槍炮、病菌與鋼鐵
维基百科，自由的百科全书
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《槍炮、病菌與鋼鐵：人類社會的命運》是由美國加州大學洛杉磯分校醫學院生理學教授賈德·戴蒙於1997年所著。該書於1998年獲得普利茲獎以及英國科普書獎(The Aventis Prizes for Science Books)。國家地理學會根據本書拍攝的紀錄片於2005年7月在美國公共電視網播出。
根據作者，本書試圖提供「最近13,000年來所有人的簡短歷史」(Diamond 1999:9)。但本書並不只是描述過去歷史的書；它試圖解釋為何歐亞文明最終可以存活下來並戰勝其他文明，同時駁斥歐亞霸權是由歐亞知識份子或道德上的優越而來。戴蒙認為人類社會中權利與技術的歧異無法反映文化或種族上的差異，而是來自於被各種不同正回饋循環強力擴大的環境差異。
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[编辑] 本書內容
[编辑] 序
本書的序是The prologue to the book opens with an account of Diamond's conversation with Yali, a New Guinean politician. The conversation turned to the obvious differences in power and technology between Yali's people and the Europeans who dominated the land for 200 years, differences that neither of them considered due to any superiority of Europeans. Yali asked, using the local term "cargo" for inventions and manufactured goods, "Why you white people have so much cargo, and we New Guineans have so little?"
Diamond found that he had no good answer. He says that the same sort of question seems to apply elsewhere: "People of Eurasian origin... dominate the world in wealth and power." Other peoples, having thrown off colonial domination, lag in wealth and power. Still others, he says, "have been decimated, subjugated, and in some cases even exterminated by European colonialists." (p. 15) He says that, unable to find a satisfactory explanation from the best-known accounts of history, he decided to make his own investigation.
Before stating his main argument, Diamond considers three possible criticisms of his investigation. These are covered in detail in responses to criticism.
[编辑] 本書所刻畫的論調
在農業發展前, 所有人類都是以狩獵-採集社群的方式來維持生活, 而現在有些地方的人仍然過著這樣的生活. 作者在書中說出歐亞社會的成功並非是該人種的智慧結晶, 而只是機會而矣, 換言之, 文明不是完全由個別人種的智慧或意志創造出來, 而更像是一個層層疊疊的結構,每一層新的技術也是從以前的技術發展的. 以較專門的概念來說,一個文明先進與否的關鍵, 是農業發展的狀況. 而農業發展的關鍵, 就是取決於可馴化和能給人類食用和作勞力的動植物種類的多少. 而對於人類, 可馴化的動物種類數量就顯得更為重要及珍貴的. 作者指出有六項要素是影響動物可馴化的程度, 如足夠的溫和性,愛群居, 願在人工的環境中繁殖及擁有一種在動物間的階級等. 作者的論調縱然沒有明顯的指出和文化生態學的關連, 但和該學說極相似的。
[编辑] 從狩獵採集到定居農業社會
本書指出人們定居一處需要有充足的食物供應, 於是農業就成了必須的契機。而這樣的生活方法, 更可有多餘的勞動力來進行其他的活動, 如採礦和發明文字, 而這些也是令一社會進步的要素. 雅見分工 Essential to the transition from hunter-gatherer to city-dwelling agrarian societies was the presence of large domesticable animals, raised for meat, work, and long-distance communication. Diamond identifies a mere 14 domesticated species world wide. The 5 most important (cow, horse, sheep, goat, and pig) are all native to Eurasia. Of the remaining 9, only two (the llama and guinea pig both of South America) are indigenous to a land outside the temperate region of Eurasia. None of the 14 is native to Africa, and African species such as the zebra, antelope, cape buffalo and African elephant proved to be too difficult to domesticate (although some could be tamed, they could not easily be bred in captivity). The Holocene extinction event eliminated many of the candidate species, and Diamond argues that the pattern of extinction is more severe on continents where humans arrived later and with more devastating hunting techniques.
Smaller domesticable animals such as dogs, cats, chickens, and guinea pigs may be valuable in various ways to an agricultural society, but will not be adequate in themselves to sustain large-scale agrarian society. An important example is that larger animals such as cows and horses could plow land, this allowed for much greater crop productivity and the ability to farm a much wider variety of land and soil types that would be impossible to work by human power.
[编辑] Geography
Diamond also explains how geography shaped human migration, not simply by making travel difficult (particularly by latitude), but by how climates affect where domesticable animals can easily travel and where crops can ideally grow easily due to the sun.
Modern humans are believed to have developed in the southern region of the African continent, at one time or another (see Out of Africa theory). The Sahara kept people from migrating north to the Fertile Crescent, until later when the Nile River valley became accommodating.
Diamond continues to explain the story of human development up to the modern era, through the rapid development of technology, and its dire consequences on hunter-gathering cultures around the world.
[编辑] Germs
In the later context of the European colonization of the Americas, 95 percent of the indigenous populations are believed to have been killed off by diseases unwittingly brought by the Europeans.
How was it then that disease native to the American continents did not kill off Europeans? Diamond points out that the combined effect of the increased population densities supported by agriculture, and of close human proximity to domesticated animals leading to animal diseases infecting humans, resulted in European societies acquiring a much richer collection of dangerous pathogens to which European peoples had acquired immunity through natural selection (see the Black Death and other epidemics) during a longer time than was the case for Native American hunter-gatherers and farmers. He mentions the tropical diseases (mainly malaria) that limited European penetration into Africa as an exception. -->
[编辑] 參考資料
- ^ Diamond, Jared. [1997] (1999). Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies W.W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0393317552.
