James Clear Summary Guns, Germ and Steel

The Book in Three Sentences

Some environments provide more starting materials and more

favorable conditions for utilizing inventions and building societies
than other environments. This is particularly notable in the rise of
European peoples, which occurred because of environmental
differences and not because of biological differences in the people
themselves. There are four primary reasons Europeans rose to
power and conquered the natives of North and South America,
and not the other way around: 1) the continental differences in the
plants and animals available for domestication, which led to more
food and larger populations in Europe and Asia, 2) the rate of
diffusion of agriculture, technology and innovation due to the
geographic orientation of Europe and Asia (east-west) compared
to the Americas (north-south), 3) the ease of intercontinental
diffusion between Europe, Asia, and Africa, and 4) the differences
in continental size, which led to differences in total population
size and technology diffusion.

Guns, Germs, and Steel summary

This is my book summary of Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared

Diamond. My notes are informal and often contain quotes from
the book as well as my own thoughts. This summary also includes
key lessons and important passages from the book.

● History followed different courses for different peoples

because of differences in their environments not because
of biological differences in the people themselves.

● This book seeks to answer the question, “Why did the rate
of progress differ so much for cultures on different
continents?”

● Around 11,000 years ago all human societies were hunter

gatherers.

● Understanding the causes of history improves our ability

to intervene and improve the world. Many people
 mistakenly assume that discussing history is just a way to
explain away tough issues. Not at all. It improves our
ability to take effective action.

● The most common explanation of the different

trajectories experienced by Europe compared to Africa,
Asia, Oceania, etc. is genetic and biological. People
assume there is some innate biological difference that
made Europeans smarter, more creative, or more
resilient. Science, however, has produced no substantial
evidence to indicate this is the primary cause of different
outcomes.

● Interesting side note: scientists are always competing to

discover the “earliest human remains” or the earliest
XYZ. As a result, every few years there is a new “earliest”
discovery. Only one can actually be the earliest, of course.

● The occupation of Australia was an incredible feat. It was

the first use of water craft and range extension by
humans.
● Humans were likely responsible for the extinction of
nearly all of Australia's large mammals. The same is true
for many large mammals that occupied the Americas over
10,000 years ago.

● The environment of ancient Polynesian society heavily

dictated the lifestyle and behaviors. The many islands
have widely varying landscapes and climates. Whether or
notcultures developed weapons and became skilled at
warfare, whether they became hunter gatherers or
farmers, whether they acted more tribal or more
hierarchical was largely determined by the environment
in which these people lived.

● Food and animal domestication arose independently in

five different areas of the world (at widely differing times)
and possibly four others although there is still some
contention about those.

● We often think there is a clear division between farmer

and hunter gatherer lifestyles, but actually there can be a
blending of the two. For example, some cultures plant
 crops, resume a hunter gatherer lifestyle while they grow,
then return to harvest and eat.

● Agriculture did not lead to an unequivocally better

lifestyle. In fact, for those who actually grow food life
tends to be worse than it would be as a hunter gatherer. If
this is true, and the evidence seems to point that way,
then it means that advancement of civilization has
essentially happened on the backs of society's have-nots.
In other words, the entire system we live within –
agriculture, capitalism, etc. – requires inequality to
function.

● Agriculture allowed food production per unit area to

increase, which meant a given area could support a larger
population. This allowed farming cultures to defeat
hunter gatherer cultures by sheer force due to larger
populations. This, in turn, led to the spread of more
agricultural societies across the globe.

● Throughout the industrial revolution in Great Britain,

moths of darker colors became more likely to survive
 because the surrounding environment become dirtier and
covered in soot, smoke, and debris. Thus, it was more
likely that dark-colored moths would survive than
light-colored moths. As the environment changed, so did
the evolution of moths. A fascinating example of
evolution on a small scale.

● Cereal crops alone account for more than half of the food
consumed by modern humans.

● The rise of indigenous food production in certain areas

was the result of a few factors. First, certain areas had
plants better suited to domestication. This led people to
domestic earlier in those regions. Second, because of this
early start, these people eventually domesticated more
difficult plants. Evidence seems to indicate that all
people's are capable of food production and even modern
hunter gatherers seem to be naturally moving that way.

● The rise of agriculture in some areas before others has to

do with the environment, not the intelligence of the
people.
● The Anna Karenina Principle: In many areas of life,
success is not about doing one thing correctly, but about
avoiding many possible modes of failure.

● Domesticated animals differ in multiple ways from their

wild ancestors. For example, many domesticated animals
are different sizes and have smaller brains than their wild
ancestors.

● Domestication of large mammals ended approximately

4500 years ago. This indicates humans attempted to
domesticate all of them and no suitable species remained.
This is another piece of evidence that the type of animals
available dictated the domestication in certain regions,
not the people living in the region. This the spread of
agriculture was once again impacted by the environment.

● There is a inefficiency during the eating process. The

nutrient transfer is much less than 100 percent and
typically around 10 percent. For example, it takes 10,000
pounds of corn to create a 1,000 pound bull.
● The primary geographic axis of North and Spith America
is north-south. That is, the land mass is more
longitudinal than latitudinal. The same for Africa. But for
Europe and Asia, the primary axis is east-west.
Interestingly, this positioning and shape matters greatly
because it appears that agriculture and innovations
spread more rapidly along east-west axes than along
north-south axes.

● Locations along the same east-west axis share similar

latitudes and thus have similar day lengths, seasons,
climate, rainfalls, and biomes. All of which increase the
speed of innovation relative to north-south axes.

● All tropical rainforests are within 10 degrees of latitude of

the equator.

● One collection of evidence for the difference in spread

along geographic axes is the spread of domesticated
crops. Many crops spread across Asia with one
domestication, while crops like cotton or squash were
domesticated in multiple individual areas throughout
 Mesoamerica. This is because the crop spread too slowly
for one domestication to takeover the region.

● It is vital to realize that although Diamond is discussing

long time frames of hundreds or thousands of years, the
core idea can be applied to short time spans of individual
behavior as well. Indeed, large long term differences only
occur because short term differences are repeated over
and over again. Small environmental differences led to
small changes in individual behavior, which resulted in
significant differences when repeated for thousands of
years.

● One reason farming communities developed immunity to

diseases that wiped out hunter gatherer populations is
that some diseases (like measles) are “crowd diseases.”
They require a large population to sustain themselves
because they act quickly: you either die or develop
immunity. In order for the disease to sustain itself there
must be enough new babies born to contract the disease
from those who have already developed immunity. Only
 agricultural communities could grow to the required
population size.

● On average, farming sustains populations that are 10x to

100x larger than hunting and gathering.

● North America was populated by about 20 million Native

Americans when Columbus landed in 1492. Within two
centuries, 95 percent of the native population had died,
most of them from infectious diseases.

● Writing systems are historically seen as the deciding

factor on whether an ancients civilization is considered
advanced or not. This can be debated. The Incas built a
great civilization without writing.

● All alphabets in the modern world evolved from one

original alphabet, either in idea or actual written form,
developed in the Middle East.

● Writing evolved independently in a few areas, but was

spread via idea diffusion in most cultures and locations.
● Most inventions are not a result of necessity, but rather
the result of tinkers and curiousity.

● Technology develops cumulatively rather than in isolated

heroic acts. Even people we often associate with acts of
genius like the Wright Brothers and Thomas Edison
actually built upon the work of predecessors and had
capable people who followed them and advanced ideas.

● Technology finds most of its uses after it has been

invented rather than being invented to solve a foreseen
need. The phrase, “necessity is the mother of invention”
is generally incorrect. (Even though some examples, like
the Manhattan Project, exist.)

● Long life expectancy is one reason technology might

develop and spread faster in some locations rather than
others. A longer life increases the surface area you have to
test ideas and allows you to take on longer projects that
you might otherwise avoid with limited time.

● Geographic location is a key determinant in the pace of

technological innovation and acceleration because a
 centrally located society will not only accumulate
knowledge and technology from their own inventions,
but also from neighboring societies. In the case of a
particularly large land mass like Eurasia, technologies
can spread from one culture to another and continue to
do so along the entire span of the continent. This spread
occurs much more quickly in these locations than it
would to, say, aboriginal cultures in Tasmania, which
did not receive outside contact from other civilizations
for over 10,000 years.

● Government and religion are two of the main reasons

some societies overcame others. These shared myths led
to collaboration and increased power.

● There are four levels of organization in society: bands

(5-80 people), tribes (100-1000 people), chiefdoms
(1000 to tens of thousands of people), and states (50,000
or more people).
● Humanity has been on a clear path from small groups to
larger ones, culminating in states, over the last few
thousand years.

● The size of a population in a region is a strong predictor

of the complexity of the society.

● Culture is heavily dependent on population density. The

higher the population, the more culture seems to spawn
and spread.

● War, or the threat of war, is the primary factor in the

amalgamation of human societies throughout history. It
is how cultures merge.

● Five dog night is an Australian phrase referring to a very

cold night because you would need to use five dogs as
blankets.

● Isolation is a key factor preventing creativity and

innovation from spreading because most people and
societies get their ideas from outside societies. So
constant connection to others and trading of ideas and
 resources is essential for technological and creative
progress.

● Food production was a key component in the determining

the strength of a society. People sharing similar ancestors
inhabited New Guinea and Indonesia, but the
Indonesians were still hunter gatherers while the New
Guineans had develop agriculture. When Austronesians
invaded the region, Indonesians fell under their control,
but New Guineas (with their food, germ resistance, and
technologies) were able to resist.

● Again and again, the environment dictated the spread of

power throughout islands of East Asia and the Pacific.
Depending on location, islanders differed in their
connectedness to other peoples and in the plants and
animals available to them to domesticate. People with
favorable locations for food production and access to
technology replaced those with less favorable
environments.
● The end of Chapter 18 shares multiple interesting
examples of peoples who were largely similar genetically
because of similar ancestors, but developed very different
societies and technologies due to the their individual
environments.

● Example of cultural evolution: the Moari of New Zealand

were able to determine the most useful rocks and animals
for domestication within a century of arriving.

● The striking differences in the histories of peoples on

different continents have been due not to differences
among the peoples themselves, but to differences in their
environments.

● There are four primary reasons Europeans rose to power

and conquered the natives of North and South America,
and not the other way around.

● Reason 1: Continental differences in the plants and

animals available for domestication. The differences are
vast. Europe and Asia had the best prospects, then Africa,
then the Americas, then Australia. The improved
 agricultural aspects led to larger populations and larger
armies in Europe and Asia.

● Reason 2: the rate of diffusion of technological

innovation due to the orientation of continents (east-west
vs. north-south) and geographic barriers (mountains,
deserts, etc.). The favorable geography of the Europe and
Asia landmass resulted in much faster agricultural and
technological expansion.

● Reason 3: ease of intercontinental diffusion. It was easy

for ideas, technologies, and innovations to spread
between Europe, Asia, and Africa. However, it was quite
difficult for things to spread to the Americas because of
large oceans and the only close landmass being in cold
climates and at high latitudes unsuitable for farming.

● Reason 4: continental differences in total population size.

Europe and Asia had a huge landmass where there was
constant and widespread competition.

● All human societies contain inventive people. It's just that

some environments provide more starting materials and
 more favorable conditions for utilizing inventions than
other environments.

● The fragmentation of Europe was a key in enabling

Columbus to cross the Atlantic. He was turned down by
four different kingdoms before finally convincing the king
and queen of Spain to fund his trip. Meanwhile, Chona
had the technology to explore the world by ship, but their
dictator at the time did not want to do so. In this way, one
person prevented an entire made of people (with the
technology) from succeeding. A little fragmentation is
good. Too much centralized power means one person can
handcuff the creativity of many.

● In the 1960s and 1970s, the decisions of a few Chinese

leaders resulted in the schools closing in the country for
five years. Crazy how so much centralized power is still
playing a huge role.

● Europe has always been far more fragmented than China.

Even at its peak, the Roman Empire never controlled
more than half of Europe.
 ● Understanding ultimate causes is essential to
understanding human behavior.

● Prediction of history is much easier over long time spans,

but basically impossible over short time spans.

● Great discussion of science in the last half of the epilogue.

● Careful observations of natural experiments (things

happening in the real world) can lead to fascinating and
useful insights.

● Epidemiology, ecology, and evolutionary biology are

developing better methods for dealing with the
confounding factors often present in natural experiments.

Reading Suggestions

This is a list of authors, books, and concepts mentioned in Guns,

Germs, and Steel, which might be useful for future reading.

● Toynbee's 12-volume series on history

● Film: The Gods Must Be Crazy

 ● Maori New Zealand's musket wars

● Applications of Chaos Theory. The QWERTY keyboard vs.

Dvorak keyboard is one example.

Additional Thoughts

This is a list of interesting notes, side stories, or additional

thoughts that were sparked as a I read the book.

● Many large mammals used for food production were not

domesticated in the Americas because they became
extinct around 13,000 BC (due to the appearance of
humans?). This was well before agriculture arrived in
America, thus domesticating these animals never
occurred to prehistoric hunter gatherers. But why?