I read a portion of this in college and I remember not being too fond of it, and I've just sort of heard it's not a good book, sorta racist and eurocentric. I'm wondering what the real criticisms of this book are though since looking at a summary its seems sort of materialist?
Mostly wondering since my dad, who has not read a book since probably 1973, is getting a copy from the library and I want to know what chud shit I'm gonna have to deal with at the dinner table for the next couple months.
yeah my dad isn't a "chud" chud but I don't really know how else to describe him. But he's not reading for personal development, he's reading it for arguments as to why Europeans should've dominated the world without resorting to culture and genetics as he has in the past, and to absolve colonialism of its crimes. I agree with everyone here that the book could be good in the right context, but that's not why my dad's reading it.
In the introduction he's going to run into a very long, dry block of Diamond belaboring how the issues he's about to cover do not equate to, nor are motivated by, racial or ethnic supremacy.
Much of the book is a buildup to one dazzling sentence. "Rhino-mounted Bantu shock troops could have overrun the Roman Empire." I think that deserves at least a little credit.