By: Carol McLaughlin on May 9, 2014
More than forty years ago a New Guinean named Yali posed a question to a biologist as they walked along. “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?”[1] Jared Diamond, the biologist and author of Guns,…
By: Cedrick Valrie on May 9, 2014
When I was a child, my family did not own a car. Getting around was a chore that we often experienced, yet resolve came in various forms, such as family friends with cars, city buses, and taxis. Such modes of transportation made it easier for my family to acquire basic needs like food, clothes, and shelter by…
By: Julie Dodge on May 9, 2014
In 1952, a young Ernesto Guevera and his friend, Alberto Granado, set off on a transcontinental motorcycle ride from Buenos Aires, Argentina, to Caracas, Venezuela. Guevera was a semester shy of completing his medical degree. Both intended to work for a time in a leper colony in Peru as part of their journey. The…
By: rhbaker275 on May 9, 2014
Jared Diamond was awarded the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for Journalism – General Nonfiction for his book, Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies.[1]The award citation chronicles the worthiness of Diamond’s work: No scientist brings more experience from the laboratory and field, none thinks more deeply about social issues or addresses them with greater…
By: Deve Persad on May 8, 2014
Last week, two of the guys from our leadership team, and myself, attended a one day conference on the local impact of Human Trafficking. For many of the one hundred people in attendance curiosity turned into surprise and then shame by the end of the day. Curiosity because many in attendance wouldn’t have given thought…
By: Ashley Goad on May 8, 2014
(Note: I wrote this while sitting under my favorite mango tree in Haiti!) Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Society by Jared Diamond may be the first book I have read completely from cover-to-cover in quite awhile. Perhaps it was because I was overcome by the narrative storytelling over the course of 13,000…
By: Phil Smart on May 8, 2014
For one year I studied Human Geography in a Master’s program at the University of Kansas. I was home for a year’s furlough from mission service in Brazil and was encouraged to study but ran out of money so never completed the degree. However, while at KU, I was exposed to Environmental Determinism, a precursor…
By: Mark Steele on May 8, 2014
Jared Diamond in in his book Guns, Germs and Steel attempts to answer the question why some societies advanced much quicker than others throughout history. He tracks the history of man 4 million years ago in Africa and 1.8 million years ago in a Southeast Asian Island in Java to the oldest fossils discovered of…
By: Liz Linssen on May 8, 2014
For Diamond, history reveals a story of inequalities among the development of the modern world and therefore demands an explanation. He asks the important question, “[W]hy did human development proceed at such different rates on different continents?” [i] He goes on, “In 11,000 BC, all societies everywhere were bands of preliterate hunter-gatherers with stone tools.…
By: Sam Stephens on May 8, 2014
Whether it concerns an individual, or a family, communities or nations, the most pressing question for humanity is this: What does the future hold? Then, the most frequently asked questions are: Where do we go from here? Where are we headed to? How do we get to where we desire to be? It isn’t very…
By: Richard Volzke on May 8, 2014
The book, Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, was filled with controversial facts. While the author does appropriately state some of the factors that trigger societal development, Scripture doesn’t support some of the facts and statements that he provided. There was a large emphasis on evolution, however the author did not fully…
By: Fred Fay on May 8, 2014
Quite a few years ago I accompanied a group from the church I was working for on a missions trip to Ensenada. We passed through beautiful San Diego with palm trees, green foliage and modern buildings. Then as we passed over the border into Mexico everything changed. The ground was brown and barren. There were…
By: John Woodward on May 8, 2014
My confession: I have a Masters in history. Actually, I am a student of a very tiny part of history, which encompasses only modern Europe. I know that my focus is extremely narrow, but after reading Gun, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond, I am extremely humbled by how very…
By: David Toth on May 7, 2014
Jared Diamond’s book, Germs, Guns and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, is his attempt to answer the question, “Why did history unfold differently on different continents?”* I found the book to be well written, easily understood, and well researched. Diamond writes with a breadth of knowledge and global travel…
By: Sharenda Roam on May 7, 2014
In “Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies,” professor of physiology, Jared Diamond, asks the question, “How, though, did the world get to be the way it was in A.D. 1500?” To rephrase the question …”…why did human development proceed at such different rates on different continents? Those disparate rates constitute history’s broadest…
By: Chris Ellis on May 7, 2014
Guns, Germs and Steel is a fascinating read that tells the history of humanities development from the time we could begin to call ourselves Homo sapiens. There was much in this book I didn’t know, and I feel like I could read it again and find things I missed. The author tries to answer questions centered…
By: Miriam Mendez on May 3, 2014
You don’t have to go very far in the book to identify what Jardine’s argument is all about. In The Making and Unmaking of Technological Society, Jardine wants his readers to know that his argument is that present day Western societies are in the grip of a profound moral crisis.[1] He states that this crisis…
By: Miriam Mendez on May 3, 2014
Are the good intentions of Christians enough to engage and change the world? Can Christians pray long enough, hard enough and loud enough to affect change in the world? Are there enough Christians to fully embrace God’s call on their lives to change the world? Are Christians engaging in enough critical thinking that will help…
By: Richard Volzke on April 26, 2014
My personal interest: The last time I was in London was in the 1980s. I was in the military and spent a two-week in Portsmouth at a Royal Navel Base with the British Navy. During that time some of the British sailors took me to London for the weekend. As I was getting ready to…
By: Stefania Tarasut on April 17, 2014
Zygmunt Bauman’s book Collateral Damage: Social Inequalities in a Global Age, is a collection of essays and lectures given by Bauman at different times. I had a hard time following him and seeing the connection between the chapters. There is one interesting thought that I had while reading this book. As Christians, we cannot get…
