Thesis: accidents of geography and biogeography shaped societies. Easily domesticable plants and animals, directional axes, and randomness determined outcomes.

Likes:

- Whether or not you agree with Diamond, there’s plenty to gain from reading—so many fields are covered that you’re bound to learn from the histories of civilizations, plants, animals, inventions, etc.

- The chapter on language and writing. The possible impact on Chinese language and literacy due to their many homophones was interesting.

- The diffusion of technology, with Europe and China as an example. "China’s connectedness eventually became a disadvantage, because a decision by one despot could, and repeatedly did, halt innovation. Europe’s barriers were sufficient to prevent political unification, but insufficient to halt the spread of technology and ideas.” The many attempts of Christopher Columbus was another example.

- Some of his long tangents: purposefully inefficient keyboard design and Japanese pride of their kanji showed why different societies aren’t equally receptive to all change/progress.

Dislikes:

- In the introduction Diamond assures us that he’s the only one who could have written this book, and that additional authors would make the book “doomed from the outset”. Why Nations Fail, the book I read for comparison, benefits greatly from the combined perspectives of an economist and a political scientist. This book could benefit in many ways from additional input.

- Everything can and will be compared to New Guinea, where Diamond worked for many years. Wealth distribution, understanding risk, languages—it’s all done better in New Guinea. Never does Diamond mention their gender-based violence, child marriage, cannibalism, poverty, corruption, etc. Many of his views seemed transparently biased despite his capacity for research. That creates skeptical readers.

- Sometimes tedious for a casual reader like me—recessive genes in cultivated peas, the difference between a band and a tribe, ancestral dialects, etc.