Guns, germs and steel: the fates of human societies. Jared Diamond. 1998.

Guns, Germs and Steel is an enquiry into the reasons why Europe and the Near East became the cradle of modern societies - eventually giving rise to capitalism and science, the dominant forces in our contemporary world - and why, until modern times, Africa, Australasian and the Americas lagged behind in technological sophistication and in political and military power. The native peoples of those communities are still suffering the consequences.

Diamonds shows definitively that the origins of this inequality in human fortunes cannot be laid at the door of race or inherent features of the people themselves. He argues that the inequality stems instead from the differing natural resources available to the people of each continent.

Those regions endowed with the largest number of domesticable wild animals and plants, and with shapes and locations most suitable for cultural innovation and diffusion, gained a permanent lead over others. Eventually they were able to destroy less well-endowed societies through their deployment of the emblematic trio of guns (the military power of the modern state), germs (originating especially from diseases of domestic animals, hence eliciting resistance in Eurasians through long association), and steel (scientifically-guided production processes).