I will definitely recommend this book to history, non fiction lovers. Your Rating:. Your Comment:. Read Online Download. Hot Why Is Sex Fun? It helps students to ace their tough exams and scores high in particular subject. It has some great features shared below. It is also very best for quick review few days. Why did Eurasians conquer, displace, or decimate Native Americans, Australians, and Africans, instead of the reverse?
McNeill, New York Review of Books book, a classic of our time, evolutionary biologist Jared Diamond dismantles racist theories of human history by revealing the environmental factors actually responsible for its broadest patterns. The story begins 13, years ago, when Stone Age hunter-gatherers constituted the entire human population. Around that time, the developmental paths of human societies on different continents began to diverge greatly. Early domestication of wild plants and animals in the Fertile Crescent, China, Mesoamerica, the Andes, and other areas gave peoples of those regions a head start at a new way of life.
But the localized origins of farming and herding proved to be only part of the explanation for their differing fates. Societies that developed in regions with fertile land for farming and that had domesticable plants and animals were able to progress more quickly, thereby creating the tools to conquer preliterate cultures. Drawing on a variety of disciplines--from linguistics, genetics, and epidemiology to biology, anthropology, and technology--Guns, Germs, and Steel offers an eloquently argued view of the development of human societies.
The summary and analysis in this book are intended to complement your reading experience and bring you closer to a great work of nonfiction.
With his book, Diamond tries to provide an answer for this question. According to Diamond, the immediate causes for the inequalities in the world today are to be found in the different stages of development between the continents as of around A.
By that time, only societies of Eurasia, the landmass that constitutes Asia and Europe, and there especially the Western Europeans, possessed ocean-going ships, population-decimating germs, steel weapons, horses usable for warefare, easy spread of information by an efficient writing system and many other means that come in handy decimating, subjugating or in some cases even exterminating the originial inhabitants of other continents.
Diamond calls these advantages the proximate factors of differing developments that led to the inequalities.
The Spanish got there and won because they possessed the above stated proximate factors. He then turns the point around and asks why, for instance, the Native Americans or Aboriginal Australians were not the ones who possessed these proximate factors and used them to conquer Europe.
The Second World War shaped modern Canada. It led to the country's emergence as a middle power on the world stage; the rise of the welfare state; industrialization, urbanization, and population growth. After the war, Canada increasingly turned toward the United States in matters of trade, security, and popular culture, which then sparked a desire to strengthen Canadian nationalism from the threat of American hegemony.
The Fight for History examines how Canadians framed and reframed the war experience over time. Just as the importance of the battle of Vimy Ridge to Canadians rose, fell, and rose again over a year period, the meaning of Canada's Second World War followed a similar pattern. But the Second World War's relevance to Canada led to conflict between veterans and others in society--more so than in the previous war--as well as a more rapid diminishment of its significance.
By the end of the 20th century, Canada's experiences in the war were largely framed as a series of disasters. Canadians seemed to want to talk only of the defeats at Hong Kong and Dieppe or the racially driven policy of the forced relocation of Japanese-Canadians.
In the history books and media, there was little discussion of Canada's crucial role in the Battle of the Atlantic, the success of its armies in Italy and other parts of Europe, or the massive contribution of war materials made on the home front. No other victorious nation underwent this bizarre reframing of the war, remaking victories into defeats.
The Fight for History is about the efforts to restore a more balanced portrait of Canada's contribution in the global conflict. This is the story of how Canada has talked about the war in the past, how we tried to bury it, and how it was restored. This is the history of a constellation of changing ideas, with many historical twists and turns, and a series of fascinating actors and events.
One island, two unique societies Norse and Inuit. Only one of these societies would succeed—the other would fail. But how? With his trademark accessibility and comprehensiveness, Diamond documents how environmental damage, climate change, loss of friendly contacts and the rise of hostile ones, and the unique political, economic, and social settings of prehistoric Greenland combine to demonstrate exactly why and how societies choose to fail or succeed.
Now in a revised edition with a new afterword, Jared Diamond's Collapse uncovers the secret behind why some societies flourish, while others founder - and what this means for our future.
What happened to the people who made the forlorn long-abandoned statues of Easter Island? What happened to the architects of the crumbling Maya pyramids? Will we go the same way, our skyscrapers one day standing derelict and overgrown like the temples at Angkor Wat? Bringing together new evidence from a startling range of sources and piecing together the myriad influences, from climate to culture, that make societies self-destruct, Jared Diamond's Collapse also shows how - unlike our ancestors - we can benefit from our knowledge of the past and learn to be survivors.
As a boy, George Elliott Clarke knew that a great deal was expected as a descendant of a highly accomplished, Virginia-descended family on his father's side. In contrast, his mother's family were warm, down-to-earth country folk.
Such contradictions underlay much of his life and upbringing - Black and White, country and city, outstanding and ordinary, high and low. This is the story of a complicated family, of the emotional stress that white racism exerts on Black households, of the unique cultural geography of Africadia, of a child who became a poet, and of long-kept secrets.
Hometown: Halifax, N. Print run 7, Diamond argues that it was ecology and geography—not race—that shaped the modern world. Drawing on a variety of disciplines—from linguistics, genetics, and epidemiology to biology, anthropology, and technology—Guns, Germs, and Steel offers an eloquently argued view of the development of human societies.
The summary and analysis in this ebook are intended to complement your reading experience and bring you closer to a great work of nonfiction. With anecdotes and reflections both serious and light-hearted, My Stories, My Times, Volume 2 is a unique window on our country from one of its greatest statesmen and patriots.
This collection of essays features his trademark candour and ever-sharp political acumen, with plenty of wit to accompany the wisdom.
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