HN Books @HNBooksMonth

There's a book by that title. I havn't gotten a chance to read it yet, but was told its very good.

https://www.amazon.com/Guns-Germs-Steel-Fates-Societies/dp/0...

⬐ wolf550e

Beware, historians don't like the book: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/historians_views...

⬐ c3534l

The criticism seems to be mostly that it's too broad and lacks nuance rather than being something akin to pseudoscience. When I read the book I never thought the book was meant to be the be-all and end-all of history, so I never really understood that criticism. Yes, history is complicated. I'd just keep that in mind. It kind of reminds me of when people criticize the book Code for not being a technical enough discussion of computer hardware.

⬐ jcranmer

That's not really the criticism. Jared Diamond is very extremely wedded to the environmental determinism theory (this becomes more obvious after you read Collapse; it's somewhat more muted in Guns, Germs, and Steel), and this theory has serious gaping holes that Diamond never really addresses.

One of the problems of GG&S in particular is that the book presupposes that the European colonization of the Americas was inevitable. For anyone who's actually studied that topic--and Diamond pretends that no one has ever done that before, which is a big fat lie--the most immediate and important conclusion is that it was not inevitable. Pre-Columbian history is already a topic where pretty much everything you were taught is completely and totally wrong [1], and Diamond takes these wrong facts as axiomatic, and people constantly suggest Guns, Germs, and Steel to help reinforce the explanation--it's no wonder there's a large amount of exasperation on the topic.

[1] If you want a good book on this, read Charles Mann's book 1491. It's also a great way of showing how a non-specialist in history can competently approach the topic.

⬐ c3534l

I'll check it out. But yes, Jared Diamond definitely believes in maybe not determinism per se, but definitely geographic, erm, importantism.

If this fascinates you as it does for me, Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies [0] is an equally fascinating read, although there are arguments against the hypothesis.

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Guns-Germs-Steel-Fates-Societies/dp/0...

Thank you for your list. The books on there look good.

Here's some books that I read & recommend re: applied systems thinking & ecosystems.

http://www.amazon.com/Permaculture-Principles-Pathways-beyon...

http://www.amazon.com/Edible-Forest-Gardens-2-set/dp/1890132...

http://www.amazon.com/One-Straw-Revolution-Introduction-Natu...

http://www.amazon.com/1491-Revelations-Americas-Before-Colum...

http://www.amazon.com/Guns-Germs-Steel-Fates-Societies/dp/03...

http://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Societies-Choose-Succeed-Revi...

http://www.newsociety.com/Books/D/Decline-and-Fall

http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp/...

http://www.amazon.com/Consciousness-Social-Brain-Michael-Gra...

http://www.amazon.com/Sex-Scratch-Making-Relationship-Rules/...

⬐ selimthegrim

Also wanted to add the invaluable http://www.amazon.com/Sustainable-Energy-Without-Hot-Air/dp/...

Maybe you would enjoy reading: http://www.amazon.com/Guns-Germs-Steel-Fates-Societies/dp/03...

⬐ omonra

I have - it was the required book to read for the entire freshman class of my university (across all majors).

Even if you accept its findings (they are debated) - it merely answers the question of why Europeans were victorious.

It doesn't question whether the society built by white men is good - but merely answers why :)

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0393317552 Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared M. Diamond does a great job of explaining this in detail, and not just in the North Americas, but examples throughout the world.

It boils down to a few basic ideas

1: Native american's had no real concept of quarantine. If someone was sick, the extended family would take care of them. In turn the extend family would become infected, and infect the rest of the village/tribe as they travelled.

2: Europeans lived in cities with much greater population densities. Their immune systems were much more accustomed to dealing with a large variety of infectious agents. Whereas the native americans live is small homogenous villages. With very little exposure to outside influences, other than other tribes/villages.

⬐ None

None

⬐ davidw

I think the most important takeaway was actually that Europe and Asia have huge swaths of land at roughly similar latitudes, so that it was easy for crops and domesticated animals to spread east/west. Those allowed for more intense agriculture, and along with them went diseases.

Here's the wikipedia page, which actually goes into more depth:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns,_Germs,_and_Steel

⬐ benbreen

Agreed, Diamond's most salient points are 1) the latitudinal axis of Eurasia compared to the longitudinal one of the Americas and 2) the role of domesticated animals as disease vectors. The stuff about pre-Columbians not paying attention to quarantine is quite frankly rubbish (both because Europeans had no modern notions of quarantine either, and because it's impossible to make a blanket statement about how two continents-worth of civilizations conceptualized disease), as is the stuff about lack of urbanization (at least in the context of present-day Mexico and Peru, which indeed did have urbanization on a scale to rival Europe).

A personal pet peeve of mine is that Alfred Crosby wrote about this stuff in the 1970s (The Columbian Exchange) and the 1980s (Ecological Imperialism) but Diamond gets all the credit for it because he successfully repackaged it for more popular audiences, without adding much.

I honestly don't think anyone is trivializing anyone's commitment. Rather, I think what Ashe and James are pointing out is that the opportunity to contribute to OSS is not distributed equally between the sexes and races. Who's to say that more minorities wouldn't contribute to OSS if they had the time, access, and resources?

Or, to take it to an extreme, why is Silicon Valley in California and not Botswana? Do you believe that the people of Botswana are inherently less intelligent? less motivated? less capable?

Or is it their environment which is working against them? Jared Diamond has probably one of the most interesting takes on how these sorts of inequities can arise on a regional level (Germs, Guns, and Steel: http://www.amazon.com/Guns-Germs-Steel-Fates-Societies/dp/03...), but is it such a stretch to imagine that the same sorts of inequities don't exist at smaller scales as well?

Guns, Germs and Steel

http://www.amazon.com/Guns-Germs-Steel-Fates-Societies/dp/03...

Life of Pi

http://www.amazon.com/Life-Pi-Yann-Martel/dp/0156027321

Billions and Billions

http://www.amazon.com/Billions-Thoughts-Death-Brink-Millenni...

The Ancestor's Tale

http://www.amazon.com/Ancestors-Tale-Pilgrimage-Dawn-Evoluti...

Sorry for suggesting so many, I couldn't help myself

I love, love love the book Guns, Germs and Steel. It's not perfect but the author throws in so many great ideas as to why certain groups did better than others. None because any group is inherently superior.

http://www.amazon.com/Guns-Germs-Steel-Fates-Societies/dp/03...

⬐ Stingar

That's because you're an emo kid and like books that conform to your narrow view of reality.

⬐ randallsquared

I liked that book, too, but later controversies surrounding Diamond have made me wonder how much I should rely on the narrative presented there.

⬐ richardw

I think don't rely at all, just add it to the set of things you include when thinking about the issues. The book is awesome because it added so many dimensions to consider that I never had before.

See: http://www.amazon.com/Guns-Germs-Steel-Fates-Societies/dp/03...

⬐ sundarurfriend

That looks like a great book, thanks for the recommendation.

⬐ wisty

I've read it. GGandS claims Africa and the USA were slowed down by their geography (vertically oriented continents makes sharing crops and hunting technology difficult) and native flora (Eurasian wheat and rice is good, African crops aren't so great, and corn is poor) and fauna (African animals are too dangerous to domesticate, and the good American animals were wiped out roughly the time that humans arrived).

He may mention that the Arab world was delayed by climate change (deforestation, desertification and other reasons?), but I think he says assumes that Europe only beat Asia to the industrial revolution through dumb luck.

Thus my suggestion that latin scrip was far superior from 1400 to about now (when laser printers and LCD screens are replacing green screens, movable type and dot matrix printers.

⬐ quant18

Woodprint was probably "good enough" to enable widespread book distribution, especially since it enabled (from the author's point of view) a superior financing model: http://www.froginawell.net/china/2009/12/china-where-the-fut...

I think the real problem is that the necessary books weren't being written in the first place (or were suppressed more ruthlessly), not that the cost of printing them was too high. The massive character set meant that becoming literate required a huge investment of time/money. And so, at least in China, all the literati went into civil service jobs, and had little incentive to publish books which would shake up the status quo.

You may be interested in the book Asia's Orthographic Dilemma by William Hannas.