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

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize. Why did Eurasians conquer, displace, or decimate Native Americans, Australians, and Africans, instead of the reverse? Evolutionary biologist Jared Diamond dismantles racist theories of human history by revealing the environmental factors actually responsible for its broadest patterns. The story begins 13,000 years ago, when Stone Age hunter-gatherers constituted the entire human population. Only societies that moved away from the hunter-gatherer stage went on to develop writing, technology, government, and organized religions as well as deadly germs and potent weapons of war.