Guns, Germs and Steel Audiobook By Jared Diamond cover art

Guns, Germs and Steel

The Fate of Human Societies

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Guns, Germs and Steel

By: Jared Diamond
Narrated by: Doug Ordunio
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Pulitzer Prize, General Nonfiction, 1998

Guns, Germs and Steel examines the rise of civilization and the issues its development has raised throughout history.

Having done field work in New Guinea for more than 30 years, Jared Diamond presents the geographical and ecological factors that have shaped the modern world. From the viewpoint of an evolutionary biologist, he highlights the broadest movements both literal and conceptual on every continent since the Ice Age, and examines societal advances such as writing, religion, government, and technology. Diamond also dissects racial theories of global history, and the resulting work—Guns, Germs and Steel—is a major contribution to our understanding the evolution of human societies.

©1997 Jared Diamond (P)2011 Random House Agricultural & Food Sciences Anthropology Biological Sciences Civilization Evolution Evolution & Genetics Human Geography Science Social Sciences World Africa Thought-Provoking Ancient History Inspiring Suspenseful Imperialism Middle East Latin America Conservative Authors

Featured Article: The 20 Best History Audiobooks You Never Heard in School


While history is by definition the study of the past, no subject tells us more about the present, or is as exciting to follow in contemporary times. The range of subgenres within history writing is huge. Some authors cover a massive scope, while others zoom in to examine tiny, overlooked elements in a new way. Unlike your history class of old, these selections don’t demand memorization of names and dates. Read on for the best in our catalog.

Featured Article The 20 Best History Audiobooks You Never Heard in School
Transformative Content • Compelling Narrative • Comprehensive Explanation • Intellectual Depth • Fascinating Connections
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Incredible analysis of human civilization! While it can be repetitive or dry in some areas, this could be improved with access of maps or Wikipedia as an adjunct to the audiobook.

The narration is a little off -- with sometimes jarring transitions in narration and a very annoying regional pronunciation of 'W's -- but is workable.

Strongly recommend for anyone with a curious mind.

Brilliant!

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Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Yes, its a very good book. Well writen and well explained.

What other book might you compare Guns, Germs and Steel to and why?

Nothing I have yet read. Though I hope to find others.

What about Doug Ordunio’s performance did you like?

Clear and well voiced.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

History: A real world story

Very interesting much deeper then the tv show

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Amazing work by Jared Diamond. Highly recommend for any readers who desire to further educate themselves on the progress of humanity, the concepts of race and culture, and how our cultures and current world have developed.

Phenomenal

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having red sapiens first this book was just a duplicate story in a lot of ways. Maybe it would have been better had it in the first time I read it

Similar to Sapiens

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It's a brilliant book, the author has a very ambitious and all spanning theory about human history and evolution. However the voice performance is so flat I'm quite sure I missed nearly half of the book. This needs an update!

This book deserves better!

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This book tries to explain the factors that contribute to the rise of civilizations. It is special in that it does not overly focus on one civilization but instead attempts to look across civilizations to try to find the underlying factors (if there are any) that explain why one society dominates over another. As a computer engineer, I found this book to be satisfying in its explanation and was surprised at how much of a factor germs played in the way our globe had progressed over the years. It has been said that the world belongs to the microscopic. This book will explain why that is not as crazy as it sounds.

Why Them and Not Us? Why Us and not Them?

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I loved the topic so I enjoyed the listen. But it's long and you may feel like in class.
There's a few mention of dates that may confuse some listeners but overall the book is easy to understand and enjoyable.

The writer gives each topic its own time so if you don't like the botanical stuff then you may be more interested on the language part at the end fir example.

Perfect if this is your cup of tea

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The narrator reads in a consistent robotic melodic tone that is disconnected from the content, making it very hard to follow the material . This tonal reading also breaks sentence structure , nuance and emphasis making it very monotonous and tiring to follow. Highly do not recommend this narrator .

The book is fantastic but the narration is not.

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This is a book which, for me, greatly benefited from the Books on Tape aspect. Would have been tough to stick with it otherwise, but having it read kept things moving forward. While repetitive at times (to all authors: please edit aggressively!), the integrative scholarship involved was extremely impressive and I found his conclusions very compelling. A boon to mankind and an antidote to racial bigotry.

Thought it was great

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A consumer of all things historical, I’ve found most accounts lacking in specific cultural comparative analyses. Most tend to be written from a certain ‘perspective’, most notably European.
This information packed book is the total antithesis of that one sidedness.
An amazing description of the interlocutory origins of
the worlds civilizations.

Excellent Historical fact filling information source

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