Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel

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This is a pretty big book for a light reader like me! That said, this one is not a tough read for a book on such a subject! I really started the book with some kind of skepticism on how well the author would stay away from the taboo 'racism'! To me, he stayed pretty away from that line and tries to give a very good bird's eye view of several thousand years of human development across the continents. It is really an eye-opening interpretation as I haven't really read anything this deep about humanity and its development. I am a little disappointed to not see any deep references on Aryan civilization and Indian subcontinent...
On the whole, he doesn't credit any particular civilization as being superior to anything else. Apparently, every invention seems to have been a culmination of some kind of evolutionary process and starting point for another set of inventions designed for a totally different or similar needs. Necessity is often not a mother of invention! In many instances, invention has been a starting point for man's necessity that follows. Recently, I have seen articles and pieces where different earth-loving green guys point out that many companies these days create things and generate a need for them rather than create things that humankind needs! After reading this book one can certainly feel that this is not something that happened recently. Since human evolution, this has been the trend all along!
I am not done with the book yet.. More rambling to come by the time I finish :)

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