theme

The theme of perception versus reality is portrayed in my book as over consumption.  A specific example would be the tragady of Easter Island.  The members of Easter Island enjoyed making large stone statues called Moai.  The creation of such large statues in great abundancde consumed all of the island's resources before the islanders even realized it.  The once prosperous civilization was destroyed with nothing left but their Moai.  These people precieved that their resources were endless, but in reality their consuption rate was far greater than the recharge rate and their civilization eventually died out.

Recomendation

Unless you are very interested in history, I would not recommend Guns, Germs and Steel.  Despite being very informational, this book is long and slow at times. It is not something that you would just pick up and read, the subject matter is focused on facts and analysis. However, if you are interested in the evolution of human societies or the history of mankind, this would be a great book for you.

Summary

Guns Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond begins with a question that Yale, an indigenous New Guinean politician, asks him years before the book was written.  Yale wanted to know why whites were so successful and arrived with so much cargo compared to the locals. This book is basically a very long answer to Yale's question.  It is a summary of why societies evolved the way they did and the geological and ecological factors that contributed to their success or lack of success.  This book covers everything from the beginning of humans, starting with the first African peoples to move north, and continuing to the first civilizations to venture to islands by sea travel.  The author talks about the first signs of agriculture and domestication of animals and how these affected the societies that discovered them.  The book follows human development for a few thousand more years until the evolution of writing, beginning with simple cuneiform, and transforming into full alphabets. Eventually, the small civilizations that formed around the globe met each other and traded goods, information and culture.  This resulted in specialization and sometimes war.  From the start of man in Africa to the exploration of the Artic thousands of years later, Jared Diamond gives the reader examples of how various societies formed and the role that guns, germs and steel played in their creation and demise.

Jared Diamond's Map of Human Migration

The American Dream

The American Dream
(The American Dream is defined as a life of personal happiness and material comfort as traditionally sought by individuals in the U.S.A.)

The America Dream in Guns, Germs and Steel

My version of the American dream, as previously stated in my blog, is a life of personal happiness and material comfort as traditionally sought by individuals in the U.S.A. Jared Diamond’s book Guns, Germs and Steel: a short history of everybody for the last 4 million years, discusses detailed insights into the development of people all over the world. I found it quite interesting how most of these ancient people had the American dream instilled in them even if they didn’t know it.

The first humans were hunters and gatherers and owned very few possessions because that was just extra weight to carry. Their culture was minimal if almost nothing. The lives of the first humans were focused almost solely on just finding food. The American dream idea did not begin in ancient civilizations until agriculture started. When agriculture began to prosper, people stopped their nomadic way of life and settled down in one place. Time was put into building long term houses that would retain heat and shelter its resident from rain. Pelts were collected for sleeping arrangements and humans started to gather more belongings. This was the first sign of the American dream.

As time went on and farming practices grew more efficient, people gained larger amounts of leisure time. The creation of tools began and trade quickly followed. Art started and material goods gained value. Specialization of crafts now existed as well as the basic idea of jobs. You can see how the American dream existed as easily thousands of years ago as it does today. We are a far more advanced society than we were back then but people still searched for the basic idea of a house, job and a familyousands of yeayyearsas. Now that societies had been created they were bound to meet, and when they did, it would become a whole new race for the next best thing. People were now always looking for the best weapons or modes of transportation. When a society felt that their “American dream” was threatened, or another society had something of interest, they would not hesitate to go to war. Whether it’s now or 30,000 years ago, the American dream remains an ideal that is sought after by millions.