Jared Diamond?

[Nanatsu Yoru]

What is the general opinion of him around here? His theses seem reasonable and well-defended, but some criticisms would also be nice (Wikipedia is strangely lacking...). Although even as I type this I realise opinions will most likely be mixed...

[ed miliband]

Thread you might find useful here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/guns-germs-and-t147534/index.html

[Tavarisch_Mike]

Hes good, he gives a materialistic explination on how different cultures have commed to different advanced forms of societies i recomend "Guns, Germs, and Steel"

Only bad thing is that he suports patent and privat property in the continuing development.

[Dimentio]

In before Khad comes.

[homo sapien]

Check out the book "Eight Eurocentric Historians" by James Blaut for a good rebuttal to Diamond and other writers who think that Europe is the natural center of the universe. I just finished reading this book and found it to be quite thought provoking.

[#FF0000]

I don't really understand why people hate the shit out of Jared Diamond. Guns Germs And Steel is pretty good, I think. If Europe is "the center of the universe" according to him, then I would imagine it's because Europe was an incredibly forgiving environment compared to Africa, the Middle East, Asia...etc.

[KC]

Most, if not all, of what he writes is just watered down reprocessed Marxism without actually admitting to it or taking his points to their logical conclusions. If you're interested in learning about historical materialism I would not recommend Guns, Germs & Steel, for example.

[bcbm]

Check out the book "Eight Eurocentric Historians" by James Blaut for a good rebuttal to Diamond and other writers who think that Europe is the natural center of the universe. I just finished reading this book and found it to be quite thought provoking.

basically the whole point of guns, germs and steel was that europe wasn't the center of the universe but just lucked out in terms of resource distribution... could you expand more on the argument here?

[Robocommie]

basically the whole point of guns, germs and steel was that europe wasn't the center of the universe but just lucked out in terms of resource distribution... could you expand more on the argument here?

Well, on the one hand, his book is less racist and condescending than a lot of western narratives because of the way he lays out the unfair advantages that Europe had. On the other hand, he still makes a number of assumptions that are essentially Eurocentric simply because of the question he poses. I think the best example would be the Triple Alliance, or the Aztecs/Mexica. People tend to think of the Mexica as having been conquered by the Spaniards, and Diamond argues that it was because they had steel armor and guns. But a lot of more recent scholarship has pointed out little tidbits like the fact that the Spanish soldiers in Mexico and South America tended to ditch their metal cuirasses because they were too damn hot, and started using the cotton armor used by the Mexica.

Instead, it's believed one of the major reasons that the Mexica were defeated is not because the Spanish were superior in any respect - but because the Spanish had capitalized on the aggravation of the various other Nahua city-states, like the Tlaxcalans, who were sick of Mexica dominance. They boosted their own small force with massive numbers of native warriors.

I'd actually recommend Charles C. Mann's 1491. It's got a lot of this stuff in it, about how the Americas at large were a lot more complex, advanced and more heavily populated than a lot of scholars appreciate, including Diamond.