Guns, Germs and Steel

Well, well, well. I was in the process of writing another post on the reason for European domination of the global resources. This one was going to be on why it wasn't the Chinese or other East Asians who "had the cake and ate it too". But I had a hard time coming up with very solid reasons, because it seems like it was a very close race (meaning "competition" in this case).

In the meantime, a friend of mine suggested a book called "Guns, Germs, and Steel" by Jared Diamond. He said it's a must-read, and that I'd love it, and indeed I did. I am now half way into it, and I have to admit, that hands-down this is the best book on history I have ever read, in fact I believe it should be required reading in all high schools, as it is very much fundamental knowledge about history. It is absolutely brilliant, with in-depth analysis of every question that I have asked in the earlier posts, and some that I have had in the back of my head. Basically, the questions this book attempts to answer are:

• Why does the world look the way it does today?
• What are the underlying historical forces that set the human populations in motion?
• Why did some civilizations advance quicker than others?
• What are some fundamental civilization stepping stones, and how did they come about?

Every question Diamond asks, he digs deep to the root causes, leaving no stone unturned. So I'm going to spend some time on answering and re-answering the same questions I asked earlier, now with the knowledge from this phenomenal book.