Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. By Jared Diamond. New York: W. W.

Norton, 1997. Pp. 480. $27.50.

Jared Diamond has won the Pulitzer Prize and much acclaim for this book, and
deservedly so. It is a path-breaking book that will serve as a landmark for future historians,
anthropologists, and economists who are interested in the long-run development of the human
economy and society. The book is not perfect; it has flaws that stand out because so much of
the book is so good and original.
Diamond motivates his investigation into the development of the human economy by
attempting an answer to the question posed to him by a politician (Yali) from Papua New
Guinea: Why is the West rich and New Guinea poor? With some digressions, Diamond's
answer encompasses this book. His explanation is based on geography and is heavily
deterministic: from pre-history to the present, given the resources available to them, humans did
as well could be expected in their various environments. His narrative is over the very long-run,
the past 13,500 years, give or take a millennium.
Starting with the shape and position of continents, Diamond observes that the Eurasian
land mass extends thousands of miles further in the east-west direction than do the other
inhabited continents. Eurasia, unlike the other continents, also has relatively mild barriers to
east-west migrations. The shape and position of continents affect the spread of both fauna and
flora. Animals and plants evolve in specific ecologies and have difficulties in adapting to the
different climates that the earth's tilt imposes upon its north-south axis. This means that when
plants and animals were first domesticated they spread relatively easily on the Eurasian
continent, (east-west migration), but slowly on the African and the American continents (northsouth migrations). Plants domesticated in one latitude were not easily adapted to another

2
latitude because of the different amounts of sunlight, warmth and growing seasons. For
example, American corn (maize) domesticated about 3500 B.C.E. in Mesoamerica was not a
major crop in what is now the Eastern United States until the beginnings of the current era (200
C.E.); and corn was not a major crop in the more northern areas (New Jersey, New York, New
England) until after 800 C.E. Contrast corn to wheat which was first domesticated in the Fertile
Crescent by 7000 B.C.E. and had almost reached the English Channel by 5000 B.C.E. Plants
adopt to different localities along the (approximately) same latitude much more easily than by
going north or south.
The Eurasian land mass also had the advantage of having the largest area of
Mediterranean-type lands, stretching east-west from the Fertile Crescent to Iberia, and northsouth from southern Europe and the Black Sea area to North Africa. This was advantageous
because annual grasses with relatively large seeds are evolutionary responses to Mediterranean
climatic conditions. A number of these Mediterranean grasses became a major part of
humanity's food crops (wheat, barley, oats, rye). Other Mediterranean type areas (Southern
California, the southern tip of Africa south-west Australia) all were much smaller, and as a
consequence of their size, fewer native grasses evolved and that gave their aboriginal peoples
a smaller pool of potential domesticates. While having a larger selection to choose from does
not guarantee that you will find the best grain, the odds favor it. And the size differential of the
Mediterranean climatic region of Eurasia was vastly greater than those of other regions. In fact,
the aboriginal inhabitants of Southern California, South Africa and South Western Australia did
not find suitable crops, and never took up farming before contact with Europeans.
In Diamond's view, the transition from hunting-gathering to farming is important

3
because it leads to a greater population density and a settled lifestyle. A greater population
density means that there are more minds tackling the diverse problems that affect humanity.
A society with more minds does not guarantee that its solutions to problems will be more
effective than a society with fewer people, but once again, that is the way to bet. A settled
lifestyle allows humanity to shape and create things that hunter-gathers find too burdensome
to possess. The manipulation of the material world allowed the human race to acquire the
knowledge and skills that created the modern world. Once a problem was solved, the solution
spread rapidly through Eurasia. Consequently few problems had to be solved many times
(metallurgy was discovered twice, an alphabet once). If people know there is a solution, they
will discover it even if the actual process is unknown (the Cherokee alphabet was made by an
illiterate Cherokee, Sequoyah, who had observed the advantages white people had from making
marks that recorded speech). Consequently, the peoples who now inhabit the richest parts of the
modern world are not the heirs of smarter people than their impoverished counterparts, they
are just the fortunate survivors of peoples who faced fewer constraints and had a larger stock
of knowledge.
Diamond implicitly rejects the Malthusian Doctrine. (Implicit because neither Malthus
nor his Doctrine is discussed.) Malthusian impoverishment is just not relevant to Diamond.
Not that population growth has any unintended or unfortunate consequences. Settled agriculture
and population growth allowed the transmission of zoonoses to humanity from their herds of
domesticated animals and the parasites (fleas, ticks, rats, and other vermin) that followed
humans and their animals. These infections ravaged the Eurasian peoples giving them (among
other diseases): mumps, influenza, typhus, chicken pox, plague, and probably small pox. The

4
east-west orientation of the Eurasian land mass facilitated the transmissions of diseases because,
like other organisms, pathogens favor certain ecologies over others. A deadly pathogen in one
area may be a minor one in another or even unviable (e.g., yellow fever in the Arctic). Over
centuries these diseases became endemic to Europeans who developed acquired and/or natural
resistance to them. But when these diseases went with the Europeans to the Americas,
Australia, and of Polynesia the native peoples of these areas were devastated (in some areas
more than a 95% decline in just 150 years). The aboriginal inhabitants of these areas had no
similar panoply of diseases to infect the Europeans because they had either no settled agriculture
at all (Australia) or few domesticated animals (Polynesia and the Americas). The lack of
animals relative to the Eurasian peoples is, once again, a result of the immense east-west spread
of Eurasia that allowed early peoples a greater selection of potential domesticates. (Once the
animals were domesticated, many of their herds and flocks spread rapidly along the east-west
axis.) Diamond attributes the European conquest of the Americas to germs in conjunction with
technology (guns and steel). European hegemony was assured when the Chinese opted for
isolation during the fifteenth century. This left the Chinese unaware of the changes in
technology and warfare the more competitive Europeans were creating.

European

competitiveness was itself a function of geography: the mountains, rivers, peninsulas, and
islands that divide Europe allow for political fragmentation. Political fragmentation meant that
if a nation did not keep up, it would be divided up.
Thus, for good or for evil, the patrimony of geography and history is visited upon the
inhabitants of regions and their descendants. This is the essence of Diamond's message, but
there is much that is very good, but peripheral to his main theme. Some examples are: the

5
nuances of radiocarbon dating, the difficulties of domesticating animals, the lives of primitive
peoples (Hobbesian), Pleistocene extensions, tracing populations from linguistics, and so on.
The range of his knowledge and scholarship are extraordinary, so it is understandable that he
should make some mistakes.
The errors that he makes are of two types: one group is so gross they are almost
caricatures. These could easily have been corrected by a knowledgeable historian. Examples
of these are: 1) The calvary did not dominate warfare until World War I, it was of marginal
importance in land warfare from the end of the middle ages. 2) What is now the United States
did not import "millions of sub-Saharan black Africans" as slaves, only about 660,000. And 3)
the debate over whether the QWERTY keyboard is an example of path dependency is
continuing. Diamond does not recognize that there is any debate; he takes QWERTY as a
proven example of path dependence. These and other errors could easily have been corrected,
and are really not central to Diamond's argument.
Diamond makes some more complex and sophisticated errors. One is that he does not
carry his basic argument far enough. While he mentions the importance of diseases, he also
emphasizes the decisive role of European military technology in their conquests. But conceive
of a hypothetical alternative: Suppose that when the Europeans first made their voyages of
discovery they did not have firearms but, instead, had lower-cost and more reliable shipping.
Would the Europeans have had an easier or more difficult time conquering the Americas? I
believe that lower-cost shipping would have brought Old World diseases to the New World
more rapidly than actually occurred, and that would have depopulated the Americas even more
rapidly than actually happened. In other words, diseases were even more important than

6
Diamond implies with his emphasis on "guns and steel." Pathogens were the sine qua non
behind the Europeanization of the New World and Oceania. Africa and East Asia were not
amenable to Europeanization (temporary conquests, yes; permanent replacement of populations,
no) because these areas had their own deadly pathogens that more than offset those that the
Europeans brought. European military superiority enabled them temporarily to conquer vast
parts of Africa and Asia. It was a temporary conquest because of the excessive mortality of
Europeans in those areas prohibited Europeanization. The excess mortality had the direct effect
of reducing the European population, and the indirect effect of inducing sensible Europeans not
to migrate to these regions.
Another error that Diamond (and many others make) is assuming that the game is over.
The author writes about Europe (and Europes descendants) eventual dominance, as if it were
permanent. But, if we are to believe Diamond, East Asian countries with open and honest
capitalist systems have a density advantage over the West. The next millennium may see a reranking of regional economic advantages. For someone who espouses the long-run (with a
vengeance) approach to history, curiously Diamond ignores it when looking into the future.
But these are relatively minor flaws in a magnificent book. Diamond has pointed out
new vistas toward an understanding of the development of the human economy, and how and
why Homo sapiens transformed itself from hunting-gathering to modern technology. This book
has made a major contribution to our knowledge of ourselves.
Philip R. P. Coelho, Ball State University