Guns, germs, and steel : the fates of human societies / Jared Diamond.
The author dismantles racially based theories of human history by revealing the environmental factors he feels are responsible for history's broadest patterns.
Record details
- ISBN: 9780393609295
- ISBN: 0393609294
- Physical Description: 1 online resource (494 pages) : black and white illustrations.
- Edition: Twentieth anniversary edition.
- Publisher: New York : W.W. Norton & Company, [2017]
Content descriptions
General Note: | "With a new afterword"--Cover. Originally published as Norton paperback in 1999, reissued 2017. |
Bibliography, etc. Note: | Includes bibliographical references (pages 447-474) 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 -- Who are the Japanese? 2003 afterword: Guns, germs, and steel today. |
Source of Description Note: | Print version record. |
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Genre: | Electronic books. Electronic books. History. |