Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond
Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond
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Guns, Germs, and Steel
The Fates of Human Societies

Author: Jared Diamond

Narrator: Doug Ordunio

Unabridged: 16 hr 20 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 01/18/2011

Synopsis

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Guns, Germs and Steel examines the rise of civilization and the issues its development has raised throughout history.
 
Having done field work in New Guinea for more than 30 years, Jared Diamond presents the geographical and ecological factors that have shaped the modern world. From the viewpoint of an evolutionary biologist, he highlights the broadest movements both literal and conceptual on every continent since the Ice Age, and examines societal advances such as writing, religion, government, and technology.  Diamond also dissects racial theories of global history, and the resulting work—Guns, Germs and Steel—is a major contribution to our understanding the evolution of human societies.

About The Author

Jared Diamond is a professor of geography at the University of California, Los Angeles. The recipient of numerous awards, he has published more than 200 articles in such prestigious magazines as Discover and Nature.Doug Ordunio is a professional singer and narrator. He has performed with the Duke Ellington Band, the New York City Opera, and the Greek Theater Opera. His narrating credits include Crashing Through by Robert Kurson; Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond; and How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci by Michael J. Gelb.

Reviews

AudiobooksNow review by Lisa the Librarian on 2013-05-17 12:22:18

Why didnt more advanced civilizations develop in the new world? Why wasnt there ever a panAfrica empire? Why didnt the Maori conquer the east and dominate modern culture? Diamond, in his clear way, explains through geography and anthropology, the reason the Eurasian continent has been the dominant force in human history. Its about metal and resources, large animals, hunting, and travel. Decades ago, geography played a much stronger part in American education. Sadly, Americans are almost entirely geographically ignorant now. Diamond takes the technique of using geography to analyze the overall trends of world history. It is wonderful. I think his premise that some people are considered racial inferior because they havent dominated global history is something of a straw man argument. He sets it up to topple it down. People dont actually still think like that, do they? However, poor premise aside, it is a very enjoyable read.

Goodreads review by Manny on September 22, 2021

[Original review, Dec 10 2008] I liked this book, and it taught me a bunch of things I hadn't known before I read it. Jared Diamond has clearly had a more interesting life than most of us, and spent significant amounts of time in a wide variety of different kinds of society, all over the world. He sa......more

Goodreads review by Michael on May 18, 2007

Author Jared Diamond's two-part thesis is: 1) the most important theme in human history is that of civilizations beating the crap out of each other, 2) the reason the beat-ors were Europeans and the beat-ees the Aboriginees, Mayans, et. al. is because of the geographical features of where each civil......more

Goodreads review by Jim on July 29, 2023

Did you ever wonder if there is a certain inevitability in the way world civilization and history has evolved? Jared Diamond’s work Guns, Germs and Steel argues, in effect, that the giant Eurasian continent (Europe and Asia combined) was predestined to take over the world. Everything conspired in fa......more

Goodreads review by Michael on March 07, 2017

It took me a while to complete Diamond's book (and admittedly I also distracted myself with a few Roth novels in the meantime) because of the density of the text and the variety of ideas presented. The central thesis that it is not racial biology that determines the victors in history but rather a c......more

Goodreads review by Liong on April 03, 2023

This book explains why some countries became more powerful than others. The author says that it had to do with things like geography and the environment. Some places had more animals and plants to help people to survive and made them stronger. Other places did not have as much so they struggled more. Th......more

Quotes

Artful, informative, and delightful.... There is nothing like a radically new angle of vision for bringing out unsuspected dimensions of a subject, and that is what Jared Diamond has done.—William H. McNeil, New York Review of Books

An ambitious, highly important book.—James Shreeve, New York Times Book Review

A book of remarkable scope, a history of the world in less than 500 pages which succeeds admirably, where so many others have failed, in analyzing some of the basic workings of culture process.... One of the most important and readable works on the human past published in recent years.—Colin Renfrew, Nature

The scope and the explanatory power of this book are astounding.—The New Yorker

No scientist brings more experience from the laboratory and field, none thinks more deeply about social issues or addresses them with greater clarity, than Jared Diamond as illustrated by Guns, Germs, and Steel. In this remarkably readable book he shows how history and biology can enrich one another to produce a deeper understanding of the human condition. —Edward O. Wilson, Pellegrino University Professor, Harvard University

Serious, groundbreaking biological studies of human history only seem to come along once every generation or so. . . . Now [Guns, Germs, and Steel] must be added to their select number. . . . Diamond meshes technological mastery with historical sweep, anecdotal delight with broad conceptual vision, and command of sources with creative leaps. No finer work of its kind has been published this year, or for many past. —Martin Sieff, Washington Times

[Diamond] is broadly erudite, writes in a style that pleasantly expresses scientific concepts in vernacular American English, and deals almost exclusively in questions that should interest everyone concerned about how humanity has developed. . . . [He] has done us all a great favor by supplying a rock-solid alternative to the racist answer. . . . A wonderfully interesting book.—Alfred W. Crosby, Los Angeles Times

An epochal work. Diamond has written a summary of human history that can be accounted, for the time being, as Darwinian in its authority.—Thomas M. Disch, The New Leader

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