ABSTRACT
Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel is an interdisciplinary work- it draws on the aims and methods of different academic disciplines. Although it is relevant to the study of history, politics, and physical sciences, it is particularly relevant to the study of geography. Braudel's seminal book, The Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, begins with an analysis of the physical environment of the Mediterranean world in the 1500s. Diamond was deeply influenced by the idea that the physical environment created the structures from which outcomes emerged. As well as processual archaeology, Diamond was influenced by the field of environmental sociology. Introducing the environment as a new variable brought "man-land" geography and sociology together. In his deeply influential book On the Origin of Species, the English naturalist Charles Darwin explained the relationship between creatures and plants and their environments.
