Guns, Germs, and Steel

Starring:Braden Doane, Mason Graham, Katy Kastner
Director: Stacy Blunt, Santa Clause
Studio: Nat'l Geographic Vid
Product Type: DVD

Editorial Review:
Amazon.com
Is the balance of power in the world, the essentially unequal distribution of wealth and clout that has shaped civilization for centuries, a matter of survival of the fittest or merely of the luckiest? In Guns, Germs, and Steel, UCLA professor (and author of the best-seller bearing the same title) Jared Diamond makes a compelling case for the latter. Diamond's theory is that the predominance of white Europeans (and Americans of European descent) over other cultures has nothing to do with racial superiority, as many have claimed, but is instead the result of nothing more, or less, than geographical coincidence. His argument, in a nutshell, is that the people who populated the Middle East's "fertile crescent" thousands of years ago were the first farmers, blessed with abundant natural resources (native crops such as wheat and barley, domesticable animals like pigs, goats, sheep, and cows). When their descendents migrated to Europe and northern Africa, climates similar to the crescent's, those same assets, which were unavailable in most of the rest of the world, led to the flourishing of advanced civilizations in those places as well. Add to that their ability to control fire, and Europeans eventually developed the guns and steel (swords, trains, etc.) they used to conquer the planet (the devastating diseases they brought with them, like smallpox, were an unplanned "benefit" to their subjugation of, for instance, Peru's native Incas). Spread out over three episodes and two discs and presented with National Geographic's usual style and thoroughness, the program uses location footage (from New Guinea, South America, Africa, and elsewhere), interviews, reenactments, maps, and Diamond's own participation to support his thesis. And while one might disagree with his conclusions, there is no doubt that Guns, Germs, and Steel is a provocative, classy piece of work. --Sam Graham
Description
Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book and national best seller, Guns, Germs, and Steel is an epic detective story that offers a gripping expose on why the world is so unequal. Professor Jared Diamond traveled the globe for over 30 years trying to answer the biggest question of world history. Why is the world so unequal? The answers he found were simple yet extraordinary. Our destiny depends on geography and access to: Guns, Germs, and Steel. Weaving together anthropology and science with epic historical reenactments, Guns, Germs, and Steel brings Diamond's fascinating theories to life, and moves beyond the book to bring his ideas into the present day.

Average customer rating:

5 mins of brilliant profound insight stretched into 3 hours

smashing western hubris

Eye-opening Video Series

Very interesting

not deep but worth 3 hours watching

Guns, Germs, and Steel
Starring: Braden Doane , Mason Graham , and Katy Kastner
Director: Stacy Blunt , and Santa Clause
Manufacturer: National Geographic Video
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B0009GX1EM
Release Date: 2005-07-12

Amazon.com

Is the balance of power in the world, the essentially unequal distribution of wealth and clout that has shaped civilization for centuries, a matter of survival of the fittest… or merely of the luckiest? In Guns, Germs, and Steel, UCLA professor (and author of the best-seller bearing the same title) Jared Diamond makes a compelling case for the latter. Diamond's theory is that the predominance of white Europeans (and Americans of European descent) over other cultures has nothing to do with racial superiority, as many have claimed, but is instead the result of nothing more, or less, than geographical coincidence. His argument, in a nutshell, is that the people who populated the Middle East's "fertile crescent" thousands of years ago were the first farmers, blessed with abundant natural resources (native crops such as wheat and barley, domesticable animals like pigs, goats, sheep, and cows). When their descendents migrated to Europe and northern Africa, climates similar to the crescent's, those same assets, which were unavailable in most of the rest of the world, led to the flourishing of advanced civilizations in those places as well. Add to that their ability to control fire, and Europeans eventually developed the guns and steel (swords, trains, etc.) they used to conquer the planet (the devastating diseases they brought with them, like smallpox, were an unplanned "benefit" to their subjugation of, for instance, Peru's native Incas). Spread out over three episodes and two discs and presented with National Geographic's usual style and thoroughness, the program uses location footage (from New Guinea, South America, Africa, and elsewhere), interviews, reenactments, maps, and Diamond's own participation to support his thesis. And while one might disagree with his conclusions, there is no doubt that Guns, Germs, and Steel is a provocative, classy piece of work. --Sam Graham

Description

Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book and national best seller, Guns, Germs, and Steel is an epic detective story that offers a gripping expose on why the world is so unequal. Professor Jared Diamond traveled the globe for over 30 years trying to answer the biggest question of world history. Why is the world so unequal? The answers he found were simple yet extraordinary. Our destiny depends on geography and access to: Guns, Germs, and Steel. Weaving together anthropology and science with epic historical reenactments, Guns, Germs, and Steel brings Diamond's fascinating theories to life, and moves beyond the book to bring his ideas into the present day.

Customer Reviews:

5 mins of brilliant profound insight stretched into 3 hours.......2007-05-23

Do not buy this. Rent it, maybe. Better yet, rent it, turn on subtitles, mute the sound, and run it at double time, assuming you can read fast. Massive amounts of repetition in the script.

A program from, hello, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, should at least get the geography right. Cape Town is not remotely the most southern tip of Africa. Total bull and a popular error. Go read a map.

Next, the phrase "Guns germs and steel" gets uttered SO frequently that soon it becomes unbearable. My partner and I took to torturing each other by saying it aloud for the next 2 days.

This is yet another documentary by a director who feels it necessary to show a man breaking into tears and then deliberately filming him while he's such a mess, he can't enunciate. If I cared for this manipulative drivel, I wouldn't have cancelled my cable TV.

A brilliant man's theory in a book ruined by stupid, cutesy direction and painful scriptwriting.

smashing western hubris.......2007-05-08

We european-americans tend to think that we rule the world because we're esprcially smart, innovative, or skilled. This documentary shows that we're nothing of the sort. All the advantages we have had over other populations have just been accidents of geography. Diamond presents the theories very well on these DVD's, and I found all three episodes to be interesting, engaging, and at times even touching.

Eye-opening Video Series.......2007-04-10

I found Diamond's theory very enlightening and I highly recommend watching this video and/or reading his book.

Very interesting.......2007-03-21

Thank you for your research. I was in Papua New Guinea and it was very interesting to learn about this DVD prior to visiting. Now that I am back, I will watch it again because it makes even more sense to me.

not deep but worth 3 hours watching.......2007-03-21

I saw the 3rd part on TV and just had to watch the rest. It's well done, interesting with the usual excellent filmography by NatGeo, as well as enlightening dialogue with J.Diamond. It is a personal story, the answer to a New Guinean's question posed 30 years ago:"how come you white men have so much cargo and us New Guineans have so little?"

So exactly why did Europeans conquer the world in the 16th-19th centuries? His short answer is the title: Guns, Germs and Steel. His long answer is biogeography, Europeans had a leg up on the rest of the world because of wheat and cows, which allowed a higher, more materially prosperous, greater population centered in larger cities society which overwhelmed the aborginal peoples of N and S America, Oceania and the Southern tip of Africa. It's almost common wisdom that this is at least part of the answer, but Diamond does an excellent job of arguing the point and showing the consequences of this division into Northern and Southern societies.

I enjoyed the show, it is not a deeply thinking type of documentary, but rather aimed more at the emotions, the feelings of comradeship that ought to exist like the bonds between Diamond and the people he knows in New Guinea, or the sympathy for young malaria victims in Africa. The idea that the west, that Europeans, are blessed not for what they are, nor for what they did, but simply because of where their ancestors settled, is meant to temper the common ideal that my arm has gotten me this wealth and it is justificably mine to do whatever i think best, that those in need have only to reach out and do the same thing to succeed, rather than expecting a handout from the strong. Not a bad lesson at all, gratitude, modesty, sharing, not done in a particularly heavy handed preaching way as is often the case, but rather low keyed, here are the facts, you are not better than the New Guineans but rather more lucky, not smarter or more hard working or whatever, just fortunate.

I look forward to Diamond meet a Chinese man who asks him:"why does the West have so much when us Chinese had all the pieces you mention long before the Europeans. But we used gunpowder to make firecrackers not firearms. Why doesn't material wealth follow good culture and wisdom?" And that is where the show leaves me, what he says is all good and probably substantially true, but why didn't China develop long before the West?

UP NEXT, Terrence McNally in conversation with Jared Diamond

Average customer rating:

UP NEXT, Terrence McNally in conversation with Jared Diamond

Manufacturer: CustomFlix
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Special Interests | Genres | DVD | Video

( U ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video

Guns, Germs, and Steel

ASIN: B000MR9J9Y
Release Date: 2007-01-18

Description

Terrence McNally, hosts UP NEXT with guest Jared Diamond - A compelling one hour conversation with Pulitzer Prize winning author and environmental historian Jared Diamond about his best-selling book, COLLAPSE: HOW SOCIETIES CHOOSE TO FAIL OR SUCCEED. In his Pulitzer-prize winning book GUNS, GERMS, AND STEEL, Diamond examined how and why Western civilizations developed the technologies and immunities that allowed them to dominate much of the world. In his latest book, COLLAPSE, Diamond probes the other side of the equation: What caused some of the great civilizations of the past to collapse into ruin, and what can we learn from their fates? Environmental damage, climate change, rapid population growth and unwise political choices were all factors in the demise of these societies. Despite apparently inexhaustible wealth, unrivaled political influence and superior military power, America confronts similar problems today. Are we wise enough to assure our continued survival and success? From the Polynesian cultures on Easter Island to the flourishing American civilizations of the Anasazi and the Maya, and finally to the doomed Viking colony on Greenland, this intimate conversation reveals Dr. Diamond's thesis about the fundamental patterns of catastrophe. Up Next hosted by journalist and Los Angeles radio personality, Terrence McNally, features some of the most compelling authors, artists, scientists and visionaries of our time; individuals and ideas that are creating a world that just might work. Up Next is produced by KZFM Productions, a Los Angeles based media publishing company - www.kzfmproductions.com.

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