This book won a Pulitzer Prize, and remains provacative and contentious today. For the Free Pather, the book is a useful piece of advice- a road map on how interactions between high impact and low impact cultures tends to play out. Though time is starting to where on some of the information in Diamond's book- the information on the differing tactical and technological advantages imparted by different geographies and different moral systems remains instructive.
The lesson of Polynesia, where one culture fragmented into many related cultures due to the differing demands of their environments is something all Free Pathers should consider. The lesson of Atahualpa is critical to the survival of any low impact culture facing an armed and militarized high impact culture (and nearly all high impact cultures are armed and militarized). The lesson of germs, population dense societies are breeding grounds for micro organisms- do your best to isolate groups exposed to such cultures and do not accept their gifts.
This book may not be the definitive work that its proponents have called it, but any Free Pather should learn its lessons.
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