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Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
Unavailable
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
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Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
Audiobook16 hours

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

Written by Jared Diamond

Narrated by Doug Ordunio

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

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About this audiobook

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Guns, Germs and Steel examines the rise of civilization and the issues its development has raised throughout history.
 
Having done field work in New Guinea for more than 30 years, Jared Diamond presents the geographical and ecological factors that have shaped the modern world. From the viewpoint of an evolutionary biologist, he highlights the broadest movements both literal and conceptual on every continent since the Ice Age, and examines societal advances such as writing, religion, government, and technology.  Diamond also dissects racial theories of global history, and the resulting work-Guns, Germs and Steel-is a major contribution to our understanding the evolution of human societies.

Editor's Note

Eloquent history…

This elegant and eloquent history of humanity examines not just how human society developed, but why it developed differently in different cultures. A must–read for the history buff and the layperson alike.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateJan 18, 2011
ISBN9780307932433
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Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
Author

Jared Diamond

JARED DIAMOND has been the national baseball writer for the Wall Street Journal since 2017. Prior to that, he spent a season as the Journal’s Yankees beat writer and three seasons as their Mets beat writer. In his current role, he leads the newspaper’s baseball coverage. This is his first book.  

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Reviews for Guns, Germs, and Steel

Rating: 4.115400350912372 out of 5 stars
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  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Interesting but not 100% convincing. I want to know more about technological regression!
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This is a weighty book, ya'll. Jared Diamond's book had been on my list for ages because once upon a time it had been on one of my recommended reading lists for an undergraduate Anthropology class (I majored in that field). I didn't have the time to read it then (it is 425 pages after all) but the topic still intrigued me. Much like the book above I was interested in the subject matter and found no fault with the writing style (other than it being more like a textbook than casual, recreational reading) but it was so dense that I didn't always feel compelled to pick it up in a spare moment. (I also kept falling asleep for some reason.) Progress: I made it to page 290 before I had to concede defeat (and ship it to the next person waiting to read it).
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Jarod Diamond examines the question of why are some societies more successful than others. Ultimately, why was it the Europeans who dominated exploration and conquest of the world? Why not China or Africa? Diamond explores the idea of "accidental conquest" based on geographic luck. This informational text is best suited for high school students because of the complexity of ideas. Diamond won the Pulitzer Prize (General Nonfiction) in 1998 for this book and in 1999 and 2004, it was placed on the ALA Outstanding Books for the College Bound list.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Lots of great ideas. I've heard it criticised for not being rigorous enough, and I thought it was too wordy full stop but the author acknowledges all of this and the big picture I don't know how you would get the picture without all the words.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    It's easily observed that many native peoples did not develop technology at the same rate as the white Europeans who eventually conquered them. Since the times when whites first encountered these races, they believed that their lack of technology meant they were less intelligent leading to a generallized belief of Caucasions as a superior race.In this book, Jared Diamond disabuses this notion. He cites a variety of anthropological arguments for the varied rates of technoligical development, including the number of plant and animal species available in an area for humans to domesticate, the ease of spread of new technologies and newly domesticates species, and impassable landforms which left cultures isolated. Naturally, this also affected disease resistance.I have read very little anthropology, so I found this fascinating. I have no way of judging whether this is new information, or a compilation of arguments familiar to anthropologists, but I learned quite a bit. Since it is twenty years old, I noticed a few scientific inaccuracies (dogs being domesticated in more than one area is the one that stood out to me) and I'm sure that anthropology has similarly moved forward.Nevertheless, I found it worthwhile and intriguing.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The aim of this book (and I am oversimplifying) is to explain why western countries became the dominant force in the last couple of centuries. Specifically, he is rejecting social Darwinist and racist explanations for why it has been mostly European Caucasian societies that have come to power, to find an explanation based on geography and evolution. Diamond is successful in this explanation, and takes the reader some of the most interesting developments in human history--the rise of agriculture and animal domestication, the invention of writing, and other important technologies, and migration and trade patterns. While the book is packed with interesting information, it is however, rather repetitive, and probably cites more examples than it needs to.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Guns, Germs and Steel is the iconic 1998 work by Jared Diamond positing so clearly the argument that biogeographical factors are the determinant behind relative rates of progress and success among different human societies. His work argues in the very long-term it is ultimately biogeographic factors that are the ultimate cause of trends in human history. What Diamond has done is spell out effectively the seemingly obvious point that geography impacts a society, its success, and culture, and has advanced that idea into a generalised analysis of human history.Diamond is in particular an expert on New Guinea. It shows. The work goes into extensive detail on Papuans as an interesting historical experiment to assess his theory. His assertion that Papuans are individually smarter than westerners is of course non-verifiable as it is largely only those with access to higher levels of education in the west that will cross paths with Papuans. Nevertheless it is indicative of the close relationship Diamond has with some of the cultures of Papua, especially the part not under the control of Indonesia.Diamond begins his march through human history by asking the question from the noble savage - why is it Papuans did not develop the tools to conquer far flung parts of the world. Of course, actually they did. Diamond does not offer this obvious counterpoint but given Papuan peoples managed to claim the lands they now own means they must have been able to do some far-flung conquering of their own, just not on the same scale.Diamond's answer to the question why some societies developed the tools for global conquest and others not is divided into proximate and ultimate causes. The proximate causes are initially described as Guns, Germs, and Steel. It is a punchy title but not the most accurate and Diamond moves on from it fairly quickly. Guns and Steel in particular are fairly interchangeable as they both represent advanced weapon technology. Through the later stages of the work, Diamond makes greater reference to political organisation rather than just sticking to his catchy trio.The great example Diamond uses is the mortal blow inflicted on the Aztecs by the Spanish. The Aztecs really should have been able to put up much more of a fight against the Conquistadors but Diamond shows how the proximate factors of weaponry, other technology, and germs were able to wipe out a mighty empire. This example though is merely the step towards explaining the far more interesting assessment of ultimate causes.Diamond's analysis of ancient history is fascinating. The well-known Fertile Crescent was of course the dawn of civilisation but what Diamond catalogues so well is the range of advantages that location had over everywhere else. The reason civilisation arose first there is because of the set of seeds worth growing. Diamond's analysis of the most productive seed groups suggests the Fertile Crescent was inevitably going to be the site of civilisation's birth. It is fascinating to see some of the tables of productive foods. Fascinating for instance that the British Isles offers just oats. Fascinating because oats remain a staple of British diet thousands of years later.The idea of civilisation's spread through settled farming is of course obvious. Diamond takes that obvious point and applies it to the whole of human history. He charts the spread of societies and their food package. The spread of foods heads along east-west parallels rather than north-south. It makes complete sense because produce will not grow at different latitudes of temperature, climate, and season. This necessarily implies that transfer of food packages runs most easily across continents as in the spread from the Fertile Crescent to Europe rather than up and down continents as did not happen for instance in all of Africa.Diamond takes this idea a step further by assessing that there is an east-west effect on technology transfer more generally. This is debatable and Diamond does not really show technology transfer beyond food as having a latitudinal effect. His examples are more of geographic barriers with the Isthmus of Panama and the Sahara Desert both being good reasons technology transferred so slowly or not at all.Diamond does at times make some bizarre claims such as Neanderthals having made no impact on modern humans. The genetic record suggests otherwise. He also seems to have failed to have accounted for the re-populating of Africa by peoples who had already moved into Asia. Nevertheless his analysis is largely sound.There is sometimes an agenda behind the analysis. Diamond is particularly keen to point out the failings of race-based theories of societal success. He takes on the most obvious example in the form of Aboriginal Australia. It is the hardest argument for those opposed to racism to make - that somehow the most backward socieities on Earth exist in the form they do next to advanced westernised Australia for reasons other than genetics. Diamond's analysis is effective in describing the ultimate causes. Australia was of course populated much later than the rest of the world and it has a terrible set of native food products. It is only the bringing of temperate food to the most temperate parts of Australia that Europeans have flourished. It is a convincing argument.Diamond divides his book into four parts. Part One sets up the various theories being explored using examples to show how similar peoples, such as Polynesians on different islands, developed differently based on their biogeography. It is a great start and somewhat awe-inspiring to read it spelled out so clearly. Part two is about food development using examples of the availability of differently productive foods and domesticable animals. Why some types of animals are more domesticable than others of the same family is an area Diamond highlights for future research. As well as offering productivity gains, the animal link is important for Diamond's proximate conquest cause - germs which is a key aspect of part three along with some fairly bland writings about the differences between tribes and bands.Part four is the conclusion. It is the history of different continents following Diamond's theory. Unfortunately it is by far the weakest part of the book and exposes its major flaws. Diamond took a surprisingly non-Euro-centric approach to explaining the world. For some reason more than half of the world's population is lumped together as Eurasia. The analysis of the rest of the world is not always great. The chapter on why China became Chinese is remarkably limited. The chapter on Africa is fairly good, showing the Bantu expansion as a good case study explaining why the Bantu societies triumphed over Khoisan and Pygmy but could only go as far as their food package could take them.The chapter on the Americas leaves open the most obvious question. Why did they not develop boats? Polynesians boated to extraordinary lengths yet Meso-Americans failed to develop seafaring capability to navigate along a coastline in ways which could have led to contact between Meso-American and South American states. It is not a particularly difficult thing to do - the Celts of course having moved up from Iberia to the British Isles exactly that way.Diamond begins to address some of the criticisms of his work in a well-crafted epilogue. This was presumably written after the first publication when the most glaring flaws came to light. In particular he posits a believable theory about why China has not been the dominant force in human history. Frankly China should always be the leading player but has never managed to achieve that position. Diamond offers a new idea not present in his earlier discussion - that societal formation itself is determined by biogeography. Europe is divided into smaller States because of its geography which means more competition for ideas and much less possibilty of turning off progress. China is stilted by its dominance of its own expansive landmass and the centralisation of power in the hands of just one who can turn off progress.The epilogue argument is fascinating because it develops Diamond's theory to effectively begin identifying that it is geography that determines how a society works. This is now a well-regarded and much used idea which can explain how peoples in different parts of the world can develop similar proclivities because of having the same kinds of terrain. The great martial races of the world are of course all from tough places, mostly mountainous ranges.There are of course areas for development from Diamond's theory. Most obviously why advanced western socieities stopped trying to conquer the rest of the world after World War II. Equally the role of the individual in history must play some role. Diamond suggests it was inevitable that power would shift from the Fertile Crescent west but that is only an analysis of what happened without it being truly inevitable. Would it really be inevitable that Europe would rise had Sparta not defeated the Persian invasion, or indeed had Sparta later defeated Athens? Would the global system of an international rules-based global order be in place had the Axis powers sued for peace in 1944? Such butterfly effects cannot surely have had no impact on the longue duree.For all the potential critiques of Diamond's work though it is a fabulous piece. It may be turgid at times with the repitition of phrases and argument but it is a defining work in the now widely accepted notion that the environment shapes the socities that inhabit it, and that the success or failure of societies depend on the resources they can draw from the place in which they live.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    one of 3 top all tie science books
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Dense, academic, slow and possessing an onslaught of illustrative examples. Not the most entertaining read, and I probably retained very little. Worthy of a Pulitzer? Absolutely.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The author gives a well researched factual account of how the European continent managed to conquer Africa and North America. The luck of beneficial geographic placement and easily domesticated species gave them the greater competitive edge - and explains so much about how the world was explored and subsequently colonized. Very interesting book - National Geographic did a dvd companion piece that was good also.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Majestic, evidence based sweep of the history of human civilisations and their conflicts. Epic!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Worth the time!! Great educational book with a cool twist on history.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Detailed and well researched while being easy to understand. Human evolution and formation of nation states described in a seamless manner with ease. It’s a insightful yet fun to read book.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    World history unfolds and I learned a lot about why things are.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A sweeping discussion on the possible causes for success and/or failure of civilisations and the environmental and cultural influences that contribute. Although quite dry at times, the book is sprinkled with anecdotes and stories that keep you intrigued and engaged.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Breathtaking scope of study. I had the book on my shelf for years-unread. I not only am going to read it– yes I know, I just listened to it–I’m going to watch the movie too! Geography is destiny!! That’s why Bantus on rhinoceroses did not conquer Rome. And other really quite important things.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Very good book. Absolutely amazing. He makes a very strong case. It discusses many different fields and all chapters are useful
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Overall this was an interesting and informative book. Some repetition and LOTS of facts. I sometimes had trouble keeping different language types apart. But I did learn a lot so it was worth the effort to finish it.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Hard to listen for more than 45 minutes in a row, very interesting enjoyed it very much despite it's length.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Riveting book! Can’t blame why its best selling book!
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Jared Diamond traces 13,000 years of human history to explain the environmental patterns responsible for the march of civilization.This book is hard to read as a stand-alone piece of non-fiction. Better that it be used as a text in a course in anthropological world history
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    If someone told me this book is the manual Sid Meyer read to create the game rules for Civilization, I'd buy it.
    The author has a simple thesis: the differences between world's peoples comes from geography, and not from characteristics inherent to peoples themselves. The chapters contain arguments from archeology, biology, anthropology and even linguistics to support this thesis, as well as graphs, maps and diagrams that help visualize the information.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Some interesting theories, but ultimately Diamond is too eager to prove his own thesis and guilty of making the facts fit the hypothesis rather than vice versa.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This is the second time that I have read this book. Albeit this was an audio book. I am still highly impressed by this book. Although sometimes repetitive the content is fascinating and the logic is convincing. I am impressed that Jared was able to come up with what I believe are original thoughts on the reasons for developmental history across the world in human time. I highly recommend this somewhat academic book on history for the general public.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    nonfiction (history/sociology as explained via geography). I thought this was interesting but my attention drifted in the second half (sort of repeating points made in the first half, also--kind of a dense 400 pages).
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I started reading this book sometime last year and after a pretty fast start, it took me ~6 months to finish the last three chapters. The concepts are really interesting, but after a while Diamond was just too repetitive for me. In it, Diamond tries to answer the question of a New Guinean who wants to know why Diamond's people are the 'haves' and why his people are the 'have-nots'. While there is certainly a lot more explored in its 425 pages (not counting the bibliography or index), the main concepts that resonated with me are how the east-west axis of Eurasia was more conducive to the spread of people and ideas than the north-south axes of the Americas and Africa and secondly how Eurasia started out with a more beneficial food and animal 'package' than did either Africa or the Americas. I can understand why it won the Pulitzer.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This book constantly blew my mind. So many facts and theories that explained so much about why the world is the way it is today. I got a little bored in the language chapter, but other than that I was riveted the entire time.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Wonderful ideas and some compelling arguments about how human history has unfolded as it has, but terribly dry prose and very repetitive. Feels like it was both trying to be a formal academic paper and a popular history/science book, and the middle ground is a bit awkward.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Nice book, with a straight forward argument. Its central thesis has been adopted into other books and papers I've read, but it was nice to get to the original. It was refreshing to find such an accessible piece of historical anthropology.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    The book started with lot of promise as the question it aimed to address was exciting. However, for me, it didn't continue on that track and became boring and repetitive. I feel could have been written in a much smaller version.