ABSTRACT
The key themes of Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel concern some of the most basic building blocks of civilization. Diamond's overall argument is that today's profoundly unequal world is the result of geographic inequalities in the natural world, rather than genetic inequalities such as some peoples having higher intelligence than others. Food production was not, Diamond argues, "invented" by some clever people around the world who had a better idea than hunting and gathering- rather it "evolved" slowly. Eurasia started off with many easily domesticated staple crops- wheat, barley, lentils, and so forth- whereas the Americas did not. Domesticating plants and animals involves a fundamental change in ways of life- so for any to occur at all, it must be very worthwhile. Guns, Germs, and Steel was written for a mass audience- most reviewers praised "its erudition, clear prose, and elegant synthesis of multiple sources, from archaeology to zoology".
