Diamond also argues that geography shaped human migration, not simply by making travel difficult (particularly by latitude), but by how climates affect where domesticable animals can easily travel and where crops can ideally grow easily due to the sun. À la place, notre système tient compte de facteurs tels que l'ancienneté d'un commentaire et si le commentateur a acheté l'article sur Amazon. No finer work of its kind has been published this year, or for many past. Many were killed by infectious diseases such as smallpox and measles. It has been argued that hunting and gathering represents an adaptive strategy, which may still be exploited, if necessary, when environmental change causes extreme food stress for agriculturalists. Il analyse également les commentaires pour vérifier leur fiabilité. The plentiful supply of food and the dense populations that it supported made division of labor possible. The combination of specialization and population growth leads to the accumulation of social and technological innovations which build on each other. (1998). Diamond argues that the gaps in power and technology between human societies originate primarily in environmental differences, which are amplified by various positive feedback loops. Medium. Kerim Friedman wrote, "While it is interesting and important to ask why technologies developed in some countries as opposed to others, I think it overlooks a fundamental issue: the inequality within countries as well as between them". How this book managed to pass me by for the last 20 years is beyond me, but it did, and I was much the poorer for it! Ouvrage essentiel à faire lire à tous. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Guns, Germs, and Steel is a brilliant work answering the question of why the peoples of certain continents succeeded in invading other continents and conquering or displacing their peoples. Also important to the transition from hunter-gatherer to city-dwelling agrarian societies was the presence of "large" domesticable animals, raised for meat, work, and long-distance communication. 1 question I still have. The tiny writing and boring recounting of human history from A to J then back to D is like a Tarantino film. However, at a later stage of development, western Europe's fragmented governmental structure actually became an advantage. Merci d’essayer à nouveau. © 1996-2021, Amazon.com, Inc. ou ses filiales. He added, "Jared Diamond has done a huge disservice to the telling of human history. "[15], In 2010, Tim Radford of The Guardian called the book "exhilarating" and lauded the passages about plants and animals as "beautifully constructed". Veuillez réessayer. Diamond also proposes geographical explanations for why western European societies, rather than other Eurasian powers such as China, have been the dominant colonizers. Very disappointed. Eurasian grains were richer in protein, easier to sow, and easier to store than American maize or tropical bananas. Formatted according to the APA Publication Manual 7 th edition. But Neumann and Wigen also stated, "Until somebody can come up with a better way of interpreting and adding to Diamond’s material with a view to understanding the same overarching problematique, his is the best treatment available of the ecological preconditions for why one part of the world, and not another, came to dominate. In this "artful, informative, and delightful" (William H. McNeill, New York Review of Books) book, Jared Diamond convincingly argues that geographical and environmental factors shaped the modern world. : Today's Economic History", "Prizes for Science Books previous winners and shortlists", "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies", Principles of Sociology/Guns, Germs, and Steel, The Social Transformation of American Medicine, Guns, Germs, and Steel: A Short History of Everybody for the Last 13,000 Years. Tomlinson still described these flaws as "minor", however, and wrote that Guns, Germs, and Steel "remains a very impressive achievement of imagination and exposition". Europe was the ultimate beneficiary of Eurasia's east–west orientation: in the first millennium BCE, the Mediterranean areas of Europe adopted Southwestern Asia's animals, plants, and agricultural techniques; in the first millennium CE, the rest of Europe followed suit.[2][3]. Taking the account of prehistory "on trust" because it was not his area of expertise, Tomlinson stated that the existence of stronger weapons, diseases, and means of transport is convincing as an "immediate cause" of Old World societies and technologies being dominant, but questioned Diamond's view that the way this has transpired has been through certain environments causing greater inventiveness which then caused more sophisticated technology. With apologies to the author, whose book I really want to read. The Evolution of Human Sexuality, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, banning the building of ocean-going ships, The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal, consciously create the evidence on which we try to understand them, Population history of indigenous peoples of the Americas, "English syphilis epidemic pre-dated European outbreaks by 150 years", "Geography Redux: Where You Live Is What You Are", "My "top ten" books every student of International Relations should read", "The top ten books to read about international economic history", "Review:Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies", "Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies | Reviews in History", "Guns, Germs and Steel – and a ploughman's lunch | Science Book Club", "Agriculture the Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race? In 1998, Guns, Germs, and Steel won the Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction and the Aventis Prize for Best Science Book. Commenté au Royaume-Uni le 10 novembre 2018. Il explique les trajectoires très diverses de l'histoire de l'humanité sur chaque continent par la géographie des plaques continentales et par le hasard de la répartition initiale des espèces de faune et de flore. Steel's complex manufacture requires large quantities of iron ore and plentiful, carbon-rich forests, plus access to fast-flowing water for power and transport. [32], Cover of the first edition, featuring the painting, The origin of syphilis is still debated. Guns germs and steel Résumé A study of how Europe and the Near East became the cradles of modern society, eventually giving rise to capitalism and science, the dominant forces in today's world - and why, until more recent times, Africa, Australasia and the Americas lagged behind in both technological sophistication and political and military power. He believes this is due to these societies' technological and immunological advantages, stemming from the early rise of agriculture after the last Ice Age. Alors là le Gérard il se gratte la tête, déjà parce que y'a plein de mouches (enfin j'imagine) et puis parce qu'il se met à réfléchir : "bah tiens c'est pas co* ça comme question, ça ferait un bon bouquin en plus, p'têtre même un documentaire, un Pulitzer d'enfer.". Although geography had been nearly eliminated as an academic discipline in the United States after the 1960s, several geography-based historical theories were published in the 1990s.[8]. Veuillez renouveler votre requête plus tard. Although agriculture arose in several parts of the world, Eurasia gained an early advantage due to the greater availability of suitable plant and animal species for domestication. [21] Blaut criticizes Diamond's loose use of the terms "Eurasia" and "innovative", which he believes misleads the reader into presuming that Western Europe is responsible for technological inventions that arose in the Middle East and Asia. Diamond’s “Guns, Germs, and Steel” remains a crucial building block to modern geographers, although most dismiss the theory of environmental determinism as an idea in the past. Bigger Leaner Stronger: The Simple Science of Building the Ultimate Male Body. When cultural or genetic differences have favored Eurasians (for example, written language or the development among Eurasians of resistance to endemic diseases), he asserts that these advantages occurred because of the influence of geography on societies and cultures (for example, by facilitating commerce and trade between different cultures) and were not inherent in the Eurasian genomes. In his book, he mentions his answer to how different human societies became so diverse. Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive, Why Nations Fail : The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty, The Selfish Gene: 40th Anniversary edition, De l'inégalité parmi les sociétés: Essai sur l'homme et l'environnement dans l'histoire, Effondrement: Comment les sociétés décident de leur disparition ou de leur survie. Tonio Andrade described McNeill's review as "perhaps the fairest and most succinct summary of professional world historians’ perspectives on Guns, Germs, and Steel. He argues it is due to the acquisition of guns and steel and the changes brought about by germs. In Guns, Germs, and Steel Jared Diamond presents the biologist's answer: geography, demography, and ecological happenstance. Natives succumb passively to their fate." He has tremendously distorted the role of domestication and agriculture in that history. Guns, Germs, and Steel Book Review The book Guns, Germs, and Steel features the work of the author Jared Diamond. [note 1] The European diseases – the germs of the book's title – decimated indigenous populations so that relatively small numbers of Europeans could maintain their dominance.[2][3]. [27] In 1998, it won the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction, in recognition of its powerful synthesis of many disciplines, and the Royal Society's Rhône-Poulenc Prize for Science Books. A documentary based on the book, and produced by the National Geographic Society, was broadcast on PBS in July 2005. Endemic infectious diseases were also barriers to European colonisation of Southeast Asia and New Guinea. [30] It was a selection of Book of the Month Club, History Book Club, Quality Paperback Book Club, and Newbridge Book Club. This was important because similar climate and cycle of seasons let them keep the same "food production system" – they could keep growing the same crops and raising the same animals all the way from Scotland to Siberia. Diamond continues to describe the story of human development up to the modern era, through the rapid development of technology, and its dire consequences on hunter-gathering cultures around the world. Gérard Diamant, shine bright like a Diamond aka Diamonds are forever, Diamond commence son livre par une anecdote, un jour qu'il se promenait dans je ne sais quelle forêt tropicale avec son pote Yali de je ne sais quelle tribu (je sais aucun respect mais j'ai lu le livre y'a un assez bout de temps), Yali lui pose une question : "pourquoi c'est les blancs qu'ont colonisé les autres peuples et non pas l'inverse ?" To store than American maize or tropical bananas a product of ingenuity, but of opportunity necessity! Impact of geography, climate, and it is the availability of wild edible plant species suitable domestication... And knowledge, and it is due to the next chapter in some cases even by... 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