I found this book rather more… prosaic than Diamond’s other books. A bit like a pop anthropology trilogy, I found Guns Germs and Steel fascinating; Collapse engaging and very informative; and this book rather… textbook-y. It was long on rote recitation of facts, compare-and-contrast that was not altogether surprising or new. There is indeed something interesting to be said for comparing nation-state societies as a whole to non-nation state societies, but I think this work is simply too long-winded on the details and too short on the comparative analysis to really make the subject matter shine.

By way of example - Diamond focuses a good deal on the justice systems of traditional societies and those of and nation-states. We are all familiar with the fact that our modern justice system is more concerned with adjudicating responsibility and punishment for a crime, as opposed to (in broad terms) the more traditional concern for restoring the relationship between the parties involved. There is indeed something to be learned from traditional justice systems, and the restorative justice movement is a good example of an effort to interweave more traditional approaches to justice with our state-based approach. But the elaboration of this idea simply goes on and on, with a sort of ponderous focus on the facts which are in some ways the least interesting, with dozens of pages taken to explain what maybe ten could have done equally well.

The parts of the book that I did find the most interesting were those that contemplated the history of language and the development of religion, and I very much wish that Diamond had expanded on those topics. (Though there are other books which approach these topics in a great deal more detail; perhaps this book is one which is more interesting for the footnotes than for the contents.)