Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, "Guns, Germs, and Steel" is a brilliant work
answering the question of why the peoples of certain continents succeeded in
invading other continents and conquering or displacing their peoples. This
edition includes a new chapter on Japan and all-new illustrations drawn from the
television series. Until around 11,000 BC, all peoples were still Stone Age
hunter/gatherers. At that point, a great divide occurred in the rates that human
societies evolved. In Eurasia, parts of the Americas, and Africa, farming became
the prevailing mode of existence when indigenous wild plants and animals were
domesticated by prehistoric planters and herders. As Jared Diamond vividly
reveals,