Guns, Germs and Steel

The Fate of Human Societies

By: Jared Diamond

Narrated by: Doug Ordunio

Length: 16 hrs and 20 mins

Publisher's summary

Pulitzer Prize, General Nonfiction, 1998

Guns, Germs and Steel examines the rise of civilization and the issues its development has raised throughout history.

Having done field work in New Guinea for more than 30 years, Jared Diamond presents the geographical and ecological factors that have shaped the modern world. From the viewpoint of an evolutionary biologist, he highlights the broadest movements both literal and conceptual on every continent since the Ice Age, and examines societal advances such as writing, religion, government, and technology. Diamond also dissects racial theories of global history, and the resulting work—Guns, Germs and Steel—is a major contribution to our understanding the evolution of human societies.

©1997 Jared Diamond (P)2011 Random House

An eye opening exploration of cause and effect.

The content of the book is informative, enlightening and compelling. That being said, I do wish they would have invested a bit more effort on delivering a recording that equalled the quality of the book's content. There are several jarring transitions where the tone, volume and audio quality are quite distracting (to be fair, I did listen with fairly high quality headphones, which undoubtedly magnified the sounds of swallowing, page turns, audio compression, etc.).

Critical for any Amateur World Historian

Jared Diamond effectively lays out the argument that the actual reason that the peoples of different continents and different societies within those continents progressed in technological advancements at different rates had nothing to do with their “racial character,” an argument promulgated throughout earlier historiography of the period that set out to clarify why largely white societies were “better” racially than others, especially African blacks and Native populations of Australia, America, and Polynesia. Contrary to the popular early historical argument regarding this question, Diamond analyses geographical, agricultural, and biodiversity differences among these early societies to explain why some were able to become more complex (large-scale food production and condensing of populations into cities) than others that remained hunter-gatherers for considerably longer. Truly Diamond makes clear that it wasn’t racial differences that allowed Europeans and not the Native Americans to become colonizers, but rather an unequal geographical playing field, in that, while some areas offered considerably more climate zones that were ideal for farming and also had several to many domesticable animals, other areas had little to no ideal climate for farming to be independently produced and also had no utilitarian domesticated animals to commence with wide scale farming even if that were the case.

Truly a great read and entirely deserving of its praise.

Audible 20 Review Sweepstakes Entry

Get off your cultural high horse

Most of the subject matter is fascinating while some of the detail, the domestication of plants for example, can be a bit tedious but I never felt the need to skip forward. The narration tends to be somewhat monotone (likely what the material requires) but not without its merits. I find the basic tenet of the book that geography and other environmental factors are what gave rise to the differences in civilization to be practically indisputable but even if you end up disagreeing I'm sure your perspective will have benefitted from the book.

Hard Hitting Power Packed and Informative

Would you consider the audio edition of Guns, Germs and Steel to be better than the print version?

This question is a fallacy of Faulty Comparison. I have both the print version and the Audio book. The print I make notes in and the Audio version I listen to at work.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Jared Diamond - Because learning and Science rocks, and Professor Diamond (if a title other than Professor applies I apologize in advance, I don't know it.) is able to take complex subject and synthesize it into a very readable format while still making his point without academic obfuscation. Guns Germs and Steel - made me think about the way our world works and allowed me to observe and test some of my preconceived notions on society and how it works. As a side note - Guns, Germs and Steel pairs excellently with Francis Fukuyama's book on Political order. Read them back to back, and for a bit of a mind bender. Guns Germs and Steel is a must read, and must re-read.

What does Doug Ordunio bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Easy to listen to. I will forever relate him to the Author in presentation.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes

Great book. but a big long

Good book,but too long and repetitive. Still it was a book I would like to recommend.

A Great Primer, a Poor Argument

Would you listen to Guns, Germs and Steel again? Why?

No, I got what I wanted out of it, and then moved on to better things.

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

Probably the greatest arguments he made was that North and South America had few viable pack animals available to them. He lost me a bit on his reasonings for why central Asia or Africa never rose to power.

What does Doug Ordunio bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

The narration was well done and kept me engaged to the end. I may not have enjoyed just reading the book by itself.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

I've since learned that Guns, Germs, and Steel is heavily criticized. It's a great introduction to the theories he presents, but many historians found a lot of flaws in his work. If you're interested in North and South American history, I felt that 1491 did a much better job.

Any additional comments?

Check it out if you're using it to kick off a binge into history. Don't pretend that it explains everything.

details details. lots of facts. unbeliresour

amazing descriptions of all the continents. facts are amazing. it's amazing me easy description of Africa vs Europe

Great story not based on Theology

What made the experience of listening to Guns, Germs and Steel the most enjoyable?

I enjoyed listening to this story not based on Theology and instead on factual findings.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

I am little boring so this is unfair but when the wife cracked the husband over the head for his admittance to something he had done.....yes I laughed.

Any additional comments?

This book was used for help in my Religion and Culture class.

Everyone should listen to this

I absolutely loved this, I'm going to listen to it again so that I can get details that I may have missed the first time.

Good book, but hard to finish

Is there anything you would change about this book?

The audiobook could possibly have been more palatable with a different speaker, but I'm not sure anyone could insert more color into this book. It needed more stories or exciting parts to keep someone engaged.

Who was your favorite character and why?

n/a because I do not exactly remember certain characters

What three words best describe Doug Ordunio’s voice?

Monotone, Dry, Tiresome

Do you think Guns, Germs and Steel needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

No, too overreaching of a subject with many confounders that are unable to be included in a small enough book

Any additional comments?

This was a hard book to finish listening to. It seemed to continue to go on and on over the same theories with lots of "ifs" and "maybes" and "not sures". I understand this is necessary in history, but after so many "ifs" in a statement, you have lost my attention to it "possibly" being legitimate.