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  • Guns, Germs and Steel

  • The Fate of Human Societies
  • By: Jared Diamond
  • Narrated by: Doug Ordunio
  • Length: 16 hrs and 20 mins
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars (761 ratings)

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Guns, Germs and Steel

By: Jared Diamond
Narrated by: Doug Ordunio
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Editorial reviews

An epic account of 13,000 years of history and the interactions between people from different countries and cultures, Guns, Germs and Steel offers a fascinating explanation for why some civilisations thrived and conquered while others were exploited or exterminated.

Author Jared Diamond, a distinguished geography professor, rejects the widely accepted 'survival of the fittest' theory as wrong and, worse, racist. Instead, he suggests: 'History followed different courses for different peoples because of differences among peoples’ environments, not because of biological differences among peoples themselves'. In this audiobook, Diamond provides a convincing, research-based argument that geographical and environmental factors dominated throughout history and shaped the modern world. 

Doug Ordunio, a professional singer who has performed with the Duke Ellington Band, the New York City Opera and the Greek Theatre Opera, masterfully narrates this sweeping work. Ordunio’s stage presence is evident in his confident, polished delivery that matches the author’s comprehensive command of the topic. 

Highly acclaimed by reviewers, Guns, Germs and Steel won the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction and the Aventis Prize for Best Science Book. The National Geographic Society produced a documentary based on the book.

Publisher's Summary

Pulitzer Prize, General Nonfiction, 1998

Guns, Germs and Steel examines the rise of civilization and the issues its development has raised throughout history.

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.

©1997 Jared Diamond (P)2011 Random House
  • Unabridged Audiobook
  • Categories: History

What listeners say about Guns, Germs and Steel

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars

good research, too many words

Important topic, with some really logical and interesting conclusions; but some concepts were repeated needlessly. It could have been a much shorter book. Boredom lead to an increase in playback speed. Which is sad, because if it was more concise, it would have made a good birthday gift for a racist family member.

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9 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

A smart revisionist history of humankind

Look, if you like history this is your guy. There's absolutely nothing wrong with either the story or performance. The pace is good, never dwelling upon any one idea for too long, yet succinctly adding to your comprehension of the books thesis. I felt like I had been taught a intellectual secret. The authors many years of hard work have payed dividends, with what feels like to me, an answer to the question of why particular races succeed over others. A must read.

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Never has comparing Hitler to MLK Jr been so okay.

Yes, I'm sure that title has flagged the attention of anyone who has even the most remote awareness of social justice, and yes out of context it sounds like madnes. Yet here lies a such well writen and unbiased history or humanity that statements like that are completely acceptable.

Jarred Diamond's career as a biologist, more specifically an evolutionary biologist, have affordes him the perfect skill set to look at human history through a scientifc lense and cast aside as many biases and assumptions as possible. Yali got far more than what he bargained for when asking "why white people have so much". For some this may have seemed like an opportunity to boast about their ancestors ingenuity but for Diamond it was an opportunity to explore the near infinite environmental factors that have driven human socicietal evolution of the past thirteen millennia.

One could say that it is far too brief to allocate each continent only a page per century, which is about what our history equates to in a 400 page book. However I would argure that most readers would consider this book to be an extremely in-deapth analysis if how peoples came to be how they are today. I've learned more about the history of Polynesia, Madagascar, Papua New Guinea and Australia from these pages than from any prior source. Cultures that I've previously thought dull, now appear fascinating and uniquely, world events that previously seemes trivial now seem so utterly world shaping that it seems hard to believe that any one event could have so much influence. And thus I return to the point made in the tital, the actions of adolf hitler and the failed attempts on his life are instrumental in the contemporary structure of Europe and golbal balance of power, just as the more recent actions of Martin Luther King Jr have had a profound influence on the wellbeing of African Americans and have been felt the world over in the emancipation of people of colour.

And so to conclude, I chose such a punchy title because the comparison shocked me at first, but in the context of this book with Diamonds total acknowledgement and therefore absence of potential of racial biaeses it is a, though brief, a completely fair comparison to make.

I would recommend this book to anyone with an interest in history, anthropology, social justice, life and social sciences and frankly any university students. I will add the one caveat that it is quite dense at times so it would help to have some prior knowledge of world history.

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Book contains out of date information and opinions

some of the relevant information in this book is factually incorrect. while it was deemed correct at the time of writing I feel there needs to be a n acknowledgement at the beginning.

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

verbose

long. too much detail and not enough substance. can hear the narrator turn the pages.

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Not bad for a quick listen.

Book is a bit dated now. Whole thing could be summed up in a page.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Fascinating

I was a bit unsure with a lot of reviews saying it was too dense, long and outdated, but found it not the case at all. A brilliant thesis that zooms way out and looks at these broad strokes her f history

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

For every humanist and scientist, this is a must

Very comprehensive and educational insight into human civilisational development around the globe. A great book tulo supplement YUVAL HARRARI books

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

assertions without substance

I couldn't get past the prologue, I saw to many flaws with the foundational logic he was laying out for the book, he's happy to state tribal people being fact then trys to discredit any object means of proving that by saying IQ test are biased towards white people (an assertion I don't believe because their purposely sett up to test memory retention, and not the colour of skin), then reaffirms his stated fact by subjective means of him living with them and saying how clear it was to him. (he comes off as insufferable and without grounding in reality)

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

An interesting premise, but lacking in execution

The premise of this book sounds fantastic, with the emphasis on human evolution in an anthropological sense. However, it is very heavy on complex science and skews more a scientifically-educated audience than a casual reader or humanities expert.
The delivery is a little monotone and did not enrapture me to enjoy this much more than as background noise unfortunately.

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1 person found this helpful

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