Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies"Fascinating.... Lays a foundation for understanding human history."—Bill Gates 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. |
Contents
| 9 | |
UP TO THE STARTING LINE | 35 |
A NATURAL EXPERIMENT | 53 |
COLLISION AT CAJAMARCA | 67 |
PART TWO THE RISE AND SPREAD OF FOOD | 83 |
HAVENOTS | 93 |
TO FARM OR NOT TO FARM | 104 |
APPLES OR INDIANS | 131 |
NECESSITYS MOTHER | 239 |
FROM EGALITARIANISM | 265 |
PART FOUR AROUND THE WORLD | 293 |
The history of East Asia | 322 |
SPEEDBOAT TO POLYNESIA | 334 |
HEMISPHERES COLLIDING | 354 |
HOW AFRICA BECAME BLACK | 376 |
EPILOGUE THE FUTURE OF HUMAN | 403 |
ZEBRAS UNHAPPY MARRIAGES | 157 |
SPACIOUS SKIES | 176 |
PART THREE FROM FOOD TO GUNS | 193 |
BLUEPRINTS AND BORROWED | 215 |
Guns Germs and Steel Today | 426 |
I | 441 |
Credits | 472 |
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Aboriginal Australians agriculture alphabet ancient archaeological areas arrival Asian Atahuallpa Australia Austronesian languages bands Bantu barley became Cajamarca centralized century cereals Chapter chiefdoms China Chinese climate colonization complex conquest continents crops cultural dates developed diffusion diseases domestic animals early East eastern United epidemic Eurasia Europe European evidence evolved example factors farmers Fertile Crescent food production genetic germs groups Guinea highlands Guinea region guns Hence horses human populations human societies hunter-gatherers hunting-gathering Inca independent Indian indigenous Indonesia infected invention islands Jared Diamond Khoisan killed language families Lapita linguistic livestock living mammals Mesoamerica microbes miles modern Native American Niger-Congo language North America numbers origins Pacific pigs Pizarro plants and animals political Polynesian population densities pottery remained seeds Southeast Asia Southwest Spaniards species spread stone tools Sumerian thousands tion tribes tropical Southeast University Press villages West western wheat wild ancestors wild plants writing systems Yali's