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Guns, Germs and Steel
Guns, Germs and Steel
Nov 17, 2024 7:39 AM

Author:Jared Diamond

Guns, Germs and Steel

**WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE**

'A book of big questions, and big answers' Yuval Noah Harari, bestselling author of Sapiens

Why has human history unfolded so differently across the globe? And what can it teach us about our current crisis?

Jared Diamond puts the case that geography and biogeography, 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 a ground-breaking and humane work of popular science that can provide expert insight into our modern world.

'The most absorbing account on offer of the emergence of a world divided between have and have-nots... Never before put together so coherently, with such a combination of expertise, charm and compassion' The Times

Reviews

The most absorbing account on offer of the emergence of a world divided between have and have-nots... Never before put together so coherently, with such a combination of expertise, charm and compassion

—— The Times

A book of remarkable scope... One of the most important and readable works on the human past

—— Nature

A prodigious, convincing work, conceived on a grand scale

—— Observer

This is the book that turned me from a historian of medieval warfare into a student of humankind

—— Yuval Noah Harari , Week

Fascinating, coherent, compassionate and completely accessible

—— Sunday Telegraph

A book of big questions, and big answers

—— Yuval Noah Harari, author of Sapiens

Monumental and monumentally good

—— William Leith, 4 stars , Scotsman

Diamond's sideways-on view of human development may well establish its author as one of the very few scientists to have changed the way we think about history

—— Sunday Telegraph

One of the best books I've reviewed this year.

—— Lucille Turner , Bookmunch

Profound, charismatic and serious... One of the most important thinkers to emerge on the world stage for many years

—— Tim Lott , Spectator

The most sought-after psychologist in the world

—— Psychology Today

A wonderful psychologist

—— Malcolm Gladwell

Like the best intellectual polymaths, Peterson invites his readers to embark on their own intellectual, spiritual and ideological journeys... You have nothing to lose but your own misery

—— Toronto Star

The most important and influential Canadian thinker since Marshall McLuhan. His bold synthesis of psychology, anthropology, science, politics and comparative religion is forming a genuinely humanistic university of the future

—— Camille Paglia

Someone with not only humanity and humour, but serious depth and substance ... Peterson has a truly cosmopolitan and omnivorous intellect... There is a burning sincerity to the man

—— Spectator

A rock-star academic, a cool, cowboy-boot-wearing public thinker who directs tough love at overprotected youth ... Peterson twirls ideas around like a magician

—— Melanie Reid , The Times

Jordan Peterson is a Canadian psychologist whose seemingly overnight ascent to cultural rockstar comes after years of deep scholarship in many disciplines

—— Psychology Today

12 Rules for Life hits home - from identifying the deeply engrained hierarchical ladder that motivates our decision making to asking indispensable and sometimes politically unpopular questions about your life and suggesting ways to better it

—— Howard Bloom, author of 'The Lucifer Principle'

Peterson has become a kind of secular prophet who, in an era of lobotomised conformism, thinks out of the box ... His message is overwhelmingly vital

—— Melanie Philips , The Times

Beautiful, smart, and sometimes shocking

—— Wired

Yong delves into our deepest, darkest nooks and crannies to shed new light on what it is to be human.

—— Stuart Blackman , BBC Wildlife

Compelling

—— Adrian Woolfson , Nature

Ed Yong has written a riveting account of the microbes that make the world work. I Contain Multitudes will change the way you look at yourself --- and just about everything else.

—— Elizabeth Kolbert, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Sixth Extinction

Offer[s] engrossing—and gross—details about how an invisible world shapes our species…Mr. Yong’s book lives up to its title, containing multitudes of facts presented in graceful, accessible prose….The author wonderfully turns to the humanities again and again to enrich the book’s scientific detail…And he’s funny.

—— Wall Street Journal

I Contain Multitudes changes you the way all great science writing does. You become disoriented, looking at the world around you in a new way. With vivid tales and graceful explanations, Ed Yong reveals how the living things we see around us are wildly complex collectives.

—— Carl Zimmer, author of Parasite Rex

Yong has captured the essence of this exciting field, expressing the enthusiasm and wonder that the scientific community feels when working with the microbiome. It is rare that a writer has the capacity to speak to the public and the scientific world with equanimity; Yong has succeeded in delivering a compelling and informative exploration of a vast research field and a fundamental work that can stand as textbook and a rip-roaring read!

—— Professor Jack Gilbert, University of Chicago

With a simply wonderful book, Ed Yong opens the doorway to a hidden world around and inside us. He's smart, he's witty, and he's at the cutting edge. You could not get a better guide.

—— Tim Harford, author of The Undercover Economist Strikes Back and Messy

Ed Yong is one of our finest young explainers of science—wicked smart, broadly informed, sly, savvy, so illuminating. And this is an encyclopedia of fascinations—a teeming intellectual ecosystem, a keen book on the intricacies of the microbiome and more.

—— David Quammen, author of The Song of the Dodo and Spillover

This compelling and beautifully written book will change the way people look at the world around, and within, them. It provides an insight into the latest research in the field, and into the people doing the work, that is unmatched by any other book on the microbiome to date. Certainly among the best books in an increasingly crowded field and written with a true passion for and understanding of the microbiome.

—— Professor Rob Knight, University of California

A whistle-stop tour of the microbial world for the non-expert… Yong has won numerous awards for his science writing…it doesn’t take long to realise why.

—— Florence Greatix , Chemistry World

A marvellous book! Ed Yong’s brilliant gift for storytelling and precise writing about science converge in I Contain Multitudes to make the invisible and tiny both visible and mighty. A unique, entertaining, and smart read.

—— Jeff Vandermeer, author of the Southern Reach Trilogy

[A] magnificent revaluation of bacteriology.

—— Kate Womersley , Spectator

This is a book of wonder.

—— Bookseller

A state-of-the art look at what we know about microbes… Yong makes difficult concepts and scientific terms easy to understand – and his excitement at the variety and wonder of nature makes him an enthusiastic and engaging writer’

—— Kate Whiting , UK Press Syndication

The complex relationships between microbes and their environments are explored with rigour and humour.

—— Bridie Pritchard , Northern Echo

A deep and sensible dive in to this complex and fascinating dimension of biology.

—— Irish Times, Book of the Year

[It] is superbly judged. It brilliantly synthesises the surprising and recently-revealed inter-dependencies of visible and invisible organisms… Look out for it on numerous book prize shortlists in 2017.

—— Guardian, Book of the Year

Yong will make you think about yourself – and the world around you – in a different way.

—— Brad Davies , i

It is a fascinating account of the unseen creatures that live within and all around us. Yong takes us on this journey through the microscope to discover the most recent research from scientists all round the world and tell us of the secrets that are being discovered about microbes… Yong writes with an engaging and eloquent style and makes the science in here really accessible. Well worth reading.

—— Paul Cheney , Nudge

Yong’s enthusiasm for bacteria is infectious, as he describes the beauty of luminescent bacteria in the Hawaiian bobtail squid and the benefits of our microscopic neighbours.

—— Jane Shilling , Daily Mail

A master class in popular scientific education.

—— Simon Shaw , Mail on Sunday

Yong made me think “wow” over and over again. He tells us that there is a universe of tiny things. We should think about them.

—— William Leith , Evening Standard

Enlightenment Now seeks to undo, with facts and figures, the pessimism that has paralysed the world ... We must read this book and absorb its message

—— El Pais (Colombia)

Guys, it's really not that bad. In fact, it's the best it's ever been ... Pinker urges people to look at the bigger picture and dive into the data

—— New York Post

Things are not as bad as your Facebook news feed makes them seem ... a cheerful, contrarian tract for dark times

—— Niall Ferguson , Boston Globe

Compelling ... At a moment when liberal Enlightenment values are under attack, from the right and the left, this is a very important contribution ... An impressive and useful accomplishment

—— Atlantic
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