Guns Germs and Steel My Ass
Once again I'm attempting to read Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. Once again, I find myself wanting to throw the book across a room like a crying baby. Ugh. I can't even get through the introduction without shaking my fist in anger! Mr. Diamond proposes to answer the question of why european powers were able to conquer basically the entire world and why the vanquished cultures of Africa, Indonesia, North and South America and Australia still feel the socio-economic effects of that conquest. He attempts to do this by using a New Guinea as a sort of test or model site. That's my first problem. History isn't a science. History doesn't work on tests or models. It just doesn't work. It can't. Every historical event is both specific and ephemeral. What once was is gone forever and you can never recreate it in some sort of 'test'. Comparing an event to a model is to necessarily hinder your understanding of it, since you are bound by the model. So testing is out. So is modeling. They don't work for history. And the study of the conquest of the world is, of course, a historical one. It happened in the past over a rather long period of time.
That's the other thing...Mr. Diamond seems to assume that the conquest of the New World, Africa, and Australia all happened at roughly the same time with the same effect. Its simply not the case. You can bet your ass that the British convicts that first colonated Australia left a considerably different mark on Aboriginal society than the Spanish conquistadors did on South America. So what's the point of comparing the two? They happened at considerably different times under considerably different circumstances. Comparative history has its place, but don't use apples to understand oranges.
There's one other thing that irks me about this book, and that's Mr. Diamond's assumption that all european conquests ended in cultural loss. To some extent, I suppose that's true. Loss is sort of part of any war of conquest in terms of people, infrastructure, indentity and culture. But the loss of culture isn't isolated to just the conquered. The conquerors are just affected by cultural exchange as the conquered. South America is again the perfect example. Just how Spanish is Mexico? How Portuguese is Brazil? Sure, they speak the language of their conquering people, but who associates g-string bikinis and white sand beaches with Portugal?!?!
I guess that leads me to my one concession for Guns, Germs and Steel : that geography really does play a part in how history moves, that there are other forces besides those of humans that influence how history unfolds. I like that. I like that he realizes that and has caused others to realize that. But these idealogical gaps between he and I make it hard for me to read his book. I have a feeling I'd feel the same way about his book Collapse. So I'm going to put Guns, Germs, and Steel away for now and maybe someday I'll be able to get past chapter one without wanting to punch somebody in the throat.
And if you want to read a cool book on ecological history, read Ecological Imperialism by Crosby. Much better.
That's the other thing...Mr. Diamond seems to assume that the conquest of the New World, Africa, and Australia all happened at roughly the same time with the same effect. Its simply not the case. You can bet your ass that the British convicts that first colonated Australia left a considerably different mark on Aboriginal society than the Spanish conquistadors did on South America. So what's the point of comparing the two? They happened at considerably different times under considerably different circumstances. Comparative history has its place, but don't use apples to understand oranges.
There's one other thing that irks me about this book, and that's Mr. Diamond's assumption that all european conquests ended in cultural loss. To some extent, I suppose that's true. Loss is sort of part of any war of conquest in terms of people, infrastructure, indentity and culture. But the loss of culture isn't isolated to just the conquered. The conquerors are just affected by cultural exchange as the conquered. South America is again the perfect example. Just how Spanish is Mexico? How Portuguese is Brazil? Sure, they speak the language of their conquering people, but who associates g-string bikinis and white sand beaches with Portugal?!?!
I guess that leads me to my one concession for Guns, Germs and Steel : that geography really does play a part in how history moves, that there are other forces besides those of humans that influence how history unfolds. I like that. I like that he realizes that and has caused others to realize that. But these idealogical gaps between he and I make it hard for me to read his book. I have a feeling I'd feel the same way about his book Collapse. So I'm going to put Guns, Germs, and Steel away for now and maybe someday I'll be able to get past chapter one without wanting to punch somebody in the throat.
And if you want to read a cool book on ecological history, read Ecological Imperialism by Crosby. Much better.
posted by Lauren | 5:46 PM
6 Comments:
I've never been tempted to read a good book about ecology, but, you know, whatever.
I share the same disdain for Guns, Germs and Steel as you do, although yours may be, surprisingly, even stronger. I agree with all of your basic points, but feel that I must add one:
The book is written by your standard white guy. But he spends a considerable amount of time talking about how white people suck. He talks, in the intro, about how aboriginal people are probably smarter than Europeans because they have to deal with problems the solutions to which Europeans take for granted. In the book this comes off as insincere and, worse, it comes off like pandering. It's as if he's saying "I know, guys, I'm white. But white people suck - I know that!"
Ultimately, the approach is racist. It's not ok (nor is it correct) to say that white people are smarter than other races. Therefore, it's certainly not ok to say the reverse.
This was, of course, all pointed out by Peter. But I just thought I'd reiterate my support and agreement.
Ms. Smarty Pants,
First of all, I haven't read Guns, Germs, and Steel myself. However, what I know of the book and your retorts (as it seems you haven't really read any of the book either) led me to post a comment in the most peacefully argumentative way possible.
No, History is not a science. However, to deny the similarities between the histories of separate societies and cultures is naive. Humans have always used the examples from others to provide insight for future moves, regardless of place or time.By comparing an event to a model is not to necessarily hinder your understanding of it, because all systems work off of models of previous systems, and thus, making a point/comparison is creating a test failure.
Yes, the British who came to Austrialia left a different impression than the Spanish in South America; but there are reasonable similaries that can and shoud be drawn from the two, such as the native populations drastically suffering. Such as, the common language changed radically. Such as, the monetary unit in each area switched to the more powerful nation. Etc. Etc.
Perhaps we should both actually read the book all the way through before we say its a piece of crap, but from what I know, Mr. Diamond has not suffered the public indignation that you so desire from a book so heavily littered with garbage, so maybe its not so bad after all.
Yes, I agree...we should all actually read it before we bag on it so much.
And like I said, comparative history has its place. But the interesting thing about it is it hardly ever actually tells you anything meaningful. Because once you start asking why things happened similarly, you get into all sorts of specific instances that are unique to each situation. The outcome is the same, but the causes are different and aren't the causes what Mr. Diamond is trying to understand?
I didn't bring up the race issue before because its problematic for me. I think you're right, Andy. Mr. Diamond's ideas are written from a very specific racial bias, one that he's very obviously and very clumsily trying to sidestep. But the question he's asking is one that deals with race. And he's trying to deal with it like a scientist would, looking for actual differences between peoples, which strikes me as inherantly racist. Doesn't it? (Not a rhetorical question, I'm looking for some feedback here)
Also, popularity isn't necessarily a sign of quality. Otherwise, Gone with the Wind wouldn't still be considered a classic.
Dude, this is interesting. For my thoughts on race, please see Mr. Morenononsense's blog.
Lauren if you can't keep your blog below a 9th grade reading level I'm going to have to give my self a good slap in the face in preparation of giving this intellectual jumble of text my full attention.
Ryan
Thomas was having technical difficulties, so here's his comment:
Lauren,
I didn't take the time to read your entire post or the responses, but
speaking as a geographer, Jared Diamond is an IDIOT! Please don't let
his racist environmental determinism skew your view on geographers. He
is ostracized within academic geography.
A book on geography you should read is anything by Robert D. Sack.
Oh, and Ryan, if you need a simplified version of this rant, email me.
Thomas
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