Book Review: Guns,Germs,and Steel and The Birth of the Gods

Abstract

Jared Diamond, in his bestseller, Guns, Germs, and Steel, got it backwards in concluding that environmental factors and not human, psychological factors were the primary determinants leading to Europe’s global extension of power. Findings in Jacques Cauvin’s recent, archaeo-logically grounded The Birth of the Gods and the Origins of Agriculture mesh with the psychological discoveries of Carl Jung and Erich Neumann to elucidate this point. Cauvin concludes that the Neolithic Revolution was born of a radical new psychology in humans, amounting to the beginning of religion. Great Mother images from depth psychology correspond to Cauvin’s artifacts and mark the formation of the ego. From this beginning in the Near East, the evolution of consciousness can be traced forward through successive cultural mythologies.