Guns, Germs, and Steel
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Movie Reviews of Guns, Germs, and Steel
Movie Review: Review for Episode 1
Summary: 3 Stars
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Please note that the rating above is possibly skewed by the ratings on this specific site. There might be a slightly different rating at the end.
Because I watched it in Geography and it's long enough to be a movie.
First, let's get on the subject of the theory. If you don't already know, a man with the last name of Diamond went to Papau New Guinea and got asked by a man "why do you white men have so much cargo but we New Guniean's have so little?" In your head reading this review, the answer may seem easy. But can you actually say it? It isn't just as clean cut as you most people think "the USA hasn't given them enough support." The first part of the question was "why do you white men have so much cargo?" Why is that? Sure, we don't give them enough support, but how are we able to give that support in the first place? Can any of you answer? No, you can't. Most of you can't, anyways.
So what is the answer? It isn't the things in the title. They needed cargo to make. Was it food? To Diamond, yes. And I see what he is going for. His theory is the best I've heard. It's the fact that in Temperate climate zones have more protein (domestic animals, grain) and have easier storage systems. In the Tropics, we got Bananas in 100 degree weather! In temperate, you are able to store enough food to get other people working on houses and weapons. Sure, this isn't all of it, but it's a big chunk. We see it, tons of poor countries, are in the Tropics. It's not even a debate. There is South Africa and Saudi Arabia which are Temperate, but Mumbai (Bombay) is in the Tropics!
But less the theory, more on how the theory and book are presented in motion form. Let's get some Negatives out of the way. Special Effects are way over used! For a purpose. But over used. Yali always appears out of nowhere to haunt your dreams like E.T. at night. (Speaking of which, E.T. The Extra Terrestrial? Redundant anyone?) Several trivial facts and crazy photos are distracting. (Pigs digging?) There are also some inacurracies, for instance, he over states the case of how plentiful food is in Papau New Guinea. He also states that several findings in the Middle East are damaged because of "Moisture and Water!!!" (How much you wanna bet I'm gonna have a Top 10 Ca$hman @#$%-Ups after this?) Not to mention, there's some really bad proof viewing.
The film looks beautiful. Especially the re-inactment scenes. All I can say about them is that they are quality notch. it. The theory itself is the entertaining thing. So you could say this movie was useless and just a commercial for the book should have been made. WRONG! When you hear something being said in a lecture, and when you watch it on the History Channel, which are you more likely to believe? When things are put into moving pictures, so that it's just as visual as audible, we believe it most of the time. Unless it's something ridiculous like a 3-Headed Golden Lightning Breathing Dragon in Tokyo, Japan. (There goes Tokyo.) So, in the end, not my favorite educational movie, but one that definably needed to be made.
The Rating? Eeehhh...it's a...3.2/5
Movie Review: not deep but worth 3 hours watching
Summary: 3 Stars
I saw the 3rd part on TV and just had to watch the rest. It's well done, interesting with the usual excellent filmography by NatGeo, as well as enlightening dialogue with J.Diamond. It is a personal story, the answer to a New Guinean's question posed 30 years ago:"how come you white men have so much cargo and us New Guineans have so little?"
So exactly why did Europeans conquer the world in the 16th-19th centuries? His short answer is the title: Guns, Germs and Steel. His long answer is biogeography, Europeans had a leg up on the rest of the world because of wheat and cows, which allowed a higher, more materially prosperous, greater population centered in larger cities society which overwhelmed the aborginal peoples of N and S America, Oceania and the Southern tip of Africa. It's almost common wisdom that this is at least part of the answer, but Diamond does an excellent job of arguing the point and showing the consequences of this division into Northern and Southern societies.
I enjoyed the show, it is not a deeply thinking type of documentary, but rather aimed more at the emotions, the feelings of comradeship that ought to exist like the bonds between Diamond and the people he knows in New Guinea, or the sympathy for young malaria victims in Africa. The idea that the west, that Europeans, are blessed not for what they are, nor for what they did, but simply because of where their ancestors settled, is meant to temper the common ideal that my arm has gotten me this wealth and it is justificably mine to do whatever i think best, that those in need have only to reach out and do the same thing to succeed, rather than expecting a handout from the strong. Not a bad lesson at all, gratitude, modesty, sharing, not done in a particularly heavy handed preaching way as is often the case, but rather low keyed, here are the facts, you are not better than the New Guineans but rather more lucky, not smarter or more hard working or whatever, just fortunate.
I look forward to Diamond meet a Chinese man who asks him:"why does the West have so much when us Chinese had all the pieces you mention long before the Europeans. But we used gunpowder to make firecrackers not firearms. Why doesn't material wealth follow good culture and wisdom?" And that is where the show leaves me, what he says is all good and probably substantially true, but why didn't China develop long before the West?
Movie Review: One man's theory
Summary: 3 Stars
I have not read the book so I can not compare; however I hope a lot was left out because there sure is a lot missing. The theory is not really quite formed or proven. All I can glean from this series is that the difference between the haves and have-nots is the luck of location and the luck of location is not always lucky for the haves when they step out of their bounds.
Many of the facts are just down right wrong; it is like the tail waging the dog. One good example is that as you can see in the series "The Ascent of Man" (now available in the U.S. on DVD) or the book of the same name by Jacob Bronowski it was the natural change in wheat that brought on agriculture not agriculture that brought on the change in wheat; he also misses the boat by ignoring the economic reasons for culture, commerce and war. A good book to read on the subject of plants migration and commerce is "Green Cargoes" by Anne Dorrance. There are too many examples of missed or purposely ignored more logical reasons for differences in cultures for example it is never mentioned, for example, "why" the Chinese, having developed gunpowder used it in a more benign manner than the Europeans
Now it was not all a waste. First there may be some credence in his theory. However it was very interesting to watch the confutation between the conquistadors and the Natives of Peru.
The Ascent of Man (5 volume set)
Green Cargoes
Movie Review: Worth watching more for the grains component than for the guns/germs components
Summary: 3 Stars
Based on Jared M. Diamond's Pulitzer Prize-winning 1997 book, Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (W.W. Norton & Co., New York, 480 pp., [32] pp. pls.), this July 2005 telecast (also available on DVD) received full and somewhat critical reviews by M. Balter in Science 309: 248-249 (8 July 2005) and by N. Martel in The New York times (11 July 2005).
Suffice it to say here, the first episode is the best, and by far the most botanical, dealing with Diamond's controversial ideas on the origins of agriculture and domesticated plants and animals in the Near East and their global latitudinal (rather than longitudinal) spread. Episode 2 is a tad overkill, focusing almost entirely on that fateful November-1532 day when 168 Spaniards killed some 7000 unarmed Incas; smallpox was the cour de grāce for countless Incan survivors of the massacre, who lacked the resistance to the disease many Europeans had. Episode 3 deals with the European and Boer colonization of Africa and ends in hopeful platitudes but regretfully offers no solutions for the continent's troubles. [Because the first episode deals much with grains, and because guns and germs do not enter until the second episode, I suggest a better title for the book would have been Grains, Guns, Germs, and Steel.] Despite the obvious padding and repetition characteristic of video endeavors of this sort, the program is definitely worth watching for its historical and biological insights.
Movie Review: Worth knowing as another theory
Summary: 3 Stars
This is a review on the program and not the book, as I have not read the book.
Diamond's view on geographical influence on cultures is innovative and worth knowing if you are interesting in anthropology. However, it should not be take as a definitive explanation for the uneven distribution of wealth.
Diamond is a biologist by training and from the program; I believe he lack history and anthropology background, areas that is critical for the development of his theory. For starter, Diamond seems to have forgotten the existence of the Chinese, Indian and Arabian civilizations (listed from East to West). He did mentioned some inventions from other area of Eurasia however it all ended with the European being the most inventive and best at assimilating ideas. Others, such as steel and printing press being developed solely in Europe are quite ethnocentric and showed his lack of history background.
Like all anthropological theorist, Diamond cannot escape the limitation of being just one person. He is without question an accomplished biologist, however, he might be over his head when he takes on the task of explaining inequality along, a task that require extensive knowledge in history, anthropology and natural science.
Worth knowing as another theory
P.S.: The Rocketman's review above is worth reading before you made your decision to buy.