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Summary of Guns, Germs, and Steel 

4.5 . 10149 reviews

Short summary

Tracing the history of the world for the last 13,000 years, Jared Diamond sets out to discover why growth and development did not take place evenly across countries and continents. Before racism became mainstream and writing emerged, what happened in native societies outside Eurasia and North African societies? Jared Mason Diamond is a celebrated American scholar who teaches Geography and Physiology at the University of California. He reveals that little has been documented about the history of the human species before 3,000 B.C. despite constituting 99.9% of our collective history. We must expand our scope beyond western Eurasian societies to find ultimate explanations rather than proximate factors that explain the disproportionate development between European societies and other societies. World history is like an onion and the modern world is only the surface of the onion. We must peel back layers of this onion to unearth the fascinating, challenging, and overwhelmingly important understanding of world history. Lessons from the past equip us for the future. “Some other parts of the world are very instructive, because they encompass so many societies and such diverse societies within a small geographical area.” ~ Jared Diamond

Table of content

  • Summary of Guns, Germs, and Steel
  • About the author
  • What is Guns, Germs, and Steel about?
  • Who should read Guns, Germs, and Steel
  • Topics in Guns, Germs, and Steel
first key point

We must attempt an answer to the question of huge disparities between the lifestyles of people of different societies

Listen the first key point
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Jared Diamond, while studying bird evolution in New Guinea in 1972, met a local politician named Yali. Yali asked: “Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people had little cargo of our own?” This simple but difficult to answer question has been a puzzle to professional historians. There is no consensus on the answer. Some have stopped attempting an answer altogether. “Guns, Germs, and Steel” is Jared Diamond’s attempt at an answer to Yali’s question.
Much of human history has consisted of unequal conflicts between the haves and the have-nots. ~ Jared Diamond
Since the end of the last Ice Age, the 13,000 years that followed divided the world along 2 large lines: literate industrial societies with metal tools and nonliterate farming societies. Consequently, the modern world is a product of that division. The divide with the guns and steel have colonized and sometimes exterminated those without these metal tools.

As of the year A.D. 1500, much of Europe, Asia, and North Africa were on the verge of industrialization. Conversely, the Aztecs and the Incas were still using stone tools. The political and technological differences at this time were responsible for the modern world’s inequalities. Yet, we must investigate what led to the situation in A.D. 1500

Therefore, the question is why human development proceeded at different rates on different continents. This bite-sized book attempts an answer to this question because these disparate rates account for the broadest pattern of history.

Beyond academic interest, we seek to understand the practical and political implications of the conquests, epidemics, and genocide that shaped the modern world.
Most of the world’s 6,000 surviving languages are being replaced by English, Chinese, and Russian.
The dominance of Europe and North Africa is often attributed to superior intellect, physiology and morality. But the evidence says otherwise.
Geography not biology accounts for the gaps in power and technology between the two societies.
The development of written language and the resistance of Eurasians to endemic diseases happened because of a confluence of cultures that resulted from commercial activities. When a city, for example, is a trade route, different people from all walks of life will converge there. Being gregarious, humans have a way of rubbing off on one another.

This summary highlights some of the geographic, climatic and environmental factors that enabled imperialism in stable agricultural societies. It shows how guns, germs, and steel were the weapons used to subdue and sometimes exterminate those with less sophistication.
second key point

What were the factors that created great civilizations?

Large population, sophisticated tools, and properly organized workforce are three factors that all great civilizations share in common. How were some societies able to gain access to these factors quickly while others did not? The Egyptians built the great pyramids at a time when the rest of mankind were hunter-gatherers. The Greeks, Romans, and Mayans are some other examples of early civilizations that had advanced technology.
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third key point

Cereal crops and a volatile climate dictates lifestyle in the Middle East 12,500 years ago

fourth key point

9,000 years ago, wheat and barley were supplemented by meat from domesticated animals

fifth key point

Learning to forge steel was possible in communities that had enough food to eat

sixth key point

Food security and access to beasts of burden created an enabling environment for the rapid development of Eurasian societies

seventh key point

Agricultural societies grow much faster than hunter-gatherer societies

eighth key point

No race is superior to the other; what matters is the hand they have been dealt

ninth key point

Ataxalpa, the Incan emperor, was unaware the conquistadors had sophisticated weapons and it would cause his downfall

tenth key point

The development of writing was another factor that favored Europe’s dominance

eleventh key point

Unbeknownst to the Spaniards, they were carriers of infectious diseases to which their bodies were immune

twelfth key point

Once they were able to conquer the Indians and the Mexicans, Europeans attempted to conquer the world

thirteenth key point

Conclusion

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What is Guns, Germs, and Steel about?

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