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Hardcover
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9780393061314
Overview
Overview
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.
- Format: Hardcover
- Author: Diamond, Jared
- ISBN: 9780393061314
- Condition: Used
- Dimensions: 9.24 x 1.55
- Number Of Pages: 528
- Publication Year: 2005
Customer Reviews
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5 ★
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Historic geography to help you understand why some societies are more advanced than others
Emma R. - 8 months agoHelping 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.
HPB Staff Review -
Guns, Germs, and Steel
Susan D. - 5 years 4 months agoKicking 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).
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Definitely Worth the Read
Hillary X. - 5 years 4 months agoDefinitely 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.
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An engaging read on the cultural development of modern civilizations
Sasha S. - 5 years 6 months agoGuns, 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