Guns, germs, and steel
Subtitle: the fates of human societies
By: Jared Diamond.
Edition: 1st ed.
Publisher: W.W. Norton & Co.
Published: 1997
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 480
Subjects: Social evolution; Civilization -- History; Ethnology; Human beings -- Effect of environment on; Culture diffusion
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 429-457) and index.
Table of contents: title: Prologue. Yali’s question : The regionally differing courses of history -- 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 -- 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? -- 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 -- 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 the Austronesian expansion -- Hemispheres colliding : The histories of Eurasia and the Americas compared -- How Africa became black : The history of Africa -- Epilogue : The future of human history as a science.