Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies | 
 enlarge | Author: Jared M. Diamond
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Category: Book
List Price: $17.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  1082 reviews
Sales Rank: 1513
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 480
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.1 x 1.5
ISBN: 0393317552
Dewey Decimal Number: 303.4
EAN: 9780393317558
ASIN: 0393317552
Publication Date: April 1, 1999
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize. 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.
Amazon.com Review
Explaining what William McNeill called The Rise of the West has become the central problem in the study of global history. In Guns, Germs, and Steel Jared Diamond presents the biologist's answer: geography, demography, and ecological happenstance. Diamond evenhandedly reviews human history on every continent since the Ice Age at a rate that emphasizes only the broadest movements of peoples and ideas. Yet his survey is binocular: one eye has the rather distant vision of the evolutionary biologist, while the other eye--and his heart--belongs to the people of New Guinea, where he has done field work for more than 30 years.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 1077 more reviews...
 No Book is More Important January 5, 2009
With over 1,000 reviews on Amazon it is quite unlikely you will read anything different in my review than all the other five star reviews. I must say that Jared Diamond has written an extraordinary book. The question he tackles with GGS is, "Why and how did wealth and power develop in some areas and not in others."
Diamond concludes that wealth and power can be contributed to several factors: an East/West axis, domesticable plants and animals, this results in food surpluses and thus sedentary lifestyles which allow for specialization. Also, the domesticated large animals transfer diseases to a population, but due the sheer size of the population over time they will be able to develop immunity. Specialization then produces technology, writing, and political organization. In all this is why Eurasia was the region to conquer the Americas, Australia, etc.
It takes no prior knowledge to understand anything in this book. Diamond informs the reader on everything he/she will need to know to understand GGS. As my title states, no book is more important than this one to understand how and why different countries developed guns, germs, and steel and other countries did not.
 Evil white men make the world a better place for everyone December 27, 2008
0 out of 5 found this review helpful
This poor pampered professor while struggling at his work strolling along a beach in New Guinea is posed the question as to why Eurasian cultures have succeeded with technological developments but others haven't. IN over 300 pages he struggles to present an answer that could be presented in one sentence.
Its their BRAINS - they are wired differently
This is not racist. Its clear there are many physiological differences amongst various races. Eurasians for whatever reason are compelled to invent technology. One could certainly argue that Africans have a superior rhythm center in their brain.
The fact of the matter is the laws of physics are not relative. They work the same for everyone - nothing is stopping a non Eurasian from inventing something new based upon the fundamental and consistent laws of physics.
Like most professors he is woefully out of touch with the common person. All he need to is spend an hour in a gear head shop to understand the driving force in the Eurasian mind to tinker with technology. Of course then you cant sell a book - I returned mine immediately and asked for a refund - RUBBISH
 Fascinating but repetitive December 21, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I won't give a synopsis of the book as there are plenty of other good reviews that cover that. I'll just say I found this book to have a fascinating and compelling argument for why history has gone the way it has. I did not find it to be racist or even biased as the author goes to great lengths to explain his every viewpoint and provides plenty of valid reasons against any kind of bias.
The biggest flaw of the book, in my mind at least, is that it is terribly repetitive. Diamond repeats the same points and conclusions many times. It gets to the point where you feel that entire pages could have been cut out and the book would have lost nothing. Aside from that however, it is an entertaining and informative read.
European Advantages December 14, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Professor Diamond takes up a very difficult question that spans centuries. He sets out to figure out why the Europeans were able to succeed not only in their enviornment, but control throughout the world.
Geography is something Diamond finds as a major factor. Geographic luck was able to determine that type of crops, and the conditions.
Diamond concludes that once the societies discovered how to produce enough food for themselves, then some of the other citizens were able to use their free time to advance other areas. This created specialists which resulted in the innovations of Guns and Steel. The germ advantage was because the Europeans lived with pigs.
Domestic animals (Diamond finds 14 thorughout history) most of them centered in Europe gave the major advantage against disease.
Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel is an outstanding and interesting book to read.
Why some societies advance faster than others. December 14, 2008
It comes down to farming. Whoever farms first wins. Whichever society can not have to worry about what they are going to eat every day has the time to devote to innovation. The author's theory on a society's proximity to the equator does have some merit. I would have liked to have seen more discussion on how a society can hold itself back, such as Chinese rulers who burned their ships and stopped trade.
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