While I was on one of my trips, I picked up "Guns, Germs, and Steel."
Quite an interesting viewpoint. I didn't quite finish it, but I got more than halfway through it before I had to put it back in the library. I got the gist of it.
It gives a good historical setting to the world we find ourselves in now, at least as far as cultures and cultural ascendancy is involved.
Strange though, that the Cradle of Civilisation is now the bone-pit of it.
I almost got that one...looked interesting.
In my heart of hearts, I am a socio-economic historian. Or perhaps, more clearly, I like to study the interplay between world views, technology, and economic and social reactions to events over the course of time.
Political history makes a lot more sense seen in such contexts.
This is my avocation - my hobbies, my reading, and some of my work is all tied up into this...no doubt John Campbell planted some of the seeds of looking at things this way in my head.