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E-mail Message: I thought you might be interested in this item at http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/41076605 Title: Guns, germs, and steel : the fates of human societies Author: Jared M Diamond Publisher: New York : W.W. Norton & Co., 1999. ISBN/ISSN: 0393317552 9780393317558 061318114X 9780613181143 OCLC:41076605

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Guns, germs, and steel : the fates of human societies

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Guns, germs, and steel : the fates of human societies

Author:	Jared M Diamond
Publisher:	New York : W.W. Norton & Co., 1999.
Edition/Format:	Book : EnglishView all editions and formats
Summary:	Why did Eurasians conquer, displace, or decimate Native Americans, Australians, and Africans, instead of the reverse? In this groundbreaking book, evolutionary biologist Jared Diamond stunningly dismantles racially based theories of human history by revealing the environmental factors actually responsible for history's broadest patterns. Here, at last, is a world history that really is a history of all the world's Read more...
Rating:	based on 2 rating(s) 1 with a review
Subjects	Social evolution. Civilization -- History. Ethnology. View all subjects
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Document Type:	Book
All Authors / Contributors:	Jared M Diamond Find more information about:
ISBN:	0393317552 9780393317558 061318114X 9780613181143
OCLC Number:	41076605
Description:	480 p., [32] p. of plates : ill. ; 24 cm.
Contents:	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.? -- Natural experiment of history: How geography molded societies on the Polynesian islands -- Collision at Cajamarca: Why the Inca emperor Atahuallpa did not capture King Charles I of Spain -- 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 -- Future of human history as a science.
Responsibility:	Jared Diamond.

Abstract:

Why did Eurasians conquer, displace, or decimate Native Americans, Australians, and Africans, instead of the reverse? In this groundbreaking book, evolutionary biologist Jared Diamond stunningly dismantles racially based theories of human history by revealing the environmental factors actually responsible for history's broadest patterns. Here, at last, is a world history that really is a history of all the world's peoples, a unified narrative of human life even more intriguing and important than accounts of dinosaurs and glaciers. A major advance in our understanding of human societies, Guns, Germs, and Steel chronicles the way that the modern world, and its inequalities, came to be. It is a work rich in dramatic revelations that will fascinate readers even as it challenges conventional wisdom.

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Clutching Cargo

by stuart.weibel (WorldCat user published 2006-02-22) Very Good

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Why do westerners have so much cargo? That is the question, asked by a New Guinea tribesman, that motivated the author to pull together a lifetime of insight in this explanation of the march of human history. The title captures the main themes.The book earned a Pulitzer Prize and long print runs for its author, and for good reason. Insights emerge from seed distribution studies, linguistic analysis, conquistadors, the Polynesian Diaspora, food production, the wheel, and many other places. The author’s intellectual scaffolding carries the natural history of mankind on its substantial framework, and it is tightly argued and convincing in most respects (at least for a lay reader such as myself). Many of the ideas in this book are controversial. Beliefs about cultural success and dominance are commonplace and difficult to resist, particularly in this moment of seemingly unending clashes of civilizations. This book provides a framework within which to understand the gifts that geography, climate, and microbiology confer on the development of civilizations, setting aside arguments of who is better or smarter.My Seattle housemate observes that only science can ask questions of God, as science alone confers a methodology of judging answers without risk of self deception. This is true only for science that aspires to prediction rather than explanation, however. Facts are far less malleable in face of an experimental result than within the comfortable argument of a post-facto explanation. At times, though, Diamond evokes particularly sharp focus, as with the natural experiment of the Maori-Moriori collision in the Chatham Islands. Even a liberal might look a second time at questions of defense spending.It is in the postulation of refutable facts that science gives us confidence. Explanatory ‘science,’ wherein falls Diamond’s efforts, can never convince as reliably. Nonetheless, within the intersection of the melding points of societies and the melting points of alloys, Diamond creates a rigorous, fascinating, and convincing story of cultural destinies that sheds light and enlightenment. But yikes… 30 pages of acknowledgements? Thank heaven they came at the end.

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Guns, germs, and steel : the fates of human societies

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