Guns, Germs and Steel

The Fate of Human Societies

By: Jared Diamond

Narrated by: Doug Ordunio

Pulitzer Prize, General Nonfiction, 1998

Guns, Germs and Steel examines the rise of civilization and the issues its development has raised throughout history.

Having done field work in New Guinea for more than 30 years, Jared Diamond presents the geographical and ecological factors that have shaped the modern world. From the viewpoint of an evolutionary biologist, he highlights the broadest movements both literal and conceptual on every continent since the Ice Age, and examines societal advances such as writing, religion, government, and technology. Diamond also dissects racial theories of global history, and the resulting work—Guns, Germs and Steel—is a major contribution to our understanding the evolution of human societies.

©1997 Jared Diamond (P)2011 Random House

Great book, poor narration

This is a great and thought provoking book, just what I've come to appreciate and expect from Jared Diamond.
Unfortunately, the narration is so dull it makes it incredibly difficult to keep engaged with the story. His voice is monotone and devoid of meaningful inflections, and throaty, I keep waiting for him to clear his throat, it turns this in to a very dry listen. Significantly reduces my enjoyment of this incredible book.

great book, worth a listen

Would you listen to Guns, Germs and Steel again? Why?

Yes, it is a fascinating and convincing interpretation of evolution using contemporary, historical and archeological evidence.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

I would have liked to, but it is too long for a one-sitting work. I was driven to get through by the power of the arguments and of the prose.

Very Interesting yet quite boring

I almost rated this three stars but I think the information alone is worth four. The narrator isn't too bad, about a three out of five. I wouldn't not listen to this just because it can get boring though. You'd think they could come out with an abridged version so it wouldn't get so lengthy at times. Worth a listen if you have an interest in this area of history.

Great book - Extremely boring reader

I was very excited to see that G G & S was now available in an unabridged version at audible. I jumped in right away. The book is very interesting but it is hard to follow and on top of this the reader is soporific. It is so monotonous that I was constantly rewinding to re listen. In similar terms, I had previously listened to Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything and the reader was so much enthusiastic and passionate. As I said the book is great, but if you plan to listen it while you drive, pay extra care!

rebute racism and eurocentric "history"

it will surprise you, perhaps even change your mind about a few things, but most importantly, it will open your mind.

Some parts are boring, but still fascinating

In short, it tries to answer the question of why European culture and not culture from other parts of the world is dominating the world today.

The book is fascinating, contains a lot of interesting facts and enlightens the reader with some of the great theories and explanations in linguistics, evolution, biology, anthropology and history. It may not be very detailed in answering certain questions, but it's a great starting point to investigate the subject you are interested in further. As other reviewers noted, it contains a boring part on botany which is really exhausting to listen to, but other than that it was interesting.

The narrator was not perfect, chewing some words. Also the quality of the recording is not perfect with some white noise, but after a while you stop noticing that.

great journey of human societies

"Why you white people brought so much of cargo, where we New Guinean have so little of them?"

A simple innocent question by Yali started the author's journey from the end of last ice age about 13,000 years ago to the modern era of guns, germs and steel. That fascinating journey answered many of my questions, or made honest attempt with environmental, historical, archeological and socio cultural evidences. Like Yali, the question of european colonization and supremacy over other societies were bugging me for years. While I was about to be falling pray to racial and gene diversity theory on modern human, I got a whole new perspective from this book. The author observed, even though the migration started across continents long before the last ice age, how the Sumers got the environmental and geographic advantages in fertile crescent to start early domestication of plants and mammals. The food production slowly replaced hunter-gatherer nomadic lifestyle to dense community and changed egalitarian societies to stratified ones by making scribes, priests and army . The advantage of food producing societies over foraging societies helped them to conquer either by extermination or by enslaving. The dense community and animal domestication also bought lethal germs which also played a huge role in shaping the humanity. The author also elaborated how other major milestones like writing and then inventions played key roles to catalyze skewed growth of eurasian continent due to idea diffusion and competing societies.

The book also leaves may questions to be answered. One such key question, why colonization of new world started from western Europe lately, while China was enjoying more unified society, huge costal area and ship building and voyaging technologies. Another question was, even if early modern civilization started in fertile crescent, why it became arid over a period of time and civilization shifted more western?

Lastly, after reading this book, I'm fully convinced that history is macro science. The detailed observation of changing world gives us a huge perspective to the future, the future of humanity. Overall, a must read for one in the quest of "who am i".

Best book on history ever

Learn why things are the way they are. Why races aren't superior to one another. And how history is almost a science.

Intriguing topic but dry writing

I enjoyed the premise of the book and thought it would be an interesting history of civilizations. I was excited to review the comparative advantages that certain civilizations had, and while the book contained a plethora of interesting facts and details, It ultimately was written in a way that was just very monotonous.

Outstanding.

This book is very deep and thouroughly researched. It presents a very convincing argument that geography is a very great factor in world history. Indeed, the predominant factor.