations we see today.

Good overview of historical overarching trends

Guns, Germs, and Steel covers many ideas about historical trends that I had not previously considered; for example, in one chapter, Diamond discusses how the Old World benefited from being "long" (thus generally sharing climate, allowing easier diffusion of crops and ideas) vs the New World, which was "tall" and conversely had more environmental barriers obstructing diffusion between the different Native American societies.

There were some slow and boring points, such as the almost pointless hour-long introductory chapter. There were also a few generalizations he made that I did not agree with - but overall I found it to be very interesting listen, and I would recommend it to anyone that enjoys history.

How the world was created

A tad too heady for my taste but yet informative. The narration was well done and some how kept me interested in this book/audio. But I did crank up the speed to move it along.

Intriguing, encompassing and thorough.

Great narration of an at first glance dry topic, that grows more interesting with every page. It takes a step back from normal history and tried to get a birds eye view of the patterns of population growth, technology and conquest.

Good book. Lots of details. Very through.

Good book. Lots of details. Very through. It is going to stay in my library.