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.