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Big civilizations from such little factors Guns, Germs and Steel is not so much a history book as a geography book. Jared Diamond has provided us with a concise and clearly written view of how civilizations get started and some of the factors influencing how they interact. The big question Diamond addresses is why some societies end up having such a large material advantage over others before the two meet. This is not a trivial issue. There are many factors to consider, as is done here. Despite the title, germs make up a much larger portion of the text than steel or guns. Why is it, one might wonder, that European explorers brought germs to the Americas that wiped out many millions, while they picked up very little that harmed them? We know that European conquest of Africa was delayed for many years by the various tropical diseases found there. Why didn't the same happen in the Amazon, for example? This is not just chance, but rather the result of domestication of large animals (the source of many diseases). There was very little of it in the Americas, but quite a lot in Eurasia. Why? What exactly is involved in domesticating animals? There are thousands of species of potentially the right size to be of use to humans. Why are there only a dozen in domestication? Why are so few in the Americas and none in Australia? On a similar theme, Diamond discusses the rise of agriculture and the development of domesticated plants. Did you ever see corn growing in the wild? Why not? And why did some regions of the world develop many varieties when others developed so few? The answers, with a bit of science, are not difficult, but they can be surprising. The land area of the Americas, for example, is certainly large and can support large populations. Why didn't farming catch on more? A reason is its orientation, running largely from north to south. One can plant roughly the same crops from Spain to China, continuously over the land, but not from Alaska to Patagonia. There are too many climate changes along the way. So little ideas never spread far enough to become big ideas. These sorts of analyses are what make up the book. In a non-mobile society, which most of the Earth was until very recent times, different peoples can develop many very different ways of living based on their environment, and though each is suited for their own situation, one can be very much better for winning conflicts when they clash. This does not imply that the flow of history is deterministic. Indeed, the history of agriculture and technology must surely be filled with false starts that never quite got going, ideas that never spread because of chance and back luck. But over such long time spans as millennia patterns will develop and spread. The starting material, the land and climate and raw materials available, shows a remarkable correlation with the later strengths of societies that develop with them. This process makes up the story of the excellently written Guns, Germs and Steel.