---
product_id: 199648
title: "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies"
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# Geography-driven history Role of germs in societal fate Impact of armament & conquest Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies

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## Summary

> 📚 Decode the forces that forged our world — don’t get left behind in history’s wake!

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## Key Features

- • **Debunk Myths, Embrace Truth:** Dismantles racial theories with compelling scientific evidence.
- • **Essential for Thought Leaders:** A must-read for professionals shaping global perspectives and policies.
- • **Pulitzer Prize-Winning Insight:** Award-winning research that redefines history’s biggest questions.
- • **Unlock the Secrets of Civilization:** Explore how geography shaped human destiny beyond race or culture.
- • **Masterclass in Environmental Determinism:** Understand how food production and domestication fueled societal leaps.

## Overview

Jared Diamond’s 'Guns, Germs, and Steel' is a Pulitzer Prize-winning exploration of how geography, environment, and resource access shaped the rise of civilizations. Combining decades of research, it reveals why some societies advanced through food production, technology, and disease, while others did not, challenging outdated racial explanations and offering a transformative lens on human history.

## Description

"Fascinating.... Lays a foundation for understanding human history."―Bill Gates In this "artful, informative, and delightful" (William H. McNeill, New York Review of Books ) book, Jared Diamond convincingly argues that geographical and environmental factors shaped the modern world. Societies that had had a head start in food production advanced beyond the hunter-gatherer stage, and then developed religion --as well as nasty germs and potent weapons of war --and adventured on sea and land to conquer and decimate preliterate cultures. A major advance in our understanding of human societies, Guns, Germs, and Steel chronicles the way that the modern world came to be and stunningly dismantles racially based theories of human history. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science, the Rhone-Poulenc Prize, and the Commonwealth club of California's Gold Medal.

Review: One of my favorite books and the inspiration for my World Regional Geography courses that I teach. - Two decades ago when I served in the Missouri National Guard we had an extended drill weekend at Ft. Leonard Wood for a live fire artillery exercise. This was a three day drill and I remember it clearly because it was the same weekend as Princess Diana’s funeral on September 6, 1997. I had been at the local library the day before we rolled out and saw an interesting book that promised to explain why western civilization had been the one to colonize the New World and rise to ascendency over much of the world for a long period of time. That had always been an interesting question for me and one which many people do not know the answer to. I checked out the book and during some downtime I began to read. To say that the book grabbed my attention is an understatement. I started it on Friday and finished it on Saturday. My whole conception of how history had seen the rise of Western Civilization was fundamentally altered and would never be the same. At the time I thought that using Guns, Germs, and Steel as an educational tool would be a great idea. My dream of teaching history had never been realized and in 1997 seemed like it would never happen. However, history is full of strange things and in 2009 I got the chance to return to college and pick up my degrees. I began teaching American History in 2013 and was then asked to teach World Regional Geography for the Spring 2014 semester. They handed me a textbook and said, “Good luck.” As I drove back home I considered how I would teach this course and my mind recalled Jared Diamond and his Pulitzer Prize winning book. To make the story short, I built a course that used the textbook, Diamond’s book, and the National Geographic series based on the book. Obviously I take what Diamond said in Guns, Germs, and Steel seriously. I think Diamond did some outstanding work in doing three decades of research and then writing a book which to me is resonates with readers. For many years the idea that Western Civilization was superior to any other form has been the dominant world view. Diamond rejects that completely by saying Western Civilization had advantages that others did not have due to geography, or literally where it was. When you stop and think about it, why were the Europeans so superior to others for so long? Was it their race, their ideals, or what? Diamond said it was because of where they started that they developed into the world spanning civilization we know. What advantages did the Europeans have over others? They arrived with technology superior to all others, were better organized, and had the lethal gift of germs which in the Americas killed over half the population and was the biggest reason as to why the Europeans took those lands over. When Diamond explored the germ theory he realized that these germs came from contact with domesticated mammals such as horses, cows, pigs, chickens, sheep, and goats. These same mammals were what enabled Europeans to transport materials as well as have a convenient food supply and a power source such as horses pulling plows. This idea works when you look at the Americas and Australia, but not when you look at Africa and Asia. The lethality of germs did not affect the people in those regions like it did the Americas. In fact, some of the diseases in Africa killed the Europeans and prevented them for exploiting Sub-Saharan Africa for centuries. Some of these germs are now known to have come from Asia as well along with domestic animals that came from there. Many of the larger mammals Europe had were also found in Asia. In fact, some of the technology such as gunpowder came from Asia as well. Diamond acknowledged this in his book and sought to explain why Europe was able to expand while Asia did not. This is something I really stress in my class and it is something which the book and National Geographic series does not explore as deeply as it should. Diamond saw a decision made in the 15th century by a Chinese emperor as being the decisive event that altered human history. At that point China was the leading power in the world. It had a great navy, the largest country, gunpowder, advanced technology and far more people thanks to its agricultural practices than any other nation at that time. The decision by emperors in China’s Ming dynasty led to China losing its technological advantage over Europe although no one had any idea that this was happening. These decisions or orders are called Haijin. Diamond did not explore this in any depth other than to point to it and say that China’s inward looking policies which had existed for centuries were the result of its location, its geography. Its singular form of government used Haijin to build up its power at the expense of expanding China’s culture and boundaries. There is a lot here to work with, but Diamond seems to casually bring it up in the book’s epilogue. Instead he focuses heavily on the Americas where his theory of environmental determinism is the strongest. I think he gets the theory right, but in the case of Asia he needed to go deeper. Since Diamond is an ornithologist by education, and his world journey’s focused on New Guinea, I think his point of view was heavily influenced through his contact with hunter-gatherers. His theory is at its weakest in Asia and specifically China. That again reflects his preference for focusing on one type of people versus another. This does not mean his theory is wrong. It just needs expansion and I do not think Diamond will be doing that any time soon. His recent works have dealt with different ideas. Even with this glaring problem, I think this book is outstanding. It does answer the question of why Western Civilization dominated the world for the most part. For my geography class it is a wonderful tool. I focus heavily on how man domesticated two grains from the Middle East, wheat and barley, and built Western Civilization upon them. Coupled with the domestication of large mammals, the forerunners of Western Civilization spread through Europe. Geography played a huge role in why it went west and why there are so many differences between East and West on a cultural level. It also explains why there are such huge differences between North Africa and the lands to the south of the Sahara. The role of geography in shaping mankind is without a doubt the single underlying reason as to why history occurred like it did. This is really hard for students to understand because they seem to have been taught a much different concept prior to taking a geography course. Only by explaining the human-environment interaction do students begin to realize that geography caused man to make decisions which would reverberate for millennia. The people of the Middle East followed the Tigris and Euphrates rivers northwest into Anatolia and out of the desert. Man’s movement west, north, and south with the crops and animals of the Middle East were shaped by geographical barriers. Diamond points out how man overcame these barriers over time. The civilization that was able to do so developed greater technologies than others. He points to both European and Chinese naval developments in this regard. China’s need to continue to build its naval forces was negligible due to a lack of naval enemies while in Europe those enemies were often themselves as nations competed for resources and trade. Since China controlled all of its trade which was mostly internal or land based, its need for a navy was reduced. Europe surged ahead while China languished. In my classes I point to the barriers as we explore the world’s regions. I show how these barriers played such big roles. We play a board game by Avalon Hill that helps to illustrate this as well. Diamond’s book plays a big role in my class and so do his theories. I find it really helps students take the principles and ideas from the first part of the class and begin to apply them to the world regions we study. They are able to make the mental leap to the realization that the people of the world are different for many reasons, the foremost being the place in which they live more than anything else. It helps them to break down and discard the erroneous belief which many of them have regarding their place in the world. Using Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel I am able to use Transformative Learning Theory to overcome the disorientating dilemma they find themselves in at the beginning of class. I could build a new class out of Diamond’s book that encompasses geography, history, and sociology if my school would let me. In fact, I could build two classes out of it. One would focus on why Western Civilization developed like it did and expanded to the Americas while the second one would focus on the development of Eastern Civilization and its failure to expand beyond Asia itself. While courses exist that dive into those ideas, they are built around history more than anything else. Few instructors use environmental determinism in explaining how early mankind developed in the places it did. The ultimate objectives of these courses would be why they developed like they did, not just their history. Diamond has written several other books such as Collapse, The Third Chimpanzee, and The World Until Yesterday. He is Professor of Geography at the University of California, Los Angeles. He has been awarded all kinds of prizes and awards for his research and work in multiple fields. I find it interesting that he began to study environmental history in his fifties which led to this book and many others. This to me is proof that you are not bound by formal rules regarding your education, but rather by using your interests coupled with the research capabilities your education has provided you new careers beckon. This book is a testament to following one’s interests and using one’s intellect. I highly recommend it to all readers. It is one of my favorite books and I have read through it multiple times.
Review: Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies - Recently, I finished this great, broad, historical, and significant endeavor. Let me begin by expressing my appreciation of Jared Diamond’s wonderful ability to simplify a very complex topic and related ideas. This alone, makes this read a great one. Too, there a few gems of humor and wit within the pages which caught my eye and mind. Don’t get me wrong though. The pages are filled with complex data, examples, and comparisons. Upon more than one occasion, my understanding necessitated the rereading of paragraphs and pages. Before I proceed into deeper thoughts, I must admit the duration of this read as being conducted well over an extended timeframe. I began reading it years ago, stopped, and then started again. Over the course of the last several months, I recommitted and achieved. In thoughtful detail, Diamond seeks to explain why certain groups of people have been successful over the course of human events and history, while others, in comparison, are not. It should be noted, the idea of “success” is very subjective. So, success in this case, is related to Western ideas of technological development, exploration, and conquest - generally described as one group of people gaining control or influence over another. An effective description of this is the Spanish conquest and colonization of the “New World,” especially the Aztecs and Incas. This example, though quite large in scope, and as pointed out by Diamond, has occurred throughout human history in large and small ways involving a multitude of others groups of people, both known and unknown. In short, I believe Diamond does well in addressing the impact and luck of geography and resources, as well as, the influences of more innate human characteristics and variety. The debate of nature versus nurture is here too contained. In the past, and not only in recent history, humans have expressed understandings of success in terms of innate differences which must exist between people - obviously though, those in power and dominate are able to define and express such ideas. However, Diamond looks beyond this and recognizes the complexity, and ultimately more profound influence of reality, nurture. In this sense though, it is not simply human nurturing and choice, it is the opportunities presented to humans, in difference places, at different times, to take advantage of their earthly surroundings and the ability to nurture developments, or not. This read is filled with a plethora of well detailed examples which come to show how access, or not, to certain elements leads to the success and superiority which has been described and known by those in power, throughout history. So, today, when certain people look down upon others and their lack of some qualities or characteristics, Diamond’s historical analysis provides engaging insight beyond and through the bias. Who we are presently is the result of all the past experiences of the human ancestors who preceded us, and furthermore, our development and success, in comparison to other humans, is simply more so the result of the access we have had to a confluence of resources and circumstances which allowed us to dominate other groups of humans with less access to the same. As groups of humans defined through sociological processes, we are no more intelligent, healthy, or physiologically better than the whole of humanity understood to exist through anthropology, biology, and any other area of study. “We all know that history has proceeded very differently for peoples from different parts of the globe...Those historical inequalities have cast long shadows on the modern world, because the literate societies with metal tools have conquered or exterminated the other societies. While those differences constitute the most basic fact of world history, the reasons for them remain uncertain and controversial.” In this work, Diamond splendidly explains how, “History followed different courses for different peoples because of differences among peoples’ environments, not because of biological differences among peoples themselves.” Please give the ideas of these pages the opportunity to share with you a detailed perspective of human experience which reaches far into the depths of history, beyond even the earliest written language. Diamond’s words will likely cause you to become lost in thoughts of the past. However, at the same time, he’ll take you to definitive places of demonstrable purpose leading to a better future understood through the context(s) of human experience.

## Features

- Age of Exploration
- Colonization
- Culture
- Infection
- Armament

## Technical Specifications

| Specification | Value |
|---------------|-------|
| Best Sellers Rank | #434,152 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #1 in Human Geography (Books) #1 in Crop Science (Books) #2 in General Anthropology |
| Customer Reviews | 4.5 out of 5 stars 14,623 Reviews |

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## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ One of my favorite books and the inspiration for my World Regional Geography courses that I teach.
*by G***6 on September 5, 2015*

Two decades ago when I served in the Missouri National Guard we had an extended drill weekend at Ft. Leonard Wood for a live fire artillery exercise. This was a three day drill and I remember it clearly because it was the same weekend as Princess Diana’s funeral on September 6, 1997. I had been at the local library the day before we rolled out and saw an interesting book that promised to explain why western civilization had been the one to colonize the New World and rise to ascendency over much of the world for a long period of time. That had always been an interesting question for me and one which many people do not know the answer to. I checked out the book and during some downtime I began to read. To say that the book grabbed my attention is an understatement. I started it on Friday and finished it on Saturday. My whole conception of how history had seen the rise of Western Civilization was fundamentally altered and would never be the same. At the time I thought that using Guns, Germs, and Steel as an educational tool would be a great idea. My dream of teaching history had never been realized and in 1997 seemed like it would never happen. However, history is full of strange things and in 2009 I got the chance to return to college and pick up my degrees. I began teaching American History in 2013 and was then asked to teach World Regional Geography for the Spring 2014 semester. They handed me a textbook and said, “Good luck.” As I drove back home I considered how I would teach this course and my mind recalled Jared Diamond and his Pulitzer Prize winning book. To make the story short, I built a course that used the textbook, Diamond’s book, and the National Geographic series based on the book. Obviously I take what Diamond said in Guns, Germs, and Steel seriously. I think Diamond did some outstanding work in doing three decades of research and then writing a book which to me is resonates with readers. For many years the idea that Western Civilization was superior to any other form has been the dominant world view. Diamond rejects that completely by saying Western Civilization had advantages that others did not have due to geography, or literally where it was. When you stop and think about it, why were the Europeans so superior to others for so long? Was it their race, their ideals, or what? Diamond said it was because of where they started that they developed into the world spanning civilization we know. What advantages did the Europeans have over others? They arrived with technology superior to all others, were better organized, and had the lethal gift of germs which in the Americas killed over half the population and was the biggest reason as to why the Europeans took those lands over. When Diamond explored the germ theory he realized that these germs came from contact with domesticated mammals such as horses, cows, pigs, chickens, sheep, and goats. These same mammals were what enabled Europeans to transport materials as well as have a convenient food supply and a power source such as horses pulling plows. This idea works when you look at the Americas and Australia, but not when you look at Africa and Asia. The lethality of germs did not affect the people in those regions like it did the Americas. In fact, some of the diseases in Africa killed the Europeans and prevented them for exploiting Sub-Saharan Africa for centuries. Some of these germs are now known to have come from Asia as well along with domestic animals that came from there. Many of the larger mammals Europe had were also found in Asia. In fact, some of the technology such as gunpowder came from Asia as well. Diamond acknowledged this in his book and sought to explain why Europe was able to expand while Asia did not. This is something I really stress in my class and it is something which the book and National Geographic series does not explore as deeply as it should. Diamond saw a decision made in the 15th century by a Chinese emperor as being the decisive event that altered human history. At that point China was the leading power in the world. It had a great navy, the largest country, gunpowder, advanced technology and far more people thanks to its agricultural practices than any other nation at that time. The decision by emperors in China’s Ming dynasty led to China losing its technological advantage over Europe although no one had any idea that this was happening. These decisions or orders are called Haijin. Diamond did not explore this in any depth other than to point to it and say that China’s inward looking policies which had existed for centuries were the result of its location, its geography. Its singular form of government used Haijin to build up its power at the expense of expanding China’s culture and boundaries. There is a lot here to work with, but Diamond seems to casually bring it up in the book’s epilogue. Instead he focuses heavily on the Americas where his theory of environmental determinism is the strongest. I think he gets the theory right, but in the case of Asia he needed to go deeper. Since Diamond is an ornithologist by education, and his world journey’s focused on New Guinea, I think his point of view was heavily influenced through his contact with hunter-gatherers. His theory is at its weakest in Asia and specifically China. That again reflects his preference for focusing on one type of people versus another. This does not mean his theory is wrong. It just needs expansion and I do not think Diamond will be doing that any time soon. His recent works have dealt with different ideas. Even with this glaring problem, I think this book is outstanding. It does answer the question of why Western Civilization dominated the world for the most part. For my geography class it is a wonderful tool. I focus heavily on how man domesticated two grains from the Middle East, wheat and barley, and built Western Civilization upon them. Coupled with the domestication of large mammals, the forerunners of Western Civilization spread through Europe. Geography played a huge role in why it went west and why there are so many differences between East and West on a cultural level. It also explains why there are such huge differences between North Africa and the lands to the south of the Sahara. The role of geography in shaping mankind is without a doubt the single underlying reason as to why history occurred like it did. This is really hard for students to understand because they seem to have been taught a much different concept prior to taking a geography course. Only by explaining the human-environment interaction do students begin to realize that geography caused man to make decisions which would reverberate for millennia. The people of the Middle East followed the Tigris and Euphrates rivers northwest into Anatolia and out of the desert. Man’s movement west, north, and south with the crops and animals of the Middle East were shaped by geographical barriers. Diamond points out how man overcame these barriers over time. The civilization that was able to do so developed greater technologies than others. He points to both European and Chinese naval developments in this regard. China’s need to continue to build its naval forces was negligible due to a lack of naval enemies while in Europe those enemies were often themselves as nations competed for resources and trade. Since China controlled all of its trade which was mostly internal or land based, its need for a navy was reduced. Europe surged ahead while China languished. In my classes I point to the barriers as we explore the world’s regions. I show how these barriers played such big roles. We play a board game by Avalon Hill that helps to illustrate this as well. Diamond’s book plays a big role in my class and so do his theories. I find it really helps students take the principles and ideas from the first part of the class and begin to apply them to the world regions we study. They are able to make the mental leap to the realization that the people of the world are different for many reasons, the foremost being the place in which they live more than anything else. It helps them to break down and discard the erroneous belief which many of them have regarding their place in the world. Using Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel I am able to use Transformative Learning Theory to overcome the disorientating dilemma they find themselves in at the beginning of class. I could build a new class out of Diamond’s book that encompasses geography, history, and sociology if my school would let me. In fact, I could build two classes out of it. One would focus on why Western Civilization developed like it did and expanded to the Americas while the second one would focus on the development of Eastern Civilization and its failure to expand beyond Asia itself. While courses exist that dive into those ideas, they are built around history more than anything else. Few instructors use environmental determinism in explaining how early mankind developed in the places it did. The ultimate objectives of these courses would be why they developed like they did, not just their history. Diamond has written several other books such as Collapse, The Third Chimpanzee, and The World Until Yesterday. He is Professor of Geography at the University of California, Los Angeles. He has been awarded all kinds of prizes and awards for his research and work in multiple fields. I find it interesting that he began to study environmental history in his fifties which led to this book and many others. This to me is proof that you are not bound by formal rules regarding your education, but rather by using your interests coupled with the research capabilities your education has provided you new careers beckon. This book is a testament to following one’s interests and using one’s intellect. I highly recommend it to all readers. It is one of my favorite books and I have read through it multiple times.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
*by Z***H on June 27, 2016*

Recently, I finished this great, broad, historical, and significant endeavor. Let me begin by expressing my appreciation of Jared Diamond’s wonderful ability to simplify a very complex topic and related ideas. This alone, makes this read a great one. Too, there a few gems of humor and wit within the pages which caught my eye and mind. Don’t get me wrong though. The pages are filled with complex data, examples, and comparisons. Upon more than one occasion, my understanding necessitated the rereading of paragraphs and pages. Before I proceed into deeper thoughts, I must admit the duration of this read as being conducted well over an extended timeframe. I began reading it years ago, stopped, and then started again. Over the course of the last several months, I recommitted and achieved. In thoughtful detail, Diamond seeks to explain why certain groups of people have been successful over the course of human events and history, while others, in comparison, are not. It should be noted, the idea of “success” is very subjective. So, success in this case, is related to Western ideas of technological development, exploration, and conquest - generally described as one group of people gaining control or influence over another. An effective description of this is the Spanish conquest and colonization of the “New World,” especially the Aztecs and Incas. This example, though quite large in scope, and as pointed out by Diamond, has occurred throughout human history in large and small ways involving a multitude of others groups of people, both known and unknown. In short, I believe Diamond does well in addressing the impact and luck of geography and resources, as well as, the influences of more innate human characteristics and variety. The debate of nature versus nurture is here too contained. In the past, and not only in recent history, humans have expressed understandings of success in terms of innate differences which must exist between people - obviously though, those in power and dominate are able to define and express such ideas. However, Diamond looks beyond this and recognizes the complexity, and ultimately more profound influence of reality, nurture. In this sense though, it is not simply human nurturing and choice, it is the opportunities presented to humans, in difference places, at different times, to take advantage of their earthly surroundings and the ability to nurture developments, or not. This read is filled with a plethora of well detailed examples which come to show how access, or not, to certain elements leads to the success and superiority which has been described and known by those in power, throughout history. So, today, when certain people look down upon others and their lack of some qualities or characteristics, Diamond’s historical analysis provides engaging insight beyond and through the bias. Who we are presently is the result of all the past experiences of the human ancestors who preceded us, and furthermore, our development and success, in comparison to other humans, is simply more so the result of the access we have had to a confluence of resources and circumstances which allowed us to dominate other groups of humans with less access to the same. As groups of humans defined through sociological processes, we are no more intelligent, healthy, or physiologically better than the whole of humanity understood to exist through anthropology, biology, and any other area of study. “We all know that history has proceeded very differently for peoples from different parts of the globe...Those historical inequalities have cast long shadows on the modern world, because the literate societies with metal tools have conquered or exterminated the other societies. While those differences constitute the most basic fact of world history, the reasons for them remain uncertain and controversial.” In this work, Diamond splendidly explains how, “History followed different courses for different peoples because of differences among peoples’ environments, not because of biological differences among peoples themselves.” Please give the ideas of these pages the opportunity to share with you a detailed perspective of human experience which reaches far into the depths of history, beyond even the earliest written language. Diamond’s words will likely cause you to become lost in thoughts of the past. However, at the same time, he’ll take you to definitive places of demonstrable purpose leading to a better future understood through the context(s) of human experience.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ An impressive book with a convincing theory, but missing points
*by W***G on December 12, 2009*

The author mainly argues that societies developed differently on different continents because of advantages in geography, not advantages in human biology. In the book, we can conclude that there are four reasons to account for all historical development. Firstly, it is the number of the crops and animals to be domesticated. The second reason is the speed of agriculture development in the continents. The next reason is the knowledge communication between different continents. The forth reason is the size of population. Diamond argues that all of four factors have convincing evidences. And Diamond was able to explain geographical factors integrating knowledge from a wide range of subjects, including molecular biology, epidemiology, human genetics, linguistics, and archaeology. The book demonstrates the depth of the author's technical, linguistic, political, historical research. To the author's credit, when reading this book, I find myself accepting the term `geographical determinism' almost unconsciously. The theory Diamond sets forth is convincing enough, but the reality is more complex than simple geographical determinism--there are other factors at work, like culture and human decision, especially after the Neolithic Revolution. This is an impressive book. On the one hand, Diamond answers the complex question, "why did Eurasians conquer, displace or decimate Native Americans, Australians, and Africans, instead of the reverse?" using only three tiny objects: guns, germs and steel. Guns influence the course of political development. Germs are an additional thread of this transfer of power. Steel gives us a clue into technical advancement. The author does not get lost in complicated and trivial factors; on the contrary, he dismantles racially-based theory through analyzing environmental factors in the human history. On the other hand, Diamond brings to the book a great breadth of knowledge. When he began quoting writers from the Zhou Dynasty (first millennium BC), describing history many Chinese aren't even aware of, I was convinced of his credibility. As a scientist, I was able to appreciate Diamond's ability to express intricate and often inaccessible microbiological concepts in a clear way, to convey the magic of the microbial world to readers with a more general background. Take, for example, his description of the microbe's side of the spread of disease: "Many of our `symptoms' of disease actually represent ways in which some damned clever microbe modifies our bodies or our behavior such that we become enlisted to spread microbes... the strategy practiced by the influenza, common cold, and pertussis (whooping cough) microbes, which induce the victim to cough or sneeze, thereby launching a cloud of microbes toward prospective new hosts." As well-researched and thorough as it was, when you leave the book, you will have a suspicion that the author intentionally ignored the adverse evidences to support his opinions. In James Blaut's article, "Environmentalism and Eurocentrism", "he pointed out examples of North-South diffusion of crops, notably the cultivation of maize in both Peru and North America (1999)". But the book did not mention that several important crops that grow outside the temperate parts of Europe. And as a Chinese reader, I cannot eliminate a feeling that the writer always is looking for the evidence to support genetic racial equality while perhaps ignoring evidence that might suggest otherwise. In the book, Wealth and Poverty of Nations, author David Landes said "China's conscious decision in the 1400's to isolate itself from other nations was the key event that caused it to lose its technological advantage and fall behind Europe". Diamond also addresses this point from a geographical view. His argument: China was able to become a monolithic, autocratic country because of geographical factors, most importantly, its geographic connectedness. However, I think it is too simple to explain why China fell behind Europe. More explanation can be drawn from a cultural basis, such as political freedom, capitalism and open debate. The thoughts of Confucius were embedded deeply into the people of China for almost 5,000 years, and Chinese people innately believed agriculture was more important than commerce and industry. Although the commerce made a progress to some extent, they did not pay enough attention to it thus advanced industry could not be developed quickly. Also, the prevailing notion that people should stay loyal to the emperor and never resist, allowed the Chinese people to blindly accept they were the so-called super-country the emperor claimed. Actually they had ability to explore new lands, but their culture told them they were strongest and they did not need to do so. According to the statistics outlined in Andre Frank's, Reorient: Global Economy in the Asian Age, during the Ming Dynasty, China had a much stronger economy than Europe. Thus the Chinese found no need to conquer other countries for economic gain, instead focusing on the inner economical. The book did not address this point. Cultural elements do work in the human history development. But there is a question why different countries have different cultural thoughts. Now that genetic biology is not the reason, geographical environment shaped the basic ring of human history. But Diamond could not clearly answer why Confucius thoughts emerged in China, not other places, so did Socrates in Europe. The complexity of the issue may, in itself, explain why this was not addressed in this book. In summary, this book exhibits us a new picture of human history from a specific view of selecting three representative objects. In the book, you can view the fate of human societies from new vantage points. But you should have a bit of skepticism, because while Diamond convincingly argues that geographical elements play a vital role in the human history, culture and human decisions are also important.

## Frequently Bought Together

- Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
- Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed: Revised Edition
- Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis

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*Product available on Desertcart Croatia*
*Store origin: HR*
*Last updated: 2026-09-26*