Guns, Germs and Steel

by Diamond, Jared

• ISBN13: 9780393038910
• ISBN10: 0393038912
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1997-03-01
• Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc

Summary

A global account of the rise of civilization that is also a stunning refutation of ideas of human development based on race. Until around 11,000 b.c., all peoples were still Stone Age hunter/gatherers. At that point, a great divide occurred in the rates that human societies evolved. In Eurasia, parts of the Americas, and Africa, farming became the prevailing mode of existence when indigenous wild plants and animals were domesticated by prehistoric planters and herders. As Jared Diamond vividly reveals, the very people who gained a head start in producing food would collide with preliterate cultures, shaping the modern world through conquest, displacement, and genocide. The paths that lead from scattered centers of food to broad bands of settlement had a great deal to do with climate and geography. But how did differences in societies arise? Why weren't native Australians, Americans, or Africans the ones to colonize Europe? Diamond dismantles pernicious racial theories tracing societal differences to biological differences. He assembles convincing evidence linking germs to domestication of animals, germs that Eurasians then spread in epidemic proportions in their voyages of discovery. In its sweep, Guns, Germs and Steel encompasses the rise of agriculture, technology, writing, government, and religion, providing a unifying theory of human history as intriguing as the histories of dinosaurs and glaciers.

Table of Contents

PROLOGUE YALI'S QUESTION The regionally differing courses of history	13	(20)
PART ONE FROM EDEN TO CAJAMARCA	33	(50)
CHAPTER 1 UP TO THE STARTING LINE What happened on all the continents before 11,000 B.C.?	35	(18)
CHAPTER 2 A NATURAL EXPERIMENT OF HISTORY How geography molded societies on Polynesian islands	53	(14)
CHAPTER 3 COLLISION AT CALAMARCA Why the Inca emperor Atahuallpa did not capture King Charles I of Spain	67	(16)
PART TWO THE RISE AND SPREAD OF FOOD PRODUCTION	83	(110)
CHAPTER 4 FARMER POWER The roots of guns, germs, and steel	85	(8)
CHAPTER 5 HISTORY'S HAVES AND HAVE-NOTS Geographic differences in the onset of food production	93	(11)
CHAPTER 6 TO FARM OR NOT TO FARM Causes of the spread of food production	104	(10)
CHAPTER 7 HOW TO MAKE AN ALMOND The unconscious development of ancient crops	114	(17)
CHAPTER 8 APPLES OR INDIANS Why did peoples of some regions fail to domesticate plants?	131	(26)
CHAPTER 9 ZEBRAS, UNHAPPY MARRIAGES, AND THE ANNA KARENINA PRINCIPLE Why were most big wild mammal species never domesticated?	157	(19)
CHAPTER 10 SPACIOUS SKIES AND TILTED AXES Why did food production spread at different rates on different continents?	176	(17)
PART THREE FROM FOOD TO GUNS, GERMS, AND STEEL	193	(100)
CHAPTER 11 LETHAL GIFT OF LIVESTOCK The evolution of germs	195	(20)
CHAPTER 12 BLUEPRINTS AND BORROWED LETTERS The evolution of writing	215	(24)
CHAPTER 13 NECESSITY'S MOTHER The evolution of technology	239	(26)
CHAPTER 14 FROM EGALITARIANISM TO KLEPTOCRACY The evolution of government and religion	265	(28)
PART FOUR AROUND THE WORLD IN FIVE CHAPTERS	293	(110)
CHAPTER 15 YALI'S PEOPLE The histories of Australia and New Guinea	295	(27)
CHAPTER 16 HOW CHINA BECAME CHINESE The history of East Asia	322	(12)
CHAPTER 17 SPEEDBOAT TO POLYNESIA The history of the Austronesian expansion	334	(20)
CHAPTER 18 HEMISPHERES COLLIDING The histories of Eurasia and the Americas compared	354	(22)
CHAPTER 19 HOW AFRICA BECAME BLACK The history of Africa	376	(27)
EPILOGUE THE FUTURE OF HUMAN HISTORY AS A SCIENCE	403	(24)
Acknowledgments	427	(2)
Further Readings	429	(30)
Credits	459	(2)
Index	461