Book Review: Guns, Germs, and Steel

Title: Guns, Germs,and Steel
Author: Jared Diamond
Reviewed Format: Trade Paperback
Pages: 471
Rating: 4 Stars

Review: I came into reading this book with very high expectations and finished just a little bit underwhelmed.  I'd seen the impressive PBS miniseries of the same name narrated by Jared Diamond himself, so I was familiar with the premise, and had several enthusiastic recommendations from people whose opinions I trust.  Perhaps the bar I set was a little too high, but either way, while I liked the book it didn't quite satisfy me.  Guns, Germs, and Steel also won a Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction, for whatever that's worth.

The book is an impressive collection of information supporting Jared Diamond's theories on why it came to pass that Eurasian civilization dominated the modern world in terms of power, wealth, and technology.  His theory is pretty strongly deterministic, meaning that on the very large scale environmental/geographical factors allowed people to get a leg up on their neighbors because of where they were as opposed to who they are.  I, personally, think (and have thought for most of my adult life) that this makes a great deal of sense.  In my own travels I've never come to the conclusion that people are physically or mentally different in any significant way.  In terms of proving his point in the very broadest terms, particularly during pre-historical times, Diamond does a great job of making his point.

The book itself is laid out as a series of thought experiments where Diamond posits something and then thinks his way through them given known historical, archaeological, and linguistic factors.  He begins (and often returns) to Polynesia and New Guinea as interesting test cases-- situations where racially/ethnically identical people end up in different environments and alternatively regress, stay the same, or prosper significantly.  The historical details themselves are fascinating and make the book worth reading, no matter what you think of his conclusions.  For all of his though experiments, save one (his theory on the development of government and complex social systems), Diamond was convincing enough to sway my thinking his way. 

Stylistically, Diamond is a decent writer.  I didn't have to re-read sentences or paragraphs too often, and I thought the level of granularity in his historical examples were sufficient to make his point without overburdening the reader.  Diamond also had the integrity to point out the weaknesses in his theories or findings throughout the book and detailing the opposing points of view so that the reader could decide which point of view they preferred.

So that was all pretty positive, right?  Why didn't I give this book five stars?  I guess it's because I really didn't get anything out of it.  I agreed with his point of view concerning the rise of civilizations in antiquity before I read the book, but was curious to see how he would determine why European powers rather than China came to dominate the modern world... And he mostly shied away from it.  I'm not sure it's entirely fair to criticize because I'm not sure the mechanisms Diamond is describing (very broad strokes of the evolution of civilizations) can be realistically applied to specific countries over relatively short periods of time.  In any case, if the topic interests you even a little, I must recommend this book. (4 stars)