Guns, Germs and Steel
Why were Europeans the ones to conquer so much of our planet? Why didn't the Chinese, or the Inca, become masters of the globe instead? Why did cities first evolve in the Middle East? Why did farming never emerge in Australia? And why are the tropics now the capital of global poverty? Guns, Germs and Steel is a three-part documentary series presented by Jared Diamond trying to answer the biggest question of world history - Why is the world so unequal? The series is based on Jared Diamond's book of the same name and traces humanity's journey over the last 13,000 years - from the dawn of farming at the end of the last Ice Age to the realities of life in the twenty-first century.
| Episode 1 - Out of Eden |
Episode 1 - Out of Eden
The development of successful and productive farming, starting nearly 12,000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent, was the critical turning point in the origins of global inequality.
Episode 2 - Conquest
Why was the balance of power so unequal between the Old World and the New? This episode shows how guns, germs and steel had conquered the New World.
Episode 3 - Into the Tropics
In this episode, Jared Diamond tries to discover what happened when guns, germs and steel came to Africa and to ask what role these forces still play.
| Related Links |
| Guns, Germs, & Steel Peeling back the layers of history, Guns, Germs and Steel exposes the great forces that have shaped human history over the last 10,000 years. |
| Voices - Jared Diamond This lecture examines the factors that caused great civilizations of the past to collapse and what we can learn from their fates. |
| Civilization: Is the West History? This is a six-part documentary series presented by Niall Ferguson, about the most six dominant factors that enabled the West to dominate the rest of the world for the last 500 years. |
| Legacy: The Origins of Civilization This is a documentary series presented by Michael Wood, searching for the first civilizations and their continuing legacies. |