A review by kevin_shepherd
Guns, Germs and Steel: A Short History of Everybody for the Last 13,000 Years by Jared Diamond

4.0

Jared Diamond's exposition on the history of civilization is far more sociological than anthropological. Beginning around 11,000 BCE, Diamond vividly describes the ebb and flow of tribes, chiefdoms, kingdoms, and states. From modest hunter gatherers the trail of human progress winds through the innovation of agriculture and the domestication of livestock to the invention of writing and the advent of industrial technologies. Along the way Diamond tracks the rise and fall and rise of zoonotic pathogens and genocidal plagues. ‘Want to know why food production spread at different rates on different continents? Or why zebras were never domesticated? Or how poisonous plants like wild almonds ever became candidates for artificial selection? If so, this is your book.