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.

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Product details

Listening Length	16 hours and 20 minutes
Author	Jared Diamond
Narrator	Doug Ordunio
Audible.in Release Date	18 January 2011
Publisher	Random House Audio
Program Type	Audiobook
Version	Unabridged
Language	English
ASIN	B079TM9DFX
Best Sellers Rank	#581 in Audible Audiobooks & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Audiobooks & Originals) #1 in Agricultural & Food Sciences #2 in Human Geography #5 in History of Civilisation

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5 star		69%
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1 star		4%

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Devi

Not A Casual Read..!!

Reviewed in India on 23 February 2017

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Jared Diamond takes a giant leap back into history, to take us forward, through a lot of things, most of which I was unaware, until now. It is interesting, somewhat controversial and there are a lot of generalizations, some of which are questionable even. Though I wish there was more focus on Asian history/societies, one thing that amazed me is the amount of proof the author has sighted, that too from various disciplines, to prove his point. And to use these evidences to make a grand theory, or form an original idea/opinion is no joke. In that way, it is a well researched and often well defended book.

Hence, it is path breaking, inspiring, there is a lot of detail (and yes, of course, some speculation) and will be a great experience for someone ready to invest his/her time to understand human societies.

P.S. There is a documentary, based on this book, by National Geographic, which is quite gripping.

56 people found this helpful

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Rick

Ridiculously small print

Reviewed in India on 7 June 2019

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The print is so small you will bleed from eyes trying to read.That is my thumb and they have squeezed 4 lines in my thumbs breadth.Eyes will hurt.Excellent book though.

14 people found this helpful

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Rupinder

A freakin' good read

Reviewed in India on 21 July 2017

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A landmark book. This book is my all-time favourite. It is a damn good read, and it has spawned many similar books after it came out, but none even came close in content. I won't belabour you by telling you what it is about, as I don't think I can add anything new to what's been already said on the net. Just read the darn book!

11 people found this helpful

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Juzer

Groundbreaking

Reviewed in India on 9 August 2018

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This is an excellent book. Jared Diamond has done groundbreaking work on human history that inspired the works of Yuval Noah Harari authored Sapiens: A brief history of humankind and Homo Deus.

A lot of information has been repeated quite a few times in order for them to "stick" in reader's mind. After reading it one would be able to see the author's inferences and worldview quite clearly. This book is the answer to humanity's so many questions.

9 people found this helpful

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General customer

history of human evolution through geography!

Reviewed in India on 19 October 2019

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A very informative and logically analysed book on the history of mankind from the early stages. The author has tried to answer a very pertinent question of why people in different continents developed in different manner and to different levels. How one group of people could dominate the entire world development? His answers of geogrraphical differences, availability of domesticable plants and animals, the spread of crowd epedemics helped and favoured the eurasian group to dominate the world scene are very well analysed and argued out. His contention that human intelligence and ability to discover and invent is equally spread and probable in all groups but nature and circumstances favoured one set of people over the rest and not intrensic superiority in terms of intelligence etc. is also well brought out. His pointing out how inventions pan out over a period of time and a chain of events and people and are really not a one man or one event affair is very interesting.With the advent and rapid progress made in genetics, many of these theories and analysis can be validated and verified indipendently. A very engrossing read for those interested in history or curious of human evolution.

One person found this helpful

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Anantha Narayan

Extremely informative, laborious read though

Reviewed in India on 19 June 2020

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At the outset, let me warn you that this book is a laborious read - I had to alternate it with another "lighter" book while reading it. But, at the end, there is an incredible sense of achievement in the ability to understand human evolution better!

Jared Diamond is an enviable polymath - he has significant knowledge on multiple fields including anthropology, biology, ecology, and geography and puts together this knowledge in Guns, Germs and Steel for us to understand how humans evolved the way they did. He seeks to answer a question put to him by a politician acquaintance in New Guinea, basically, why human development occured at different rates on different continents. Or in other words, why didn't native Americans reach Europe and colonise it rather than the other way around. Diamond repeatedly makes the point that race had nothing to do with this. He attempts to answer this basic question over 500 pages, by discussing the history of human evolution, the progress of food production, the translation of that into guns, germs and steel (the building blocks that enabled some humans to develop faster than others) and then finally gives examples of such different rates of development across different parts of the world.

As to be expected with a book of this size exploring just a single question, parts of the book are dry to read and some parts are repetitive. The lack of the fifth star in the rating is simply on account of this. But the book succeeded in making me think of issues that I would never have and gives an entirely different perspective of commonly-held beliefs about human evolution. And during this journey, I picked up some fascinating pieces of information. For example, that the first cultivated plants in the Americas (bottle gourd) was not as food but as containers. Or that of the modern world's 6,000 languages, 1,000 belong to just New Guinea! All of this makes the book a satisfying read eventually.

Pros: Extremely informative, challenges commonly-held views about human evolution, interesting trivia

Cons: Laborious read, repetitive at parts

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Shreelakshmi

13000 years in 350 pages!

Reviewed in India on 16 October 2018

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An excellent read. Encompasses human history from the beginning of times till today - almost. A must for anybody who is keen on reading, observing and analysing society and human behaviour in general and also for the rest of us.

4 people found this helpful

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Kindle Customer

Good book

Reviewed in India on 11 January 2020

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Buy if you are curious about the human history but don't expect anything like Homo Sapiens by YNH. Jared Diamond closes most of his arguments by presenting myriad circumstances but always avoids controversial, polar or radical opinion. He pins every anomaly by pulling out factors out of thin air, which is quite amazing, but at times it seems clear that he is trying to stay clear of any criticism by not blaming the people and saying things like 'it was not people of that island or place but bla and bla that made stuff happen'

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Top reviews from other countries

Grognard

Genuinely groundbreaking. I wish I had read it when it first came out!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 12 November 2017

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How this book managed to pass me by for the last 20 years is beyond me, but it did, and I was much the poorer for it! I suspect it was down to the somewhat misleading subtitle, Its not a short history of the world, it is instead an attempt to explain why some parts of the world developed much quicker than others, and how we have reached the relative balance of civilization(s) that we have today. The core of the argument is in the title, but its much more complex than that, and the author does an excellent job in laying out his arguments and providing the underpinning evidence for them.
Others reviewers have said its a dry read. Believe me, its not! I have read scientific journals much drier than this! Inevitably some of the topics, such how some plants and animals have been domesticated can be a dry topic, but the author does a really good job in making the explanations easier to follow.
The astonishing thing about this book is that it has pulled evidence from a wide variety of sources to build up such a coherent and plausible picture. The author is a genuine polymath and his masterly analysis of topics from such a wide variety of scientific and historical fields is breathtaking. It was fully deserving of its Pulitzer prize
.
Its easy to see why this book is unpopular with some sections of society, it undermines the basis of many other theories about racial, cultural and religeous supremacy. I am convinced however, that this will be seen as one of a select few landmark books that shape the way we perceive our origins in the years to come.

The Kindle version is good conversion of the original book. The diagrams can be effectively magnified to fill the page, the tables do not loose format and there are hyperlinks to the tables and diagrams included within the text where necessary. Unfortunately the plate illustrations have not been included, probably to reduce the overall file size; however, I did not find this to be a problem in following the arguments within the text.

50 people found this helpful

I.B.Leave

Seems to fall at the first hurdle.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 3 October 2018

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I have only read the introduction and the first chapter, but already given up.

The book seems to be premised around the notion of the Great Leap Forward. However three recent discoveries would seem to seriously call into question this notion; Pre-Clovis occupation 14,550 years ago at the Page-Ladson site, Florida; U-Th dating of carbonate crusts has revealed Neandertal origin of Iberian cave art; a bone fragment from Denisova Cave (Russia) shows that it came from an individual who had a Neanderthal mother and a Denisovan father.

I will happily read the rest of the book, when the author reviews his theories in the light of these recent developments.

32 people found this helpful

Marcus Gallardo

Tedious love letter to New Guinea

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 30 July 2018

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Having read Sapiens with its great anthropological history of man I wanted more of the same. I got this based on other reviews and am disappointed. It starts with a man who has obviously been to New Guinea and felt a connection with the people there. This connection continues throughout what is an impenetrable book. The tiny writing and boring recounting of human history from A to J then back to D is like a Tarantino film. I couldn’t tell you if it ties together or not in the end as I kept skipping forward to the next chapter. Don’t believe the hype.

25 people found this helpful

Dave Hodgkinson

Don’t bother

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 27 September 2018

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Generally the books faults are covered by other reviews and I think bill brysons short history is much accessible.

My chief issue though is the stupidly small font. It was a chore to read frankly and had I opened this before the expiry date for returns I’d have sent it back once I saw the font.

It sounds like a petty thing to mention but when it’s a thick book on a dense topic having it in what seems like 7pt just makes no sense whatsoever. The publisher really ought to know better.

20 people found this helpful

Mr. B. Slight

The text is tiny

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 11 November 2018

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With apologies to the author, whose book I really want to read. It just isn’t possible to open this (B-format) edition without the knowledge that you’ll have a migraine after 5 pages. The publisher has clearly taken a cost-saving decision to shrink the pages from the hardback rather than reflow the text. Very disappointed.

17 people found this helpful

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