About the author
Jared Diamond is an American scientist and nonfiction author whose training and research have included physiology, evolutionary biology, biogeography, and geography. His books offer large comparative explanations for environmental and social change.
Guns, Germs, and Steel argues that geographic and ecological differences shaped the broad distribution of food production, disease, technology, and state power. Its scale made it influential and also produced substantial scholarly criticism and debate.
Where to start
Start with Guns, Germs, and Steel for Diamond's best-known macrohistorical argument, then read it alongside specialised histories and Indigenous scholarship on the regions it compares.
