Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, New Edition by Jared Diamond

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(Hardcover - Revised)

  • Pub. Date: July 2005
  • 512pp
  • Sales Rank: 6,801

    Reader Rating: (25 ratings)

    Detailed Rating: "Research" See All

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    Product Details

    • Pub. Date: July 2005
    • Publisher: Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
    • Format: Hardcover, 512pp
    • Sales Rank: 6,801

    Synopsis

    With a new chapter. The phenomenal bestseller; over 1.5 million copies sold; is now a major PBS special.

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    Biography

    Jared Diamond is professor of geography at UCLA and author of the best-selling Collapse and The Third Chimpanzee. He is a MacArthur Fellow and was awarded the National Medal of Science.

    Customer Reviews

    Interesting to say the leastby Birdington

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    January 19, 2009: My favorite chapter in this book was Collision at Cajamarca, because it
    described a historical incident I have always been interested in. I think
    this book is for anyone of any age with a genuine interest of how things
    came to be. I like how Jared Diamond weaves a tapestry with the different
    pieces of the puzzle that is human geography. All in all I really liked
    this book, although I was sometimes zoned out by the long paragraphs
    concerning bird watching, I thought it had a genuinely interesting concept.

    I Also Recommend: The Cultural Landscape.

    Interesting but Flawedby Col-H

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    December 11, 2008: Jared Diamond's Pulitzer Prize winning work is a masterful collection of theories and data. However, Diamond's background as a bird biologist impairs his appreciation of the extremely important factors of human social and cultural differences. He attempts to account for all of the differences in the development and success of the various societies found around the world by their luck in the "geographic lottery". While there is no doubt that access to water, herd animals, and easily cultivated crops gave some cultures great advantages over others, Diamond completely disregards some societies tendency towards innovation, discovery, exploration, and literacy. In his attempt to make a single unifying theory of human development based on geography and access to food, he has lost sight of the unique nature of humans over animals. The entire course of human history can not be explained away simply by biologic and geologic variables


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