Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
Explaining what William McNeill calledThe Rise of the Westhas become the central problem in the study of global history. InGuns, Germs, and SteelJared Diamond presents the biologist's answer: geography, demography, and ecological happenstance. Diamond evenhandedly reviews human history on every continent since the Ice Age at a rate that emphasizes only the broadest movements of peoples and ideas. Yet his survey is binocular: one eye has the rather distant vision of the evolutionary biologist, while the other eye--and his heart--belongs to the people of New Guinea, where he has done field work for more than 30 years.