Max Mednik
  • Home
  • About
  • Interests
    • Angel investing
    • Magic
    • Scuba Diving
  • Blog
  • Contact

Readings and musings

Notes on Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond

5/27/2015

0 Comments

 
Picture
I just finished reading Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared M. Diamond, and I must admit it was quite a slog. The book is long, detailed, and not too entertaining.

It was recommended by Charles Munger in his Almanack, and I had heard about it many times before. The book's core question is indeed an interesting one: Why did some countries and societies develop so much more than others, conquering others and creating better life for their people? Is it due to racial differences or something else?

The book is #1 on Amazon in the category of "geography," and I think that was part of the slog of reading it; the extremely detailed info on the history, environment, and topography of all the different parts of the Earth was just less compelling to read as so many of the sub-points and background were not well connected to the main question in the book. The most interesting parts for me were the beginning and the end, which basically answer the question by saying that the differing environments and natural resources of the continents as well as the different societal organizational structures contributed to different levels of diffusion, migration, and technology development that allowed some societies to prosper more than others.

I did enjoy the discussion of how languages built on top of one another and how writing systems played a big role in societal development. It was obvious to me from the start how guns and steel would be useful for societies, but all the stuff about germs, food production, and animal domestication was a lot less obvious to from the start and was interesting to learn (though way too detailed and at times off topic for my taste).

Below are some of my notes and takeaways from the different chapters. If you really love history and geography as well as archaeology or the science of researching the past, this book is a good one for you. If not, I wouldn't recommend it.

Prologue
Differences between lifestyles in societies
Why did wealth and power become distributed as they are now?
Different rates of development
Europeans ended up with guns, the worst germs, and steel tools
Diversity in New Guinea; 6,000 human languages and 1,000 of them in New Guinea

Part 1

1 head start
New Guinea would've seemed to have gotten head start

2 a natural experiment
Polynesian history provides good test of development

3 collision
Guns
Ability to write

Part 2 the rise of food production

4 farmer power
Prerequisite for production of guns, germs, and steel
Horses
Manure

5 haves and have nots
Different resources and starting habits 

6 to farm or not to farm

7 how to make an almond
Crop development
Plants adapt to animals that eat them

8 apples or Indians
Fertile Crescent had better variety of plants and environment

9 domesticable animals
Need many factors like diet and character to work out for an animal to be domesticated for food production and hunting

10 spacious skies and tilted axes
Axis orientations of continents affected food production and resources

Part 3 from food to guns germs and steel

11 lethal gift of livestock
Germs from animals and people

12 blueprints and borrowed letters
Writing transmits knowledge
Borrowing writing systems

13 necessity mother

14 egalitarianism to kleptocracy
Religion supports politicians
Food production makes complex societies possible

Part 4 around the world

Ch 15 Australia and New Guinea 
Less cultural change

16 how china became Chinese

17 Polynesia
Outrigger canoe allowed travel over waves

18 hemispheres colliding
European discovery of America 
Food production tech and tools allowed Europeans to sail
Big domesticated animals in europe 
More germs in europe from crowded living created immunities
Metal tool use much more in europe
Sailing vessels
More use of writing in europe
Organization into states in europe

19 how Africa became black
Huge diversity
Language families show origins of people and their travel around world

Epilogue
Differences in societies due to differing environments
Diffusion and migration

0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    June 2021
    May 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    April 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    May 2019
    March 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    January 2011
    December 2010
    November 2010
    October 2010
    September 2010
    August 2010
    July 2010
    June 2010
    May 2010
    April 2010
    March 2010
    February 2010

    Categories

    All
    Angel Investing
    Cacti
    Cars
    China
    Community Service
    Culture
    Design
    Djing
    Dogs
    Education
    Entertainment
    Entrepreneurship
    Family
    Finance
    Food
    Google
    Happiness
    Incentives
    Investment Banking
    Judaism
    Law
    Lighting
    Magic
    Marketing
    Medicine
    Networking
    Nolabound
    Philosophy
    Professionalism
    Psychology
    Reading
    Real Estate
    Religion
    Romance
    Sales
    Science
    Shangri-La
    Social Entrepreneurship
    Social Media
    Sports
    Teams
    Technology
    Travel
    Turtles
    Ucla
    Venture Capital
    Web Services
    Weddings
    Zen

    Subscribe

    RSS Feed

Picture
Picture
  • Home
  • About
  • Interests
    • Angel investing
    • Magic
    • Scuba Diving
  • Blog
  • Contact