In his Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond attempts to solve a great riddle of human history: Why did specific peoples prevail over others, rather than the reverse.

Through the pages of this book, the reader will travel through space and time, from the prehistoric maritime exploits of ingenious Austronesian sailors in the Indian and Pacific Oceans to the discovery and exploration of America by Columbus and his successors, from the spread of Bantu farmers across nearly all of equatorial Africa to the mysteries surrounding the origins of modern Japanese, and from the 'hostile' Australia of the Aboriginal peoples to the enigmatic uniformity of modern China.

Avoiding simplistic and easy racist explanations and not content with immediate causes, Diamond manages, through an interdisciplinary approach, to extract from the chaos of data and evidence the deeper reasons for why the inhabitants of Western Europe subdued and nearly exterminated the Native Americans rather than the reverse, or why the Aboriginal people of Australia had such a significant cultural lag at the time of their 'discovery'.

At the same time, he is not afraid to highlight the weaknesses in his theory, calling for further work on the subject and providing food for thought for both any ambitious successors and the reader himself.

Guns, Germs, and Steel is grounded in a Thucydidean understanding of history, seeking to establish the study of human history on scientific foundations and to demonstrate the logical plan underlying seemingly random incidents and events.

[Excerpt from the publisher's or edition's presentation text]