Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies

Jared Diamond argues that geographical and environmental factors shaped the modern world. Societies that had had a head start in food production advanced beyond the hunter-gatherer stage, and then developed religion --as well as nasty germs and potent weapons of war --and adventured on sea and land to conquer and decimate preliterate cultures. A look to our understanding of human societies, Guns, Germs, and Steel chronicles the way that the modern world came to be and dismantles racially based theories of human history.