Guns, germs, and steel : the fates of human societies

Summary: 13,000 years of history on all the continents - a short history of everything about everybody. The origins of empires, religion, writing, crops, and guns are all here. By providing a convincing explanation for the differing developments of human societies on different continents, the book demolishes the grounds for racist theories of history. The modern world formed is full of lessons for our own future.

Record details

ISBN: 9780393317558 (trade paperback) :
ISBN: 0393317552 :
ISBN: 9780393317558
ISBN: 0393317552 (pbk.)
Physical Description: 494 p., ill. [32] p. plates : maps ; cm.
print
Edition: 1st ed.
Publisher: New York : W. W. Norton & Co., 1999.

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Formatted Contents Note:

Yali's question: The regionally differing courses of history -- From Eden to Cajamarca. Up to the starting line: What happened on all the continents before 11,000 B.C.? -- A natural experiment of history: How geography molded societies on Polynesian islands -- Collision at Cajamarca: Why the Inca emperor Atahuallpa did not capture King Charles I of Spain -- The rise and spread of food production. Farmer power: The roots of guns, germs, and steel -- History's haves and have-nots: Geographic differences in the onset of food production -- To farm or not to farm: Causes of the spread of food production -- How to make an almond: The unconscious development of ancient crops -- Apples or indians: Why did peoples of some regions fail to domesticate plants? -- Zebras, unhappy marriages, and the Anna Karenina principle: Why were most big wild mammal species never domesticated? -- Spacious skies and tilted axes: Why did food production spread at different rates on different continents? -- From food to guns, germs, and steel. Lethal gift of livestock: The evolution of germs -- Blueprints and borrowed letters: The evolution of writing -- Necessity's mother: The evolution of technology -- From egalitarianism to kleptocracy: The evolution of government and religion -- Around the world in five chapters. Yali's people: The histories of Australia and New Guinea -- How China became Chinese: The history of East Asia -- Speedboat to Polynesia: The history of Austronesian expansion -- Hemispheres colliding: The histories of Eurasia and the Americas compared -- How Africa became black: The history of Africa -- The future of human history as a science -- The future of human history of a science. 2003 afterword: Guns, germs, and steel today.