Friday, 25 April 2014

Guns, Germs, and Steel

(2009)

RATING:80%
FORMAT:DVD

A short history of everybody for the last 13,000 years

Good book about the fact that physical and geographical environment is the single biggest factor in human development; explaining why different continents culturally-evolved in different ways.

Where the book fails is in trying to pretend that the study of history can ever be a science. Given that history is a subject tainted by political correctness and propaganda, this is delusional, at best.

The style of the book is easily-readable but not entirely un-academic, since it is about 100 pages too long. However, author Diamond has such important and interesting things to say, this is not the drawback it would first seem. A book that easily ranks with Willem van Loon’s Story of Mankind.

Copyright © 2014 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved.
Posted by Frank TALKER™ at 09:54
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Science:



No science is immune to the infection of politics and the corruption of power.



Jacob Bronowski… (1908 - 74), British scientist, author. Encounter (London, July 1971).


Sleep of Reason:



The dream of reason produces monsters. Imagination deserted by reason creates impossible, useless thoughts. United with reason, imagination is the mother of all art and the source of all its beauty.



Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes… (1746-1828), Spanish painter. Caption to Caprichos, number 43, a series of eighty etchings completed in 1798, satirical and grotesque in form.


Humans & Aliens:



I am human and let nothing human be alien to me.



Terence… (circa 190-159 BC), Roman dramatist. Chremes, in The Self-Tormentor [Heauton Timorumenos], act 1, scene 1.


Führerprinzip:



One leader, one people, signifies one master and millions of slaves… There is no organ of conciliation or mediation interposed between the leader and the people, nothing in fact but the apparatus - in other words, the party - which is the emanation of the leader and the tool of his will to oppress. In this way the first and sole principle of this degraded form of mysticism is born, the Führerprinzip, which restores idolatry and a debased deity to the world of nihilism.



Albert Camus… (1913-60), French-Algerian writer & philosopher. The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt: New York: Vintage Books, (1984; page 182.)