Other editions of book Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies

A global account of the rise of civilization that is also a stunning refutation of ideas of human development based on race. Until around 11,000 b.c., all peoples were still Stone Age hunter/gatherers. At that point, a great divide occurred in the rates that human societies evolved. In Eurasia, parts of the Americas, and Africa, farming became the prevailing mode of existence when indigenous wild plants and animals were domesticated by prehistoric planters and herders. As Jared Diamond vividly reveals, the very people who gained a head start in producing food would collide with preliterate cultures, shaping the modern world through conquest, displacement, and genocide. The paths that lead from scattered centers of food to broad bands of settlement had a great deal to do with climate and geography. But how did differences in societies arise? Why weren't native Australians, Americans, or Africans the ones to colonize Europe? Diamond dismantles pernicious racial theories tracing societal differences to biological differences. He assembles convincing evidence linking germs to domestication of animals, germs that Eurasians then spread in epidemic proportions in their voyages of discovery. In its sweep, Guns, Germs and Steel encompasses the rise of agriculture, technology, writing, government, and religion, providing a unifying theory of human history as intriguing as the histories of dinosaurs and glaciers. Jared Diamond, professor of physiology at the UCLA Medical School, is the author of The Third Chimpanzee, awarded the 1992 Los Angeles Times Science Book Award. He is a regular contributor to Natural History and Discover magazines and lives in Los Angeles.

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, commonly cited as Guns, Germs, and Steel, is a 1997 transdisciplinary non-fiction book by Jared Diamond, professor of geography and physiology at the University of California, Los Angeles. Originally published: 1997 Author: Jared Diamond LC Class: HM206.D48 1997 ISBN: 0-393-03891-2 (1st edition, hardcover) Dewey Decimal: 303.4 21 Awards: Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction, Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science

Why did Eurasians conquer, displace, or decimate Native Americans, Australians and Africans, instead of the reverse? In this groundbreaking book, evolutionary biologist Jared Diamond stunningly dismantles racially based theories of human history by revealing the environmental factors actually responsible for shaping the modern world. Societies that had a head start in food production advanced beyond the hunter-gatherer stage, and then developed writing, technology and government, and organized religion - as well as nasty germs and potent weapons of war. "The scope and explanatory power of this book are astounding." (The New Yorker)

Why did Eurasians conquer, displace, or decimate Native Americans, Australians and Africans, instead of the reverse? In this groundbreaking book, evolutionary biologist Jared Diamond stunningly dismantles racially based theories of human history by revealing the environmental factors actually responsible for shaping the modern world. Societies that had a head start in food production advanced beyond the hunter-gatherer stage, and then developed writing, technology and government, and organized religion - as well as nasty germs and potent weapons of war. "The scope and explanatory power of this book are astounding." (The New Yorker)

Why did Eurasians conquer, displace, or decimate Native Americans, Australians, and Africans, instead of the reverse? Evolutionary biologist Jared Diamond stunningly dismantles racially based theories of human history by revealing the environmental factors actually responsible for history’s broadest patterns. The story begins 13,000 years ago, when Stone Age hunter-gatherers constituted the entire human population. Around that time, the paths of development 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. Only societies that advanced beyond the hunter-gatherer stage acquired a potential for developing writing, technology, government, and organized religions€”as well as those nasty germs and potent weapons of war. It was those societies, that expanded to new homelands at the expense of oth