I recommend this book.
It provides a very interesting and convincing, possibly post-modern, view of the origins of the European Hegemony, sparked by a question from a friend of the author in New Guinea, in effect: why do you white people of European origin have so many material goods and we have so little?
His core thesis is that the origins of this difference are not in racial or even in politics, but in the development of agriculture and the luck of being in the continent (Eurasia) with a primary East-West axis as opposed to Africa or the Americas with primary North-South Axes.
His position is a little more complex and subtle than that, but none the less that is the nub of it.
Diamond does provide some convincing evidence for this view, and outlines his sources in a comprehensive Further Reading section. He masters linguistic, biological, anthropological and archaeological evidence with a mastery few could show (and most of those can’t write!).
However, there are a number of issues with the book, which I found problematic, and inevitably undermine his core argument.
First, his central sociological position is a kind of extreme Hobbesian war of all against all, in which the natural thing to do is murder strangers. But ultimately his argument depends on the tragic history of a single woman in New Guinea.This point deserves to be better developed at the very least, especially since part of his core argument is that New Guinea Highland diet is historically chronically short of protein, which I would have thought plausibly promotes cannibalism and thereby a low value on human life. In any case, I think those who at least acknowledge the possibility of empathy with strangers strengthen their arguments considerably.
Second he categorizes all organised states as kleptocracies, which I think implies the state never has value for the individual. This smacks more of propaganda than scholarship.
So his political position is essentially some form of right wing anarchism: I can accept that (although I might not agree) but there needs to be a better recognition of the implications of this prism on his overall view.
Third, at the end he acknowledges politics and culture may have a critical effect on the ability of a society to achieve their technological and imperial (if that is not too loaded a term) potential.
Against all of these criticisms Diamond might retort that inevitably a book which is so wide ranging and with such an ambitious goal needs to simplify and abbreviate. It simply can’t be more detailed: with over 400 pages in a fairly small typeface. Fair comment, on the whole!
The book is rather old (1997) but so far as I know if anything evidence for his position has been strengthened rather than weakened in the intervening time.
In the end well worth a read, but don’t believe every word!
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