Guns, Germs and Steel

Finally finished watching this on Netflix.  Quite interesting.  Too bad it's expiring in a day.

Well I guess you can still catch it on youtube.  (The video on this playlist looks superior.)  Also available on DVD and Amazon Instant Video, if you want high quality with captions (and be assured of future availability).

What's it about?

Well it was actually first a book and I watched the documentary based on the book.  It's Jared Diamonds theory on how world history (in this case, European imperialism -- the explorere were not nice people) was shaped by three main factor: guns, germs and steel.  But actually there seems to be one overriding factor: geography.

Here's wikipedia's quick summary:

The book attempts to explain why Eurasian civilizations (including North Africa) have survived and conquered others, while arguing against the idea that Eurasian hegemony is due to any form of Eurasian intellectual, moral or inherent genetic superiority. Diamond argues that the gaps in power and technology between human societies originate in environmental differences, which are amplified by various positive feedback loops. When cultural or genetic differences have favored Eurasians (for example, written language or the development among Eurasians of resistance to endemic diseases), he asserts that these advantages occurred because of the influence of geography on societies and cultures, and were not inherent in the Eurasian genomes.

You can see more on this site on pbs.