Overall, Guns, Germs, and Steel is a worthy book. Even the chapter where he discusses the racial distribution of Africa and compares various languages is great, if you can gloss over some of the technical aspects of the discussion.ĭiamond raises some points that I had never before considered, such as the major axes of the continents-it makes sense, in retrospect, that it's easy to transport crops across longitude, because the climate does not change as much as transporting crops across latitude. The part on the origins of various diseases was also fascinating. I particularly liked the section on the development of writing (Chapter 12) and the detail he went into there. Other portions of the book are interesting and eye-opening, however. He also fixates much on the Austronesian islands, such as New Guinea, and I wonder if part of that comes from a bias having spent much time researching there. However, he reiterates this point to the extent that he is beating a dead horse (or, if in South America, a dead llama). I found much of the book repetitive and dull enough that I just wanted to skip ahead until I found a 'more interesting' section.įor instance, I realize that the uneven distribution of domesticable animals and plants is a major part of Diamond's thesis. That doesn't mean it needs to be dumbed down either-the tone and coherence of the writing just needs work. The book reads more like lengthy scientific essay than a non-fiction book aimed at the general public. However, in his zeal for such statistics, he often forgets about the coherency of the writing, and it suffers.

Jared Diamond has a compelling thesis and offers good arguments to support it, including numerous figures, charts, maps, and dates. While the book turned out to be as thought-provoking as I had hoped, the writing left something to be desired. Two people recommended this book to me on two separate occasions, so I was eager to read it.

Guns germs