Preface & Prologue:《Guns,Germs & Steel》

《枪炮、细菌和钢铁》开篇：

核心：

历史就像洋葱一样。作者Jared Diamond认为现代史只是表象，它的深层需要被逐层剥开来探寻理解历史！

主要内容：

当下讲世界历史书籍大部分聚焦于具有读写文化的欧亚、北非文明（literate Eurasian and North-African societies），撒哈拉非洲、美洲、东南亚诸岛、澳大利亚、新几内亚和太平洋岛国发生的历史鲜有人关注！即使公元前3000年文字诞生以来的历史只占了整个500万年人类物种史的0.1%，但确实主题内容，而剩下的99.9%鲜有人花大气力研究！

 

          

 

作者质疑这种研究视角的偏见(Such narrowly focused accounts of world history suffer fron three advantages.)

1.Increasing numbers of people today are,quite understandably,interested in other societies besides those of western Eurasia.

2.For people specifically interested in the shaping of the modern world,a history limited to developments since the emergence of writing cannot provide deep understanding.

3.A history focused on western Eurasian societies completely bypasses the obvious big problem:Why were those societies the ones that became disproportionately powerful and innovative? 

Yali 's question:Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo and brought it to New Guinea,but we black people had little cargo of our own?

1.Jared Diamond的研究视角很独树一帜，多学科交叉研究手段丰富多彩（作者是语言学、生理学、生物学的集大成者），对少数弱势人类群体的关注充分体现“科学家”和“历史学家”的悲悯情怀！

"People tend to confuse an explanation of causes with a justification or acceptance of results.Researchers seek to understand the chain of causes to interrupt it."

2.三种人类历史发展阶段:

Hunter-gather	Stone stool
Farming	Metal tool
Industrilization	Machine

3.Jared Diamond强烈反对基因决定论，主张不同区域环境导致各人类团体不同的发展轨迹。

"History followed different courses for different peoples because of differences among peoples' environments,not because of biological differences among peoples themselves."多么霸气的观点！

也许人类历史的意义或者人生的意义就是在于探寻追求（未知未得渴望、理想）的过程！！！

The history is not "just one damn fact after another," as a cynic put it.There are really are broad history patterns to history,and the search for their explanation is as productive as it is fascinating!