Sunday, March 29, 2020

"Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared Diamond


This well-known classic first published in 1997, and for which Diamond won a 1998 Pulitzer Prize, remains an excellent primer in how homo sapiens interact with infectious disease.  Diamond's emphasis is on how infectious disease has shaped modern human distribution of dominance outcomes.  One of Diamond's theories developed here is that the geographic shape of Asia has been determinative of eventual European-originated hegemony of the modern Earth.  Asia, being geographically very "wide" along the axis from western Europe to eastern Russia along a temperate latitude is the most advantageous region on Earth to support the development of domesicable animals and sustainable agriculture.





Link to Book on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Guns-Germs-Steel-Fates-Societies/dp/0393317552

Link to National Geographic Film based on the book on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i885hopsw6E

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