Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (Patterns of Life)

by Jared Diamond

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.

• ISBN10: 0393317552
• ISBN13: 9780393317558
• Publish Date: 9 April 1999 (first published 30 April 1998)
• Publish Status: Inactive
• Out of Print: 9 March 2021
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: WW Norton & Co
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 496
• Language: English

Reviews

[wyvernfriend]

An interesting book this looks at how human society developed over the years. I'm not totally sure that it's absolutely correct but it makes for interesting reading and should be compulsary reading for some SF and Fantasy writers who are trying to build a credible world.

It's interesting to see how availability of resources and ideas can cause societies to move forward and innovate.

Probably a bit over-simplified in some areas and I did suffer from some glazeover while reading some of the statistics or when he starts getting a little geekish about his own particular area of expertese.