Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies image number 0

Why did Eurasians conquer, displace, or decimate Native Americans, Australians, and Africans, instead of the reverse? In this "artful, informative, and delightful" (William H. McNeill, New York Review of Books) book, a classic of our time, evolutionary biologist Jared Diamond dismantles racist theories of human history by revealing the environmental factors actually responsible for its broadest patterns.

The story begins 13,000 years ago, when Stone Age hunter-gatherers constituted the entire human population. Around that time, the developmental paths of human societies on different continents began to diverge greatly. Early domestication of wild plants and animals in the Fertile Crescent, China, Mesoamerica, the Andes, and other areas gave peoples of those regions a head start at a new way of life. But the localized origins of farming and herding proved to be only part of the explanation for their differing fates. The unequal rates at which food production spread from those initial centers were influenced by other features of climate and geography, including the disparate sizes, locations, and even shapes of the continents. Only societies that moved away from the hunter-gatherer stage went on to develop writing, technology, government, and organized religions as well as deadly germs and potent weapons of war. It was those societies, adventuring on sea and land, that invaded others, decimating native inhabitants through slaughter and the spread of disease.

A major landmark in our understanding of human societies, Guns, Germs, and Steel chronicles the way in which the modern world, and its inequalities, came to be.

Item Information Item Information

Format: TradePaperback
Author: Diamond, Jared
ISBN: 9780393354324
Condition: Used
Dimensions: 9.10 x 1.60
Number Of Pages: 528
Publication Year: 2017

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Historic geography to help you understand why some societies are more advanced than others

null null. - 2 months ago

Helping readers grasp that geography and the environment are crucial to understanding how and why history played out the way it did is ONLY beneficial to progressing society forward. By giving us examples of small pocket Oceania societies to comparing how human nature is on a huge world scale, Guns, Germs, and Steel is an essential read to helping us move forward together as a society but also as human beings.
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Guns, Germs, and Steel

Susan D. - 4 years 9 months ago

Kicking myself for not reading it until 24 years after it was published! Beautifully written and exquisitely documented history of how and why a few civilizations acquired extensive power, and others did not. A great prelude to the book Caste (by Isabel Wilkerson).
Definitely Worth the Read

Hillary X. - 4 years 10 months ago

Definitely one of my favorite books. Diamond’s ability to tell a story through multiple perspectives—whether that be historical, cultural, ethical, or scientific—never ceases to amaze. Packed with good information, logical arguments, and the closest wholistic explanation for the success of certain human societies.
An engaging read on the cultural development of modern civilizations

Sasha S. - 5 years ago

Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond is a fascinating read that aims to explain how the cultural dominance of Eurasian civilizations is the byproduct of favorable environmental conditions, rather than any inherent superiority of the populations. The book is a very engaging account of a controversial topic, guaranteed to satisfy any reader interested in gaining an understanding of how the world's cultural landscape came to be what it is today.
HPB Staff Review

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Historic geography to help you understand why some societies are more advanced than others

Guns, Germs, and Steel

Definitely Worth the Read

An engaging read on the cultural development of modern civilizations