Well-done history of the human race for the past 13,000 years

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	• Armas, germenes y acero/ Guns, Germs and Steel Jared Diamond Debate Editorial, 2006 - 588 pages average customer review:based on 2 reviews
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Teorías que explican muy poco

Diamond intenta explicar porque unas sociedades son ricas y otras son pobres en base a una serie de elementos geográficos y climáticos y en base a la presencia o ausencia de ciertos elementos de la flora y fauna.
En verdad el libro aporta información sumamente interesante acerca de la domesticación de plantas y animales y sobre el movimiento de los seres humanos. Intenta explicar como el control de unas sociedades por otras es secundaria a la disponibilidad de plantas y animales. Todos son teorías y, a pesar de que Diamond es un científico, no aporta ninguna prueba para lo que expresa, lo cual pude ser cierto o no segun el gusto del lector.

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Well-done history of the human race for the past 13,000 years

Peter D. Tillman (Santa Fe, NM USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)
How did the West grow rich and conquer the world? It wasn't
racial superiority, as the Victorians thought - indeed, Diamond
gives evidence that the average New Guinean may well be smarter
than the average European. His own one-sentence summary of the
book is: "History followed different courses for different peoples
because of differences among peoples' environments, not because of
biological differences among the peoples themselves"[clunk]. Or, it's the
environment, stupid. Or, the West got lucky.

I'm uncomfortable with history-as-polemics, but Diamond (usually)
keeps his facts and interpretations pretty well separated. And this is a
wonderful one-volume history of the human race. It is unusual, and
refreshing, to read a history written by a distinguished and literate
biological scientist. History isn't generally considered to be science -
"it's just one damn fact after another." But then, you could say the
same for large parts of astronomy, biology & geology.

13,000 years ago, the most recent Ice Age was ending, and people
everywhere still made their living as hunter-gatherers. Diamond starts
his story at the dawn of civilization. By Chapter 3, he's recounting
Pizarro's conquest of the Inca empire in 1532. In an afternoon, 168
Spanish soldiers routed an army of 80,000, killed 7,000, and captured
the Inca emperor. It's not surprising that the Spaniards would feel
superior. But the conquistadores' invisible allies had been at work
since 1492 - smallpox from Spain had killed the previous Inca emperor
and his heir, setting off a war of succession that fatally weakened the
empire. Diseases from Europe would ultimately kill up to 95% of the
native peoples of the Americas, often before they saw their first
European. The old American cultures were doomed from first contact,
even if the Old World visitors had been peaceful explorers and traders.
12,000 years of isolation had left native Americans with no resistance to
the lethal European microbes.

Where did these diseases come from, and why didn't the Indians
return the favor by infecting Eurasia? Many came originally from
domestic animals (for example, measles and smallpox from cattle), and
required large, dense populations to evolve. The Indians had few
domestic animals - one reason why they were poorer than Eurasians,
and those (fortuitously) had no diseases that "made the jump" from
animals to humans - good evidence for Diamond's "history as luck"
hypothesis.

Diamond's history is wonderful, full of new science, strange facts, and
great anecdotes. The polemics get repetitious and a bit defensive at
times, but can be safely skimmed. This would have been a better book
had it been written as straight history, letting the facts speak for
themselves - but it's still well worth reading. Recommended.

Diamond, a professor of physiology at UCLA, is a frequent
contributor to Discover, Natural History, and Geo magazines.

Review copyright 1998, 2006 by Peter D. Tillman
Peter D. Tillman is a consulting geologist based in Arizona.

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