Book Review

So its farming, germs and government that made some societies dominate over others. Farming seems most essential, since it brought the other two into existence since without a steady supply of food to feed people, one cannot create a largely populated society, nor find exotic diseases from animals and not even possess a centralized government. I thought I would have never guessed the answer to the discrepancies that are present in societies across the world today. When I started the novel, I was one of those people who were biased and thought that there must be some God-willed force that allowed some groups to be predominant over others. I just could not think of any way that people could develop into groups that were so different over just a time span of 6000 years. But this book has told me the answer, and I am pleased to say that my inherent bias has completely washed away into sufficient and plausible information that I can describe fully and convincingly.

If I can portray this book in just a phrase, I would say an 'information roller coaster', since there is so much information that describes the growth of human societies but there are along the way small anecdotes and stories that make the novel fun, especially the opening anecdote in the epidemiology chapter and various opening anecdotes in the various chapters I have read. The most important thing I have learned from the book is the fact that intelligence cannot be measured since what people value as smart in America might be different in the tribal areas in New Guinea where they value hunting prowess and physical strength over grades and SAT scores. We always think that natives are stupid, but this book has opened me up to the bias that has shrouded the Western country about those who were 'incompetent' and 'native-like'.

Overall, it was a great novel although it was boring and repetitive sometimes as shown by my frustration in one of my posts earlier. Sorry Mr. Diamond!

9.3/10 stars is my rating.

Word Count- 336