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nulltella's review against another edition
4.0
Listened to the audiobook.
Well written but the narrator was... Boring and droned on to the point I could not wait for it to finish. However, the contents of the book itself was really interesting!
Well written but the narrator was... Boring and droned on to the point I could not wait for it to finish. However, the contents of the book itself was really interesting!
jennievh's review against another edition
Couldn't even start it. Way too dry. Thought it would be fascinating!
juanpablo_85's review against another edition
4.0
This is a very good & educational book. It doesn't focus solely on events that happened only after the invention of writing came to be but also on significant events that happened before that, which is a bit harder to paint a clearer picture of but still very important. It describes how accidents of geography affected things like agriculture, farming, animal domestication & population density, which also affected which germs different groups of people came into contact, helped determine the course of history because of the benefits that coming into contact with these things presented & the advancements that they allowed. The author, Jared Diamond, makes it clear several times throughout the book that is is not due to the false notion that certain things happened due to genetic differences between different groups of people. If you understand the fact of evolution, then you understand why that is such a nonsensical notion because all humans are of the same species. He explains how because of the locations & climates of southern Europe, North Africa, the Fertile Crescent & East Asia, which he collectively refers to as Eurasia, allowed for the people concentrated in those areas to excel in or because of the aforementioned accidents of geography. It's good book & there is much that can be learned from it. It gives a huge piece of the puzzle as to what made it possible for things to play out the way they did in various places throughout history. There is much that can be learned from this book & I recommend it to everyone who is interested in what shaped the world & how.
shopeabam's review against another edition
This book had potential, but so much information is just outdated. I made it 10% of the way through before quitting due to so much misinformation.
itszoe's review against another edition
Included many interesting facts, just a bit hard to get through.
sean_mann's review against another edition
3.0
Not what I was expecting from reviews and critiques I had read. I thought it was interesting at points, incredibly dry and boring at others. Mainly, it had a lot of caveats that others seem to ignore when critiquing it. I don't think Diamond was claiming that history is deterministic and humans are bound completely by their environment.
However, it is important to understand how societies have broadly fared and some possible reasons why. Oddly, at the start he notes that some might argue that book such as his would be better if written by several authors who were experts in the specific fields he had to draw on, but he immediately discards that path as not allowing for a unified thesis. Then he goes on to detail later in the book how all human inventions are social and depend on the contributions of many people past and present. Probably the book would have been more robust had it been compiled by multiple experts, but maybe he couldn't have made all the claims he did.
However, it is important to understand how societies have broadly fared and some possible reasons why. Oddly, at the start he notes that some might argue that book such as his would be better if written by several authors who were experts in the specific fields he had to draw on, but he immediately discards that path as not allowing for a unified thesis. Then he goes on to detail later in the book how all human inventions are social and depend on the contributions of many people past and present. Probably the book would have been more robust had it been compiled by multiple experts, but maybe he couldn't have made all the claims he did.
timpurches's review against another edition
5.0
I first read this many years ago, and have now read it for the second time for a book club. It remains a fascinating, engrossing and educational book. Highly recommended.
culuriel's review against another edition
4.0
Fantastic romp through early human history and the native animals and materials that made our world's civilizations what they were.
saylorrains's review against another edition
5.0
A fascinating book on different societies and how their locations impacted their progression! This book covers things from whether different societies were farmers, the evolution of their writing, technology, government, and religion, germs, expansion, etc. All the things that could've played a part in some groups of people being more or less advanced than others. This book includes charts, graphs, pictures, and maps. I will definitely be picking up other books from this author.
mr_begeer's review against another edition
3.0
An interesting read on the development of society and the great divide, why countries developed differently. A lack of conclusion made me give it only 3 stars, after hundreds of pages of set up which were super interesting to read, I was dissapointed to find that that is where it stopped, there is no translation to where we are today, essentially not answering the question the book set out to answer.