GUNS, GERMS, AND STEEL….Megan McArdle reviews Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel today. She likes it but has a couple of complaints.
I liked it too, and I don’t even have the complaints she does. It was, simply, a terrific book, with a truly eye-opening and compelling explanation for why Eurasian civilizations were the ones that took over the world, not Australian or African or North American ones. The short answer: they started first and managed to conquer the world before anyone else was able to catch up.
One word of warning: the subject of the book is strictly early development, so it does not try to explain why one particular Eurasian civilization (Western Christendom) has so far been the winner over the other three Eurasian civilizations (China, the Middle East, and India). Diamond actually does address this very briefly with a few guesses, but that’s all they are, and he makes no pretense otherwise. So don’t dive into it expecting a comprehensive history of the world.
This is a highly recommended book, one of my all-time favorites. You can read my longer review of it here.
