Guns, Germs, and Steel (2003)
Guns, Germs, and Steel (2003) This 3-part PBS/National Geographic documentary is a filmic adaptation of UCLA geographer Jared Diamond’s 1997 best-selling book of the same name. The influence of Diamond’s book is far-reaching and has been credited almost single-handedly with reviving scholarly interest in broad, generalizable historical interpretation and in interdisciplinary connections between history, geography, and biological sciences.
This film does an excellent job of demonstrating the appeal of Diamond’s theoretical approach in pursuit of a grand question: Why have some parts of the world become so rich and powerful while others have remained impoverished? In each episode, Diamond visits a different part of the world in search of the “roots of inequality.” He firmly rejects racist notions of natural or cultural superiority or inferiority, instead focusing on how environmental resources, climate, and geographic position of different parts of the world predisposed particular economic and military outcomes. Critics of Diamond’s original book have argued that his theory is excessively deterministic and provides little room for human agency or social forces like religion. One of the most important reasons why someone who has read Diamond’s book should also watch the film version is because it gives Diamond a chance to respond to some of these criticisms (mainly in a segment toward the end of the first part).
Part 1 begins with Diamond’s personal background in New Guinea and the genesis of his research question. New Guineans are clever and adaptive people who have lived on their island for tens of thousands of years, so why did they remain a primitive stone-age society well into the 20th century? It is a concise, fast-moving, and visually helpful summary of the main argument in his book.
Part 2 takes Diamond to South America where he examines why Europeans were able to conquer the vast and powerful Inca Empire. This is the most explicitly and distinctively historical part of the documentary. Part 3 brings Diamond to Africa to examine the biological and geographical limits of European colonial expansion.
Despite an intriguing premise and some useful military-economic analysis, Part 3 is the weakest episode; toward the end it loses its academic focus and devolves into extended scenes of how Diamond personally reacts to poverty and suffering in Africa.
Guns, Germs, and Steel uses a variety of techniques to present its arguments. Much on-screen activity features Diamond visiting different parts of the world to discuss his theory. Other on-screen commentators interact with Diamond as host. At other times, the documentary uses effective computer graphics to illustrate points (particularly good are visuals explaining regional animal and crop availability and the influence of latitude). Additional visual interest is provided by occasional live-action recreations of past societies like the Inca Empire and the evolving way of life in a Neolithic village. Furthermore, the film powerfully illustrates some of its arguments through visual demonstrations, most notably Spanish jinette horsemanship and the power of Spanish steel swords.
For all of these impressive characteristics and a total running time of just over three hours, the documentary fails to capture the full scope of Diamond’s book. His compelling chapters on plant domestication and Polynesian migrations, for example, are minimized or ignored in the film. Of particular difficulty for classroom use is the one hour length of each part; furthermore, the pacing is so quick and layered that it can be difficult to divide the part into shorter stand-alone clips.
Scott Metzger Pennsylvania State University sam59@psu.edu
