We Read A Lot

Carrie and I have had lots of time to read while we've been here. It's been really nice. So we decided, last night, that it would be fun to write book reviews when we finish books. I'm not sure that they are going to be very in depth or detailed but at least they will say what we thought of the books and maybe you'll decide to read them (or not read them) based on our recommendations. I have read several books since we've been here but I'm going to start with the one that I finished last night.

Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond.
I had heard of this book for several years now and I always thought that it seemed interesting but I never really knew what it was about until about six months ago when Carrie read it. While she was reading it she kept telling me about these neat anecdotes that are in the book and my interest was piqued. Unfortunately Carrie got the book from the library so I couldn't read it right after she did and then I just never got around to it. Now that we have time here in NZ I've been keeping an eye out for it. Kerry, who we are living with, (yes its very confusing to have two of them) has a copy of Guns, Germs, and Steel so I started reading it.
Basically the book is a 400 page summary of the last 13,000 years of human history with the goal of explaining how it is that Eurasian cultures have managed to become so dominant. In other words, why was it that the Spanish sailed across the Atlantic and were able to colonize Central and South America instead of the Incas sailing across the Atlantic and colonizing Europe? This book is a search for the ultimate factors that led to that outcome. It has been the racist argument of many that this happened because of a biological superiority of the Eurasian people but Diamond's book goes much deeper to demonstrate that factors of geography and flora/fauna led to this dominance, not any innate difference between peoples.
Anyway, this was a fascinating book that I'm sure many of you have already read but if you have not read it I recommend getting it from a friend or your local library and diving into a book that is much easier to read then it looks. You won't regret it.