In this “artful, informative, and delightful” (William H. McNeill, New York Review of Books) book, Jared Diamond convincingly argues that geographical and environmental factors shaped the modern world. Societies that had had a head start in food production advanced beyond the hunter-gatherer stage, and then developed religion–as well as nasty germs and potent weapons of war–and adventured on … adventured on sea and land to conquer and decimate preliterate cultures. A major advance in our understanding of human societies, Guns, Germs, and Steel chronicles the way that the modern world came to be and stunningly dismantles racially based theories of human history. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science, the Rhone-Poulenc Prize, and the Commonwealth club of California’s Gold Medal.
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One of the most interesting books I have ever read! Absolutely fascinating.
Interesting take on how geography, technological development and available resources determined which societies developed faster and how much that determined the world in which we now live.
The chapters on Australia and Japan are eye-opening.