Guns, Germs, and Steel

The documentary presents an original theory about "Guns, Germs and Steel". The series graphically portray several episodes strongly supporting the theory, and defend the theory against common criticism.

I was deeply puzzled to find user comments complaining about lack of new information in these series. They say documentary presents information which is taught in middle school. Indeed, it does. In fact, I greatly enjoyed the original look at the information which I have known since middle school and the unexpected analysis.

So, if you like knowing WHY things work, if you have taken apart the telephone trying to determine how it worked, if you have gone to the farm to see how farm works and how cows are milked, you will enjoy this series. A definite recommendation.

This series adds new information and background to the book and includes personal appearances by the author and by archaeologists and other anthropologists. It brings the book to life and makes even more sense of the author's subsequent opus, *Collapse*.

Diamond himself comes off as personable and caring, not just a disinterested or disengaged academic. This series makes it clear that his book was not just a response to a need to "publish or perish," as the saying goes about academe, but a deeply considered answer to a question from someone he respects, "Why you white people got so much cargo, and we have so little?" Because he respected the intelligence of the questioner and his community, Diamond looked for an answer that didn't insult that intelligence or that community. I like to think of his answer in a very simple way, in the same spirit as "South Park's" "Blame Canada": "Blame wheat!"

I get that Prof. Diamond is trying to answer the big questions of "why?" some civilizations invented "cargo" (material goods) and others didn't. I have not read the book, and just watched the first episode of this miniseries.

A lot of the details of the argument ring true to me. The worldwide distribution of beasts of burden, types of farm crops and weather patterns all certainly have an effect of the rise of civilizations. But this can't be the whole story, or even the major part.

When showing Diamond interacting wit the New Guinea folks, the emphasis was on the New Guinea struggles to get food. Hunting is inefficient, and farming is difficult labor due to the crops and lack of domesticated animals. Okay - but what was really striking is what was the lack of a written language. At the end of the episode, Diamond says something to the effect that if only geography had been different, then the New Guineans would have invented the helicopter, and not Westerners.

The problem with this argument, is that in order to invent a helicopter, you must first understand fuel, energy, materials, densities, air molecules, physics, weather, and hydraulics, just to name a few things. I agree with Diamond that the New Guineans are plenty smart to understand all those things, but in order to generate knowledge, a society must have a physical way to disseminate knowledge (scrolls, printing presses, paper, etc) and culture of acceptance of new ideas (criticism of new ideas is fine, indeed necessary to refine knowledge). Diamond didn't discuss the role of culture at all, and this is a huge omission.

Ultimately any theory of the rise of civilizations can be supported by cherry-picking data. This is a historians job, not a scientific endeavor. Diamond has his theory, and any number of people have their own theories. I personally don't find Diamond's theory to be very compelling.

"Jared Diamond made a point in the first episode that other peoples of the world didn't have animals to domesticate but Europeans did, and that accounts for why we were able to make steel and invent complex machines". --- It is obvious that the person who wrote this comment hasn't understood the reasoning behind this documentary or the original book. Please don't ruin this great piece by your simple mindedness. The reasons are far more complex than the single thing you mentioned. Please read the book as is it a great source of information. I enjoyed it a lot. This book is even a taught as a text book at some universities.

Jared Diamond is a professor in UCLA specializing in biology. He endeavors to explain why world history unfolded as it did. Why did certain groups dominate while others ended up so far behind? He starts with a journey to Papa New Guinea. His theory is generally that everybody is the same but certain locations allow for better opportunities. Eurasia had the better crops and animals for domestication. Domestication also allow for germs to develop. Also the east west travel within common climate allowed an easier trade route which advanced technologies even further. And geography explains why China and other monolithic middle east empires stagnated whereas Europe's geography favors a bulkanized map and tougher competitions from close neighbors.

In general terms, I have no big problems with his theory. It doesn't add a whole lot to understanding the world. He's not discover something new as much as reorganizing what everybody already knows. There are ideas and concepts that are ignored too easily. There is a lot of generalization but that's the theory. It's trying to generalize the whole of human history with a few simple ideas. The theory is noteworthy for what's not in it as much as what's in it. It's just that I wish there is some definitive mathematical evidence to verify his theory. Also world history has a tendency to be more muddy than what's presented here.