Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond

Why did Eurasians conquer, displace, or decimate Native Americans, Australians, and Africans, rather than the other way around? In this “artful, informative, and delightful” (William H. McNeill, New York Review of Books) work, Diamond dismantles racist explanations of history by revealing the environmental factors that shaped the broad patterns of human development.

The story begins 13,000 years ago when all of humanity lived as Stone Age hunter-gatherers. From that point, the paths of human societies began to diverge, influenced by the early domestication of plants and animals in regions like the Fertile Crescent, China, Mesoamerica, and the Andes. But the origins of farming and herding alone don’t account for the disparities in development. Geography, climate, and the sizes and shapes of continents also played pivotal roles in shaping the course of history.

As certain societies progressed beyond hunter-gathering, they developed writing, technology, government, organized religion, and the tools of warfare—along with the germs that would devastate other populations. These advancing societies then spread through exploration and conquest, often wiping out indigenous populations through both violence and disease.

A major milestone in our understanding of human development, Guns, Germs, and Steel uncovers the forces that have shaped our world and its inequalities.