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08-05-2005 07:22 PM |
Book Club
Quote:
Originally posted by Spanky
I was blown away by Guns Germs and Steel. I found it very convincing and the stories were great. The most fascinating, I found, was the story of the New Zealanders that went to that island and reverted to Hunter Gatherers because that was all the Geography would allow. And then their long lost relatives came a hundred years later and slaughtered them. Did you see the PBS special on it? It was pretty good. He added some new ideas that I am pretty sure were not in the book. He argued that one of the major reasons that Subsaharn Africa is so backward is because of malaria. Before European civilization the African natives lived on high ground, a way from the mosquitos, and did not live in high density areas. So Malaria wasn't much of a problem. But now that they have adopted western ways, they live near rivers and lakes and in high density cities and hence they have huge mortality rates with Malaria. Jareed thinks this prevent the Africans form developing. I don't think that was in the book.
Have you read his new book on the reason why civilizations decline?
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I have one or two hours of the PBS show on Tivo, but I haven't watched them yet. I missed the first week, so I was waiting to see if I could get that one on Tivo too and watch in order (maybe it doesn't matter what order you watch them in?). I also thought GG&S was excellent. Maybe a bit repetitive, but the civilization studies were top-notch. I have read about half of Collapse and I plan to go to the LA Natural History Museum exhibit on it when I finish it. It is very good. I think better than GG&S because it is basically all in-depth case studies. It includes the Easter Islanders, the Greenland Norse and some of the native American civilizations (along with others). Also he talks some about environmental factors in modern-day LA and Montana. Very interesting.
ETPMIIM |
