Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond
W.W. Norton, 440 pgs, 1997
Wow, what to say. Before reading this I had vaguely held the unexamined notion that popular science was for hacks. I'll be the first to admit that I don't read much in the genre, though, and I think really I have more of a problem with the way popular science books are marketed, as Guns, Germs, and Steel is much more thoughtful and thorough than the buzz around it would suggest.
I still don't really want to read Outliers, though.
Anyway, the book sets out to answer the question of why certain societies developed advanced technology and came to dominate the world, while other contemporary groups were still living as hunter-gatherers with stone tools. Diamond suggests that the ultimate causes lie in the geographical conditions that each of these groups was given to work with--the relative isolation, native flora and fauna, suitability for food production, and ease of travel of each of their environments. It doesn't actually have a lot to do with guns, germs, or steel, but I suppose that was catchier than just calling it Food and Geographical Conditions. One of the more interesting insights, for me, was the idea that food production spread more quickly in continents that are wider than they are tall, because places at the same latitude were more likely to share similar climates and thus be able to adopt each other's crops. In this way, Eurasia gained an early advantage over Africa and the Americas, where varying climates meant that people in different parts of the continent had to discover crop domestication for themselves. Continents that were easier to traverse tended to foster a greater exchange of ideas and technology, as expected, but Diamond also argues that China's rivers and plains (as opposed to Europe's many peninsulas) made political unification so easy that it actually retarded technological growth, since it only took one anti-technology ruler to stop progress for decades. (Columbus went to several monarchs before gaining Spain's support for his voyage; in China he wouldn't have made it past the first appeal.)
I could go on and on--the book is full of elegant solutions to complex problems, but they're never made snappy or dumbed down. It also had the side effect of giving me a brief education in the pre-European histories and peoples of Africa, the Americas, Australia, Papua New Guinea, and Polynesia, although there are probably better ways to learn about that.
Next up: The Boy Next Door by Irene Sabatini
W.W. Norton, 440 pgs, 1997
Wow, what to say. Before reading this I had vaguely held the unexamined notion that popular science was for hacks. I'll be the first to admit that I don't read much in the genre, though, and I think really I have more of a problem with the way popular science books are marketed, as Guns, Germs, and Steel is much more thoughtful and thorough than the buzz around it would suggest.
I still don't really want to read Outliers, though.
Anyway, the book sets out to answer the question of why certain societies developed advanced technology and came to dominate the world, while other contemporary groups were still living as hunter-gatherers with stone tools. Diamond suggests that the ultimate causes lie in the geographical conditions that each of these groups was given to work with--the relative isolation, native flora and fauna, suitability for food production, and ease of travel of each of their environments. It doesn't actually have a lot to do with guns, germs, or steel, but I suppose that was catchier than just calling it Food and Geographical Conditions. One of the more interesting insights, for me, was the idea that food production spread more quickly in continents that are wider than they are tall, because places at the same latitude were more likely to share similar climates and thus be able to adopt each other's crops. In this way, Eurasia gained an early advantage over Africa and the Americas, where varying climates meant that people in different parts of the continent had to discover crop domestication for themselves. Continents that were easier to traverse tended to foster a greater exchange of ideas and technology, as expected, but Diamond also argues that China's rivers and plains (as opposed to Europe's many peninsulas) made political unification so easy that it actually retarded technological growth, since it only took one anti-technology ruler to stop progress for decades. (Columbus went to several monarchs before gaining Spain's support for his voyage; in China he wouldn't have made it past the first appeal.)
I could go on and on--the book is full of elegant solutions to complex problems, but they're never made snappy or dumbed down. It also had the side effect of giving me a brief education in the pre-European histories and peoples of Africa, the Americas, Australia, Papua New Guinea, and Polynesia, although there are probably better ways to learn about that.
Next up: The Boy Next Door by Irene Sabatini
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