Is there an audiobook of Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies?

Yes. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies has an Audible audiobook edition, narrated by Doug Ordunio.

How long is the Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies audiobook?

The Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies audiobook runs 16 hr 20 min.

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond book cover for the Book of the Day history book review

Our score

4.4/ 5

Excellent

Listen to Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies free with an Audible trial Narrator, runtime & our audio review

Buy on Amazon

Kindle$18.95−47%$9⁹⁹

As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. Prices may vary.

EDITION PUBLISHEDMarch 1997

Genres

Non-Fiction History Science

Themes

Geography as the deep cause of inequality between continentsDomestication of plants and animalsEpidemic disease and the conquest of the AmericasWriting, technology, and how inventions spreadEnvironmental determinism and its limits

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies

Name: Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
Price: 9.99 USD
Availability: InStock
Author: Jared Diamond

Jared Diamond

In 1972 a New Guinean politician asked Jared Diamond why Europeans had so much cargo and his own people had so little. Guns, Germs, and Steel is the 13,000-year answer: geography handed some continents better crops, better animals, and an east-west axis to spread them along. The Pulitzer winner that started a thirty-year argument.

The Review

Our take

Diamond's answer to the biggest question in human history is that the environment dealt the hands. Not intelligence, not culture, not any quality of the people involved. Which continent you were born on determined which wild plants and animals were standing around waiting to be domesticated, and everything downstream of that, farming surpluses, cities, writing, steel, and the diseases that came with living next to livestock, followed from the draw. The question itself came from a beach in New Guinea in 1972, where a local politician named Yali asked Diamond why white people had so much cargo and his people so little. Diamond spent twenty-five years on the reply.

The mechanism is more specific than most summaries make it sound. Of roughly 148 large mammal species that were even plausible candidates for domestication, humans managed 14, and 13 of those lived in Eurasia. The rest failed for reasons Diamond enjoys cataloging: zebras bite and refuse to let go, gazelles panic themselves to death against fences, grizzlies grow too slowly to be worth the feed. Eurasia also runs east to west, so a crop domesticated in the Fertile Crescent could travel thousands of miles along the same latitude and still grow. The Americas and Africa run north to south, across climate bands, and their innovations stalled at the borders.

The chapter on Cajamarca is the best writing here. On 16 November 1532, Francisco Pizarro captured the Inca emperor Atahualpa in the middle of an army of eighty thousand men, using 168 Spaniards, some horses, and a great deal of nerve. Diamond takes that afternoon apart layer by layer, working backward from steel swords to the literacy that told Pizarro how Cortes had done it, to the herd animals that gave Europeans both cavalry and smallpox. The chapters on germs and on writing carry the same weight. Smallpox and measles came out of the barnyard, and the epidemics that emptied the Americas ahead of the conquistadors were the sharpest edge geography ever handed anyone.

The objections are nearly as old as the book's success. Historians and anthropologists have argued for three decades that the framework leaves almost nothing for human decisions to do, and the charge of environmental determinism sticks in places. The last third is where it shows most. Explaining why Eurasia rather than the Americas is one problem, and Diamond handles it well; explaining why Western Europe rather than China is a different and harder one, and the answer he offers, that Europe's fractured coastline kept it usefully divided while a unified China could cancel its own navy by decree, is the least tested idea in the book. Diamond also restates his thesis at the head and foot of nearly every chapter, and across 650 pages that repetition becomes a real cost. And the book is now from 1997, so some of the archaeology beneath it has shifted, most visibly the dates for when people first reached the Americas.

Why you should read

Readers of Sapiens and Why Nations Fail
Anyone who wants deep causes instead of dates and battles
Readers comfortable with biology, botany, and linguistics
Fans of one big argument tested across continents

What to expect

Roughly 650 pages with the thesis restated often
Set-piece history chapters mixed with technical detail
Long stretches on seeds, crops, and animal behavior
A confident argument that has drawn decades of pushback

Still, the argument reset the terms. Before this book, the interesting question about 1532 was how 168 men pulled it off. After it, the interesting question is why the ships were sailing west across the Atlantic instead of east across the Pacific, and no amount of subsequent quarreling has put that question back in the box.

Reviewed by Ellis · How our reviews are written

Our verdict

4.4/ 5

Excellent

Listen to Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies free with an Audible trial Narrator, runtime & our audio review

Buy on Amazon

Kindle$18.95−47%$9⁹⁹

As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. Prices may vary.

Where to read or listen

Is there an audiobook of Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies?: Yes. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies has an Audible audiobook edition, narrated by Doug Ordunio.
Listen to Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies free with an Audible trial
We earn from qualifying Amazon purchases.
How long is the Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies audiobook?: The Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies audiobook runs 16 hr 20 min.
How much does Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies cost?: On Amazon: Kindle $9.99. Prices as of August 26, 2026 at 3:46 AM EDT and may change.

Filed underHistory Science Browse the archive →

CollectionsBook Club Picks Browse collections →

Common questions

What is Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies about?: Diamond's answer to the biggest question in human history is that the environment dealt the hands. Not intelligence, not culture, not any quality of the people involved. Which continent you were born on determined which wild plants and animals were standing around waiting to be domesticated, and…
Is Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies worth reading?: We scored Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies 4.4 out of 5. In 1972 a New Guinean politician asked Jared Diamond why Europeans had so much cargo and his own people had so little. Guns, Germs, and Steel is the 13,000-year answer: geography handed some continents better crops, better animals, and an east-west axis to spread them along…