In order to provide the image of scholarly substance for his remarks on culture, the governor cited (as he has done in the past) economist David Landes's book The Wealth and Poverty of Nations (1998). He also made reference to Jared Diamond's influential and award winning 1997 book Guns, Germs, and Steel. In general, discussion of one of these books commonly elicits mention of the other.
I recently started reading Diamond's text (after which I will move on to Landes, preferring to do them in order). In conjunction, I watched the National Geographic documentary (of the same title) on Diamond and his book, which I found quite informative and a good distillation of the author's thesis.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0475043
(Available on Netflix and iTunes)
In trying to answer the question of why Western Europe achieved superlative global power, Diamond looks at how different civilizations developed, what resources they had at their disposal, and how different technological information traversed the continents over the ages.
Though maybe not the final analysis, from the documentary and the small bit I've read of the book so far, Diamond does a very nice job of punching holes in the longstanding and common belief among Westerners that Western culture is simply superior - a seductive and understandably popular notion that also happens to be convenient, feeble, and juvenile.
Once I've gone through Diamond and Landes, I hope to return to this issue in a future blog post. But I wanted to suggest the film, which incidentally connects to recent campaign activity.
See also Diamond's op-ed in Thursday's New York Times, addressing Romney's remarks in Jerusalem:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/02/opinion/mitt-romneys-search-for-simple-answers.html
