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13Guns, Germs, and SteelJared Diamond1997
Phase 124 hoursFR
Guns, Germs, and Steel
French edition : De l'inégalité parmi les sociétés
Quick note
Why did wealth, military power, technology and political organisation develop so unevenly across human societies? Diamond's model emphasises geography, climate, food production, domesticable plants and animals, disease exposure, population density, continental orientation and the diffusion of technology. It also supplies a corrective to racial explanations of conquest: differences in civilizational outcome do not require differences in human intelligence or worth.
Read against
Critics charge environmental determinism and the erasure of human agency and Indigenous decision-making. Read that criticism alongside the book, not after it. A persuasive grand theory teaches most when you also learn where it overreaches.