cdeane61's review against another edition
5.0
Finally finished this one! A book well worth reading with great insight into how we have ended up where we are as a species. The title, to me is a bit of a misnomer - there is so much more involved here than just these three elements, but I guess it's a lot catchier than "Agriculture, Herding, and Alignment".
The authors argument holds true for me, switch any two peoples who are on opposite sides of this spectrum and the results for the region, regardless of race or ethnic background, would be the same.
I already have a copy of "The Third Chimpanzee" and am looking forward to it.
The authors argument holds true for me, switch any two peoples who are on opposite sides of this spectrum and the results for the region, regardless of race or ethnic background, would be the same.
I already have a copy of "The Third Chimpanzee" and am looking forward to it.
ichirofakename's review against another edition
3.0
Some interesting ideas about how the presence/absence of domesticatable flora/fauna effects the overall success of cultures. But weighed down by excessive repetition and pontification.
jbmorgan86's review against another edition
3.0
Why did some societies become powerful, technologically-advanced civilizations and why did others (such as the aborigines of Australia) remain relatively the same all the way into the modern era? This is the question Diamond attempts to answer in this book. This is a very dense book. Diamond attempts to condense all of human history into 400 pages.
Random fun things that I learned:
- 15,000 years ago, the American West looked much as Africa's Serengeti Plains do today, with elephants, horses, lions, cheetahs, and giant ground sloths.
- Germs killed more people than weapons in every war up until World War I
- Eurasians domesticated animals. They then caught diseases from these animals and eventually built up an immunity to them. When these Eurasians encountered people in the "New World," they didn't have the same immunities because they didn't domesticate animals.
- Zebras are responsible for more zoo handler injuries annually than tigers! They bite and don't let go! They also cannot be domesticated.
- The original, "wild" almond contained so much cyanide that they could kill humans
While this book is filled with fun, interesting, insightful facts, it is also quite dry and difficult to plow through at points. It took me 3 months of reading off and on to finish it. Diamond seems to bring his personal experience in New Guinea way too frequently for my taste. Its like when you have a friend over for dinner and you make the mistake of asking what they wrote their Master's thesis on. Finally, the title is misleading. It should be called Plants, Animals, and Germs . . . and More Germs. Of course, I can't fault Diamond for this. I'm sure the publisher created this flashy title.
Overall, definitely worth the read if you have the time and patience.
Random fun things that I learned:
- 15,000 years ago, the American West looked much as Africa's Serengeti Plains do today, with elephants, horses, lions, cheetahs, and giant ground sloths.
- Germs killed more people than weapons in every war up until World War I
- Eurasians domesticated animals. They then caught diseases from these animals and eventually built up an immunity to them. When these Eurasians encountered people in the "New World," they didn't have the same immunities because they didn't domesticate animals.
- Zebras are responsible for more zoo handler injuries annually than tigers! They bite and don't let go! They also cannot be domesticated.
- The original, "wild" almond contained so much cyanide that they could kill humans
While this book is filled with fun, interesting, insightful facts, it is also quite dry and difficult to plow through at points. It took me 3 months of reading off and on to finish it. Diamond seems to bring his personal experience in New Guinea way too frequently for my taste. Its like when you have a friend over for dinner and you make the mistake of asking what they wrote their Master's thesis on. Finally, the title is misleading. It should be called Plants, Animals, and Germs . . . and More Germs. Of course, I can't fault Diamond for this. I'm sure the publisher created this flashy title.
Overall, definitely worth the read if you have the time and patience.
young_astrolabe's review against another edition
4.0
Exceedingly interesting arguments in here. Diamond offered very compelling answers to questions I’ve had for a long time, along with some I hadn’t even thought to ask yet. That being said… I had a great teacher in middle school who taught us to question any statement about history that included the words “all” or “none,” and while I very much enjoyed this text, I do think some of Diamond’s conclusions were a bit too neat and tidy. His comparisons of political and socioeconomic systems across the globe are also rather Eurocentric, with “complexity” seemingly often meaning similarity to the modern West.
lakecake's review against another edition
2.0
I was really expecting better out of this, based on all the reviews, and the fact that it won the Pulitzer. I love histories like this, and I was really expecting some intense fun learning in this book. Instead, I got a bunch of really boring descriptions of seeds and cereals. Um, what? This is not what I signed up for! I get it that food production is important in the development of human civilization, really, I do, but I don't need to get the crash course in what kind of cereals have the biggest seeds. Heavens, I was so bored! It picked up a bit in the middle, but other than that...really disappointing.