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Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
by: Jared Diamond

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Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 303.4
EAN: 9780393061314
ISBN: 0393061310
Label: W. W. Norton
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 512
Publication Date: July 11, 2005
Publisher: W. W. Norton
Studio: W. W. Norton
Sales Rank: 1294

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Editorial Review:

Product Description:
With a new chapter. The phenomenal bestseller—over 1.5 million copies sold—is now a major PBS special.

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Guns, Germs, and Steel is a brilliant work answering the question of why the peoples of certain continents succeeded in invading other continents and conquering or displacing their peoples. This edition includes a new chapter on Japan and all-new illustrations drawn from the television series.

Until around 11,000 BC, 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. 32 illustrations.

Amazon.com Review:
Explaining what William McNeill called The Rise of the West has become the central problem in the study of global history. In Guns, Germs, and Steel Jared Diamond presents the biologist's answer: geography, demography, and ecological happenstance. Diamond evenhandedly reviews human history on every continent since the Ice Age at a rate that emphasizes only the broadest movements of peoples and ideas. Yet his survey is binocular: one eye has the rather distant vision of the evolutionary biologist, while the other eye--and his heart--belongs to the people of New Guinea, where he has done field work for more than 30 years.

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- A profound and lasting classic
This is a truly profound book, and quite elegantly written. The central insight is how geography has been a main driving factor in the development of civilizations. Diamond comes at this thesis from several different angles, most importantly after looking at how development has differed between different regions.
Diamond builds a very compelling argument, and is helped by his intimate knowledge of many places - knowledge which comes from actually having spent quite a deal of traveling. He is also helped by his diverse background - as a scientist he has also written two brilliant books on biology (The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal (P.S.) & Why Is Sex Fun?: The Evolution Of Human Sexuality (Science Masters)).
This is popular science at its best, ... Read More

Rating:

- Fascinating overview of environmental factors, but too biased
This is a fascinating study of how societies developed, however, it's frustrating that Diamond takes such an ideological position at the outset, ruling out some factors simply because he doesn't like them.

"Inexcusably for an evolutionary biologist, Diamond fails to inform his readers that it is different environments that cause, via natural selection, biological differences among populations. All of the Eurasian developments he described created positive feedback loops selecting for increased intelligence and various personality traits (e.g., altruism, rule-following, etc.)."

Rating:

- History; It's What's for Dinner
Dr. Diamond's magnum opus for which he has won an Oscar. Or maybe it was the Pullet Surprise. Something like that.

Unrivaled, in the experience of this humble reviewer, in either clarity or insight, GGS, is one of the best books I have ever read. Diamond is a gifted writer and is able to present complex issues simply and clearly. He also presents several interesting hypotheses regarding the evolution of civilization about how the humans had uncomfortably little to do with anything. We are the products of the plants and animals we domesticated. So go read the book before I domesticate you...

Rating:

- Fascinating!
It took me a while to open this book, as I was absolutely convinced that, with a title like Guns, Germs and Steel, the subject could only be war. Eventually, however, I opened the book, and was absolutely fascinated by it. The premise of the book is Yali's question. Yali, a native of New Guinea, has never been out of his country, is "Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people had little cargo of our own?"
The answer to this question takes about 430 pages of very interesting reading, going back to the rise and spread of food production, from food to guns, germs and steel, around the world in 5 chapters. The writer, Jared Diamond delves into pre-history, how and why the nomadic hunter/gatherers became more stationary, and ... Read More

Rating:

- Great subject and treatment - shakey science
I know everyone says this - just adding my voice.

The author needs to define his terms - what does he mean by 'smart' when talking about the New Guineans. What does he mean by calling Australia 'backwards'? I wish he developed these vague/biased terms.

Books : Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies