Just finishing Guns Germs and Steel

[elfin]

by Jared Diamond.

It's the first book of the academic season for our Milwaukee Public Museum Book Club -- which we follow the bag lunch discussion with an appropriate short tour relevant to the book.

This one should be interesting as we have so many cultures represented along with the domesticated plants and animals, either mounted or in art work.

Even though I read it before our "assignment" -- now it makes more sense than ever considering the Iraq mess and the conflict of states in the very region that ulitmately caused "the West" to exert hegemony over the present world via food production "packages" and subsequent innovations stemming from the same.

Have you read it? Did you like it? Is it too broad? Is it too elementary?

[semillama]

1. I thought it was a good text about the interconnections between

historical cultures and events and the current state of the world.

If you want something similar but a little more meaty, try Eric Wolf's classic "Europe and the People Without History."

[elfin]

2. Thanks for the book tip -- eom

[HamdenRice]

3. Own it, haven't read it --- but heard some disturbing things about it

I'm not sure which forum, but someone posted an excerpt in which Jared wrote about southern Africa, which is my area of expertise, and if I recall he got even the most basic facts wrong.

Maybe you could remind me what he said about southern Africa if you recently read it.

[skater314159]

5. You're correct...

... and it's not just S. Africa (he does that to the whole of Africa) that he gets some things wrong about... he also gets things about the Middle East and Mediterranean (my area of specialisation) wrong.

It's a good book for intro. classes, but I always have them read *excerpts* of Diamond and *excerpts* of other books that "get it right" so they can see for themselves how archaeological and anthropological data can be misrepresented and misinterpreted.

Peace! :hippie:

[Cleita]

4. Yes, it's a great book. You need to read his other books too

though and it makes more and more sense in the context he frames our conquest of the world if you read his other works.