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Title: Tedious and thin on ideas
Review: If you are interested in this book, I would strongly urge you to buy his previous book _The Third Chimpanzee_ instead. _Guns, Germs, and Steel_ is merely a book length explication of the ideas contained in one 30 page chapter of that book. Unfortunately, padding them out to 350 pages didn't add much in the way of depth or interest to the ideas. Instead, Diamond goes through and repeats the same basic points 6 or 7 times over the course of this longer work. His writing quickly grew tedious as no new ideas emerged after page 40 or so--merely more repetitive hammering home of the basic points.Not that the core idea--that local biological factors had a decisive influence on the rise of early civiliations--isn't compelling. It is a fascinating perspective. But it's ultimately not enough to carry the entire book, and Diamond really has little else to offer. With _The Third Chimpanzee_ you get the same ideas plus about 15 other ideas almost equally interesting.
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