簡介
為什麼是歐亞大陸人征服、趕走或大批殺死印第安人、澳大利亞人和非洲人，而不是相反？為什麼么小麥和玉米、牛和豬以及現代世界的其他一些“不了起的”作物和牲畜出現在這些特定地區，而不是其他地區？在這部開創性的著作中，演化生物學家賈雷德.戴蒙德揭示了事實上有助於形成歷史最廣泛模式的環境因素，從而以震撼人心的力量摧毀了以種族主義為基礎的人類史理論，因其突出價值和重要性，本書榮獲1998年美國普利茲獎和英國科普書獎，並為《紐約時報》暢銷書排行榜作品。
本書是理解人類社會發展史方面的一個重大進展，它記錄了現代世界及其諸多不平等所以形成的原因，也是一部真正關於全世界各民族的歷史，是對人類生活的完整一貫的敘述，娓娓道來，具有很強的可讀性。
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作者簡介
賈雷德·戴蒙德，加利福尼亞大學洛杉磯分校醫學院生理學教授以生理學開始其科學生涯，進而研究演化生物學和生物地理學，被選為美國藝術與科學院、國家科學院院士、美國哲學學會會員，曾獲得麥克阿瑟基金會研究員基金及全國地理學會伯爾獎，在《發現》、《博物學》、《自然》和《地理》雜誌上發表過論文200多篇。
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Life isn't fair--here's why: Since 1500, Europeans have, for better and worse, called the tune that the world has danced to. InGuns, Germs, and Steel,Jared Diamond explains the reasons why things worked out that way. It is an Elemental question, and Diamond is certainly not the first to ask it. However, he performs a singular service by relying on scientific fact rather than specious theories of European genetic superiority. Diamond, a professor of physiology at UCLA, suggests that the geography of Eurasia was best suited to farming, the domestication of animals and the free flow of information. The more populous cultures that developed as a result had more complex forms of government and communication--and increased resistance to disease. Finally, fragmented Europe harnessed the power of competitive innovation in ways that China did not. (For example, the Europeans used the Chinese invention of gunpowder to create guns and subjugate the New World.) Diamond's book is complex and a bit overwhelming. But the thesis he methodically puts forth--examining the "positive feedback loop" of farming, then domestication, then population density, then innovation, and on and on--makes sense. Written without bias,Guns, Germs, and Steelis good global history.
Observer
'A book of extraordinary vision and confidence'
Synopsis
This book answers the most obvious, the most important, yet the most difficult question about human history: why history unfolded so differently on different continents. Geography and biography, not race, moulded the contrasting Fates of Europeans, Asians, Native Americans, sub-Saharan Africans, and aboriginal Australians. An ambitious synthesis of history, biology, ecology and linguistics, Guns, Germs and Steel is one of the most important and humane works of popular science.
From the Publisher
Winner of the 1998 Rhone-Poulenc Science Book Prize
About the Author
Jared Diamond:
Jared Diamond is Professor of Physiology at the University of California, Los Angeles. Trained in physiology, he later took up the study of ecology and has made fundamental contributions to both disciplines. He is among the worlds leading zoologists and experts on birds. He has made many trips to the mountains of New Guinea to study their unique birds, rediscovered their long-lost bowerbird, and advises New Guinea governments on conservation. As well as writing technical articles in his many fields of interest, Jared Diamond writes regularly for popular science journals. He is married, and has twin sons
