Finished reading this book recently. It has been sitting on my bookshelf since 2002 I think. Too bad it took me so long to get around to reading it. It was great. Very informative and interesting. It is a brief history of humankind over the last 13,000+ years. Obviously, in covering so much ground in 400 or so pages, the book is low on specifics. What it does is give a broad overview of why the several histories of different civilizations played out so differently. For example, why did Europe conquer America and not the other way around? He goes beyond the proximate causes of guns germs and steel and attempts to root out the ultimate causes that led to history playing out as it did. It is a great book and well worth the read.
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New book review is up.
I've started reading this too...very interesting. My one question so far is who domesticated humans?
Pollan's book "Botany of Desire" which I am reading now has an interesting perspective on what domesticated humans. Also If I recall G.G. and S. explains how humans became domesticated, very briefly.
I loved Guns, Germs, and Steel. At first it seemed to be a bit too simplistic but then I thought about it more and I think that it covers the reasons for inequality quite well. However, there is one question. Why did those in the Americas hunt all of the big draft animals to extinction and those in the "Old World" did not?
At least in Africa he explained that with co-evolution. The big animals learned to be afraid of humans and defend themselves against them living with them so long.
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