Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6535 in Books
• Published on: 2006-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 432 pages

Customer Reviews

"It helps us understand what it means to be human"
This is a brilliant examination of the rise of mankind from just another species of big mammal to our current domination of the earth, and an important exposition of our position in the world today.

Diamond combines many disciplines to produce a riveting dissection of humanity to dispel any myths of inimitable human nature, presenting examples of "human" nature in the animal kingdom, and the reasons for our sudden rise in The Great Leap Forward.

Diamond continues by warning the reader of the severe consequences of ignoring the destruction of the environment, ideas he pursued further in Collapse. Diamond, however, remains optimistic of our ability to learn from our mistakes and those if fallen civilisations, sentiments I don't share.

Like all of Diamond's books, this is immensely readable, and tackles a subject of great importance to how we perceive ourselves, our place in the universe, and the world around us.

Interesting, informative and entertaining
2006 Harper Perennial reissue of 1st edition (1992), 368 pages

This is another of the twenty books Charlie Munger recommends in the second edition of Poor Charlie's Almanack (which I recommend very strongly you get and read). Two of Jared Diamond's books make it on to the list (this one plus Guns, Germs and Steel), so I had high hopes for his first book, The Third Chimpanzee. I wasn't disappointed.

A big theme in Poor Charlie's Almanack is the importance of multi-disciplinary learning. Munger believes that many/most academic disciplines suffer from `man with a hammer syndrome': if your only tool is a hammer, everything tends to look like a nail. Jared Diamond is a man who comes equipped with a full tool kit: he started off in medical research, then pursued a parallel second career in bird ecology, evolution and biogeography and is learning his twelfth language.

The first part of this book is about where we came from and how we have become so different to all of the other animals, when, for example, only 1.6% of our DNA differs from that of a chimpanzee. The second part is about our likely future as evidenced by our relatively recent past (though these broad headings are actually subdivided into five sections by the author).

The book is full of interesting facts and surprising (and well argued) theories. The evidence that he discusses when looking at whether we ever lived in harmony with nature and how far back and regularly our human genocidal tendencies manifested themselves is rather disquieting. It suggests strongly, for example, that my own laissez faire attitude towards the environment is emphatically not justified by human history. The difference between us and the Easter Islanders or Anasazi Indians is that we have a global resource base to compromise before we run into serious trouble.

Diamond also has a theory of how the plant and animal species available for domestication may well have proved the decisive factor in determining which of our societies spread and became dominant. I had not come across it before at all and I found it extremely interesting - it is a prime example of how broadening the information under review may lead to completely different and unusual conclusions.

The Third Chimpanzee is an excellent and interesting book and I have already purchased his next book Guns, Germs and Steel. (I particularly recommend the 2006 Harper Perennial reissue as it contains an interesting addendum at the back with information about Diamond, some recommended further reading, and, most importantly he also discusses new scientific discoveries made since the original 1992 edition.)

Good book but dodgy conclusion
This book is a good read, and is about what enabled the 'European' nations to reign supreme over the rest of the world.
Jared decides it was all down to luck. The luck of having the right crops and livestock available, the right climate and the right location.
The "Wealth and Poverty of Nations" by Landes, takes another view and attributed the West's power and wealth down to it's culture of relative freedoms - freedom to own and keep ones wealth for example - it's relatively free economies, that led to the quest for trade, expansion and invention.
The amazing thing is, that where Jared states that America, Africa and Australia were 'unlucky' with their lot, once the Europeans transplanted their culture & freedoms to South Africa, Canada, Australia and the USA these areas became some of the wealthiest and most powerful countries in the world.
A good book non the less, but a dodgy 'politically correct' conclusion.
I'd reccomend you buy this and the Landes book for comparison and then make your own conclusion.