Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
by
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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 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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On Jul 25 2019
Michael Van Ness
read this book
and commented:
Smallpox, a great virgin population killer.
- On Dec 12 2017 David (USA) read this book
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On Apr 27 2017
Bryan Gardner
read this book
and commented:
Great book, but a dense read at times. Great explanation of why many civilizations at similar latitudes are more likely to expand and survive than those more longitudinally aligned.