This title is a Pulitzer Prize winner.
Jared Diamond is professor of geography at UCLA and author of the best-selling Collapse and The Third Chimpanzee. He is a MacArthur Fellow and was awarded the National Medal of Science.
"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 "This is a brilliantly written, passionate, whirlwind tour though 13,000 years of history on all the continents-a short history of everything about everybody... By at last providing a convincing explanation for the differing developments of human societies on different occasions, the book demolishes the grounds for racist theories of history... After reading the first two pages, you won't be able to put it down." -- Paul R. Ehrlich, Bing Professor of Population Studies, Stanford University "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 "Fascinating and extremely important... [A] synopsis doesn't do credit to the immense subtlety of this book." -- David Brown - Washington Post Book World
"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 "This is a brilliantly written, passionate, whirlwind tour though 13,000 years of history on all the continents-a short history of everything about everybody... By at last providing a convincing explanation for the differing developments of human societies on different occasions, the book demolishes the grounds for racist theories of history... After reading the first two pages, you won't be able to put it down." -- Paul R. Ehrlich, Bing Professor of Population Studies, Stanford University "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 "Fascinating and extremely important... [A] synopsis doesn't do credit to the immense subtlety of this book." -- David Brown - Washington Post Book World
Why is history so dramatically different for peoples around the world? Why did some groups become literate industrial societies with metal tools while others remained nonliterate farming societies, and still others remained hunter-gatherers with stone tools? The resultant inequalities have led historically to the extermination or conquest of some groups by more advanced, literate societies. Biologist Diamond (The Third Chimpanzee, LJ 3/15/92) here combines a study of human history with science, specifically evolutionary biology and geology. His starting point is 11,000 B.C., when large differences began to appear in the rates at which human societies evolved. Diamond examines on a global scale the development of farming, domestication of plants and animals, creation of writing, and advancement of technology. He maintains that it was such environmental benefits as the availability of certain key species and plants, as well as geographical placement, that gave the advantage to Eurasia over the rest of the world, rather than any biological advantages of one race over the others. A provocative book that will appeal to general readers as well as scholars; recommended for most libraries. BOMC, History Book Club, Quality paperback Books, and Newbridge Book Club selections.‘Ed.]‘Gloria Maxwell, Kansas City P.L., Kan.
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