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

This book by American ornithologist, physiologist, and geographer Jared Diamond became an international bestseller and brought its creator the most prestigious Pulitzer Prize—turning an academic scholar overnight into a star of the first magnitude. The question of why different regions of our planet developed so unevenly occupies many people today: for what reasons, for example, did Australian aboriginals fail to move beyond the Stone Age, while Europeans learned to produce the most complex tools, build spacecraft, and pass on accumulated knowledge to the next generations? Relying on data from geography, botany, zoology, microbiology, linguistics, and other sciences, Diamond convincingly proves that asymmetry in development across different parts of the world is not accidental and is grounded in many natural factors—such as the environment, climate, the presence of animals and plants suitable for domestication, and even the shape and size of continents. Drawing on a wealth of fascinating examples from his own rich experience observing peoples commonly called “primitive,” as well as from world history, Diamond constructs a coherent and convincing theory that allows the reader to rethink the hidden mechanisms behind the development of human civilization.