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Why did some societies develop powerful technologies, expansive governments, and enormous wealth while others followed completely different paths?
In Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond takes readers across roughly 13,000 years of human history to explore that question. Rather than attributing the rise of powerful civilizations to differences between peoples themselves, Diamond argues that geography and environment played enormous roles in shaping human history.
He examines how access to domesticable plants and animals helped certain societies develop agriculture earlier, creating larger populations and allowing technologies, political structures, and written language to develop. He also explores how close contact with domesticated animals contributed to infectious diseases and immunity, giving some populations a devastating advantage when previously separated societies encountered one another.
Sweeping, thought-provoking, and ambitious, Guns, Germs, and Steel asks readers to reconsider why history unfolded so differently across continents and how food, geography, disease, technology, and sheer environmental circumstance helped shape the modern world.
Why did some societies develop powerful technologies, expansive governments, and enormous wealth while others followed completely different paths?
In Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond takes readers across roughly 13,000 years of human history to explore that question. Rather than attributing the rise of powerful civilizations to differences between peoples themselves, Diamond argues that geography and environment played enormous roles in shaping human history.
He examines how access to domesticable plants and animals helped certain societies develop agriculture earlier, creating larger populations and allowing technologies, political structures, and written language to develop. He also explores how close contact with domesticated animals contributed to infectious diseases and immunity, giving some populations a devastating advantage when previously separated societies encountered one another.
Sweeping, thought-provoking, and ambitious, Guns, Germs, and Steel asks readers to reconsider why history unfolded so differently across continents and how food, geography, disease, technology, and sheer environmental circumstance helped shape the modern world.