Guns, Germs, and Steel

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (subtitled A Short History of Everybody for the Last 13,000 Years in Britain) is a 1997 transdisciplinary nonfiction book by the American author Jared Diamond. The book attempts to explain why Eurasian and North African civilizations have survived and conquered others, while arguing against the idea that Eurasian hegemony is due to any form of Eurasian intellectual, moral, or inherent genetic superiority.

Diamond argues that the gaps in power and technology between human societies originate primarily in environmental differences, which are amplified by various positive feedback loops. When cultural or genetic differences have favoured Eurasians (for example, written language or the development among Eurasians of resistance to endemic diseases), he asserts that these advantages occurred because of the influence of geography on societies and cultures (for example, by facilitating commerce and trade between different cultures) and were not inherent in the Eurasian genomes.

The book proposes that the environmental and geographical conditions of Eurasia and North Africa provided significant advantages, such as access to a greater variety of domesticable plants and animals, as well as an east–west continental axis that allowed for easier transfer of crops, livestock, and technologies. These conditions accelerated the development of agriculture, population growth, and political complexity, which in turn led to technological advancement and the spread of epidemic diseases to which Eurasian populations gradually developed resistance. By contrast, regions such as sub-Saharan Africa, the Americas, and Oceania faced geographic isolation and ecological barriers that slowed similar developments. Diamond argues that such environmental constraints, rather than any differences in intelligence or culture, determined the pace and direction of societal evolution.

It received widespread recognition for its interdisciplinarity, combining insights from biology, geography, anthropology, and history. In 1998, it won the Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction and the Aventis Prize for Best Science Book. A documentary based on the book, and produced by the National Geographic Society, was broadcast on PBS in July 2005.