Guns, Germs, and Steel

The Fates of Human Societies

By: Jared Diamond

Narrated by: Grover Gardner

Length: 5 hrs and 58 mins

Publisher's summary

Pulitzer Prize Winner, General Nonfiction, 1998

In this groundbreaking work, evolutionary biologist Jared Diamond stunningly dismantles racially based theories of human history by revealing the environmental factors actually responsible for history's broadest patterns. It is a story that spans 13,000 years of human history, beginning when Stone Age hunter-gatherers constituted the entire human population. Guns, Germs, and Steel is a world history that really is a history of all the world's peoples, a unified narrative of human life.

©1997 Jared Diamond (P)2001 HighBridge Company

Critic reviews

"The scope and explanatory power of this book are astounding." (The New Yorker)

"Guns, Germs, and Steel is an artful, informative, and delightful book....There is nothing like a radically new angle of vision for bringing out unsuspected dimensions of a subject." (The New York Review of Books)

Excellent discussion of how civilizations evolve

I enjoyed the content very much and the reader was very good. I also went to the associated web page - in wikipedia - and got some excellent alternative points of view. The discussion about the domestication of mammals and plants was just the right depth to be interesting but not tedious.

Interesting history book

This is good to learn whole picture of mid-modern history.
Narration is also good!

Very informative

Amazing to know so much research has been conducted on the history of mankind. A coworker told me about the book, otherwise I would have never known to consider this topic. Great job!

still recommend

Great book, however the narrator is a bit too dry, sometimes fall asleep. Still recommend regardless.

Insightful and view-changing book

The book was incredibly intelligently written. I would recommend it for any student who is preparing to take an AP human geography course.

Very interesting, but some inconsistencies

Very interesting takes, but some of the details along the way the author just assumes are facts, and then he glosses over them in his conclusions, which makes his conclusions contradictory/false. Rather than follow his assertions to their logical fallible and racist conclusions, he glosses over them, which I assume is because he doesn't want to buck popular mainstream beliefs. The two main offenses to which I am referring are the theory of macro-evolution, the influences of religion on mankind's history, and the theory of man-made climate change. To accept macro-evolution as fact, one must absolutely accept that people in different geographic areas had to evolve intelligence at different rates, which is incredibly racist and leads inevitably to racist tropes put forth in phrenology and other related pseudosciences. He also ignores the obvious holes in "man-made climate change" based on the ever changing climates throughout human history that had nothing to do with humans. Finally, I noticed a massive void in his explanations involving religion. Religion had just as much (if not more) impact on human history as guns, germs, and steel. It seems he sidestepped these massive inconsistencies in his writing, which is disappointing, dishonest, and frankly a bit lazy in my opinion.

GGS Review

I preferred Collapse by Jarrod Diamond. Guns, Germs & Steel was good but not as engaging.

Badly Abridged

This book is actually quite excellent, his science is quite sound, and his theory is amazing.

But, some of the complaints of other reviewers stem from the extent to which this book was abridged. Not only were critical details sliced out throughout the audiobook, but the ENTIRE LAST 1/4 was just chopped off! Answers about race, trade and other issues are addresed here. I only found out, when I saw the DVD of it by PBS, and saw an entire episode of what I thought was completely new material! I like "Collapse" even more, and was upset to learn it was just as badly chopped up. Five stars for Diamond, 0 stars for the publisher for ripping us all off!

flawed review

The author of that particular review seems to have taken issue with an imagined slight against northern Europeans.

>>He starts the book by stating that he's out to destroy the claim that genetic differences is the cause of the global disparity in civilizational achivement between different peoples and races, a claim he considers low and immoral. Then he proceeds by asserting that the inhabitants of Papua New Guinea are genetically superior to whites. This self-contradiction is not rendered any less stupid by the fact that it's done without reference to any evidence beyond the mere hunch of the author. <<

That is a mischaracterization of a key thesis. Diamond refuted the notion that genetic variation between races lead to a disparity of intelligence producing a decisive competitive advantage to Indo-europeans. Diamond noted that many of the indigenous people he'd encountered may have relied on primitive technologies, however in no way did they appear to be "slow thinking". However, he made no claims that New Guineans or any other race enjoyed "genetically superior intelligence".

He did however note that by virtue of centuries of living with domesticated animals and high population densities, the Indo-europeans and Asians enjoyed a relative resistance to diseases characteristic of those environments. This in turn led to a decisive advantage as these peoples unwittingly unleashed their germs (note the title) on unresistant populations.

>>it might very well be that once the civilizational process is begun, there emerges a feedback effect, which by making the more intelligent in each generation more fit for reproduction, gradually increases the overall cognitive ability of the peoples inhabiting the evolving civilisations. <<

The reviewer is obvioulsy offering a pet idea that lacks substantiation. I think we can forgive Diamond for not including it.

Excellent Study

No boubt that Prof JAred Diamond has done a great study, its highly recommended because he has put 30 years of experience in writing this book. Some time during this books he talks a lot about petricular topic like he gave so much detail about domestic animals, some times this book lacks interest but after a good patience finally it becomes worthwhile to read.