Diamant

1999 · MM13359 — New York:: Norton 1999. 1999. 8vo. 480 pp. 32 plates figs. index. Pictorial wrappers. Fine. ISBN: 0393317552 Reviews: "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. "A book of remarkable scope a history of the world in less than 500 pages which succeeds admirably where so many others have failed in analyzing some of the basic workings of culture process. . . One of the most important and readable works on the human past published in recent years." -Colin Renfrew Nature. MK Norton, 1999. unknown books