送交者: DBS 于 December 18, 2006 11:29:53:
回答: 你问我哪？：-) 由 binbin 于 December 18, 2006 10:26:26:
It was rather bizarre.
In one of the deleted post I was suggesting you and No-xiong to drop by at your convenience, and wondering how good GL has got to with babysitting skills:-) i'm fine, just too busy, can't go out but can entertain you guys for a night if you come. If A Chi is here, please contact me for your New Year holiday plans, you're always invited.
OK, that book I mentioned was found on Wal-Mart bookshelf among the best sellers (two months ago at least). It's rather readable but I had only the time to browse through some portions: chpt 1-4 would like to go deeper than most of the analysis done before for the reasons of a question encapsulated in a native's question: why you white guys have so much 'cargo'? The encounter of the Spaniard with the Maya king was vividly described as an example in chapt 1 (don't have the book at hands, lended out), the info was based on the report of the priests at the scene to the pope. Maybe chpt 13 was on chinese civilization, in the end of the book the author attempted to extrapolate his finding to draw commonalities for the "fates of human societies".
Diamond is a geography prof at UCLA, he believes that history should be treated as a science subject, and somewhere i picked up the idea that he thinks that after Toynbee's 12 volumes nobody had thought too much about that 'cargo' question, so he was to give it a try...This kind of subjects are better covered over beers or something stronger...:-)