Great overview of global history and prehistory
5 stars
I am not a historian, thus I cannot speak to the validity of specific details he provides, but Jared Diamond builds his thesis on why western societies dominate the globe today, on such solid groundwork, that I cannot imagine the broad strokes of his theory being refuted in the future. The book gives an overview about the evolutionary biology of crops and livestock, prehistory, history, geography and the influences of each field on the others. A large focus is put on the areas of Southeast-Asia/Oceania and South America. As a layman with general knowledge of the topics (I watch too much science YouTube) I found everything comprehensible, though many theses are repeated so many times, that often I got confused and could not tell wether I already read a section or not. In summary, if you are like me and watch a lot of science YouTube, this book will give …
I am not a historian, thus I cannot speak to the validity of specific details he provides, but Jared Diamond builds his thesis on why western societies dominate the globe today, on such solid groundwork, that I cannot imagine the broad strokes of his theory being refuted in the future. The book gives an overview about the evolutionary biology of crops and livestock, prehistory, history, geography and the influences of each field on the others. A large focus is put on the areas of Southeast-Asia/Oceania and South America. As a layman with general knowledge of the topics (I watch too much science YouTube) I found everything comprehensible, though many theses are repeated so many times, that often I got confused and could not tell wether I already read a section or not. In summary, if you are like me and watch a lot of science YouTube, this book will give you a bit of a deeper insight into the developement of human society without focusing too much on a single discipline.
