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I’ve had this book for while though never got round to reading it until recently, daunted by the sheer size of the book. But, having already read Jared Diamond‘s fascinating, follow-up book Collapse, and hearing nothing but good reports on Guns, Germs, and Steel, I knew I had to get my arse into gear and read the darn thing. And, I’m sure glad I finally did.

The main motivation for the book, Diamond recalls is a conversation with friend, Yali, a Papua New Guinean politician who in 1972 asked Diamond as to why it was Europeans with the ‘cargo’ and Papua New Guineans without. At the time, Diamond was largely unable to give a concise answer and so – two and a half decades on – this book set out in the aims of doing so.

Guns, Germs, and Steel is an incredibly ambitious book looking at the evolution and migratory patterns of modern humans, particularly from 13,000 years ago onwards – from around the time humans in the Fertile Cresent first began to move from hunter-gathering towards subsistence farming, and determining facts as to why some humans ‘developed’ more than others and as such managed to conquer foreign lands by means for their acquired guns, germs, and steel.

It’s a colossal task to take into account all the possible factors as to why some groups managed to progress to further stages of development, whereas others were largely unable to do. Though, through Diamond’s thorough research and sheer intellect, he successfully does so, and in doing so opens the floodgate to a whole new approach of the science of human evolution. And, whilst doing so closes the gate on the racist theories of the past as to why some groups prospered and spread whereas other did not.

In his book, Diamond explains how the guiding factors behind why peoples of the Eurasian continent were largely able to develop and progress at a more advanced rate than indigenous peoples of other continents were largely due to environmental and physical factors rather than any intrinsic racial difference between peoples of different continents in terms of intelligence and ingenuity. Environmental examples given as to why Eurasia was able to proceed at an accelerated rate compared with other continents include: being blessed with the most productive crops for food consumption; containing a large mass of land within the temperate climatic region, where the bulk of the world’s grains and livestock are located; having the good fortune of having the most malleable and reliable animals in which to domesticate; and having a predominately east-west continental axis allowing for comparatively easy transferring of domesticated crops throughout the continent due to similar daylight hours and seasonal patterns compared with the continents of the Americas and Africa which follow a predominately north-south axis.

So, as such, Eurasians were blessed with being born in the right location in order for them to develop subsistence farming which enabled them to give up hunter-gathering, enabling more time for child-rearing and food production, which produced greater populations and population density, which in time gave birth to a hierarchical system whereby chiefs, kings, armies, slaves and cities were created which would then move on in order to appropriate more land and resources, and the domino effect continued until reaching the New World, Sub-Saharan Africa, Australia and Oceania where the peoples of Eurasia’s superior weaponry, wealth, legal systems – and in particular, imported diseases, largely decimated indigenous peoples of the previously mentioned continents.

Diamond’s book was not without its critics however – which was inevitable given the sheer scope, worth of material, and potentially controversial topics and fields of study in the book. However, in his follow-up editions of the initial publication, Diamond has largely answered his critics – in my opinion, successfully – in terms of discussing reasons as to why it was Europe and not China, a long-running hotbed of civilization and inventions, that managed to colonise so much of the world and not vice versa. More recent editions also include a section on Japan, its current position in the global hegemony and just how it got to that position.

I haven’t nearly done justice to explaining the theories and principles behind Diamond’s book, and strongly recommend you to read this important book to further your knowledge of human migration and evolution, and in doing so realise that it was largely chance – being born in the right place at the right time – as to why Eurasian people got to their point of relative affluence today. The book is quite lengthy and in some sections a tad technical but should be readable for any adult or teenager, and as such would make a great resource book for high school or university students studying a variety of fields ranging from physiology to geology and evolutionary biology.

I strongly recommend Guns, Germs, and Steel and his follow-up book, Collapse, which focuses more closely on examples from the past provided in Guns, Germs, and Steel; and also looks at modern implications of the environment, climate and how strongly it determines our very existence. I give this book a top five out of five stars, and am looking forward to acquiring Diamond’s two previous books, The Third Chimpanzee and Why Sex is Fun?