Guns, Germs, and Steel: The tee-vee show

PBS has made Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel into a three part series.

This is one of those instances in which a "no-brainer" turns out to be, well, evidence of no brains. Don't get me wrong: GG&S is an outstanding work of theory. I've used it quite a number of times in different courses (often in conjunction with Victor Hanson's Carnage and Culture, where VDH puts forward a contrary theory that focuses on cultural organization) to put forward different meta-theories for the development of societies. Diamond's thesis, revolving as it does around the significance of ecological development and the uneven distribution of natural resources, presents a compelling way to understand what drives societal change over the long haul. I teach at a women's college, so I'm spared the rounds of snickering that would inevitably come from college boys noting Diamond's fascination with, um, farm animals

But that doesn't explain why this book was a bestseller. My theory on this comes from seeing this book advertised over the past 5 years in airport bookstores: in the larger airport bookstores, you can almost always find a large display of this one book within 15 feet of the cash register.

Why?

My theory is that this is the greatest book of all time to completely foreclose any possibility that the person sitting next to you will attempt to even look at you, let alone think of trying to talk to you. Better than an iPod, better even than The Economic Consequences of the Black Plague, alas, even better than my previous favorite for this role The Road to Serfdom, pulling out Jared Diamond is the best way for people to take one peripheral vision look and think to themselves, "pyscho." Which is a shame really, because it is a good book.

Anyhoo, the review of the show is pretty vicious, as far as these things go:

Unfortunately, there's also no contest between this television series and Diamond's book. Part of the problem is Diamond himself. The producers put the professor at the center of the story, and we watch him traveling the world, in a dugout canoe in New Guinea, walking along a railroad track in Zambia, paging through a book in a Spanish library. But the scenes are static and Diamond is no Carl Sagan. Even the supposed emotional climax of the series, which comes when he visits a facility for African children with malaria, has almost no punch.

The show compounds its difficulties by relying on a set of hokey techniques that call attention to themselves. Granted, the beginnings and spread of agriculture aren't the easiest things to dramatize. But there's enough time-lapse photography of clouds in this series to last a lifetime. And the historic reenactments look like animatronic versions of the dioramas that used to populate natural history museums. Indeed, those of a certain age might feel they're watching the modern equivalent of a school filmstrip: ponderous in pace, with its didacticism guaranteed to be 100 percent sugar-free.

For anyone truly interested in Diamond's ideas, there's a better piece of real estate than in front of the tube. It's a comfortable chair, with his book open in your lap.

The bit about Carl Sagan is going to leave a mark.

Anyhoo, I think they really blew it here, as GG&S would have made the basis for a great reality/game show, kind of like Survivor meets Age of Empire. You'd divide them up into teams on their different islands, but give them access to different types of things which could be parlayed into technology. I'd love to see those boneheaded coffee baristas and disaffected lawyers try to figure out how to smelt bronze.

Personally, I'll pass on this one and wait for when they make a series out of Steven Levitt's Freakonomics, if only to see the Mick Jagger of American academics crown pass from the obsequiously ubiquitous Brian Greene.