Guns, Germs, and Steel the fate of human socities - Jared Diamond

"This is a brilliantly written, passionate, whirlwind tour through 13,000 years of history on all the continents—a short history of everything about everybody. The origins of empires, religion, writing, crops, and guns are all here. By at last providing a convincing explanation for the differing developments of human societies on different continents, the book demolishes the grounds for racist theories of history. Its account of how the modern world was formed is full of lessons for our own future. After reading the first two pages, you won't be able to put it down."

-Paul R. Ehrlich, Bing Professor of Population Studies, Stanford University

"An ambitious, highly important book." —James Shreeve, New York Times Book Review

"A book of remarkable scope, a history of the world in less than 500 pages which succeeds admirably, where so many others have failed, in analyzing some of the basic workings of culture process. ... One of the most important and readable works on the human past published in recent years."

-Colin Renfrew, Nature