By Jared Diamond
A book to answer the age old question; “why did some societies becomes the haves and concur the have-nots?” Or as Jared puts it, Yali’s question. Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo and brought it to New Guinea but we black people had little cargo of our own? The idea of finding an answer to this conundrum excited me. Within the first handful of pages Jared even speculates that maybe the New Guineans’ are on average smarter than Westerner’s, as only the fittest can survive, where as modern medicine and supermarkets keep even the laziest lowlife alive in our part of the world. Fascinating, no? My wife wasn’t impressed when I told her about it. So I kept reading.
I’ll cut right to the chase; the book doesn’t really answer the question. I mean Jared talks about applying science to history to try and come to concrete conclusions thereby justifying his preceding 400 or so pages but the main conclusion was “that societies developed differently on different continents because of differences in continental environments, not in human biology. Complex societies could emerge only in dense sedentary populations capable of accumulating food surpluses.” Now that you read it you think well duh! But to get to that sentence you have to read through some pretty dry text. Oh don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed reading about the different available foods (grass, pulses by continents and their size; domesticable plants, animals or lack of; soil conditions; weather patters and how it helped/hindered the spread of the plants/animals) I just couldn’t get into the parts about language and writing systems and how tribes, chiefdoms, societies formed.
Basically, this is a history book that covers the world over 13,000 years. The two things I really liked about it was how it covered the whole world. I mean most history books I’ve read are all about the United States. Also there was no talk about God or the influence of religion, though this did influence the rise and fall of societies. Jared gives lots of examples and stories about his friends in New Guinea. He also includes photos of them. (I’m not sure what this is supposed to add because it did nothing for me) “Yep, another head shot of a New Guinean.” Was something I found myself saying after each photo. I say read the first and last couple of chapters and you’ll get the gist of it, the rest is overkill. So if you find yourself nodding off, go on to the next chapter where you might find it more engaging. (Yeah I didn’t do that, I read through it all) Now you know, and knowing is half the battle, according to G.I Joe.
Many of the South Pacific islanders refer to goods as cargo. cults formed, mostly after World War II and a few persist into today.
Cargo cults Smithsonian magazine article here.
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