This nonfiction book tries to explain why history advanced differently from people of different regions of the world. Diamond summarizes the book within this sentence, "History followed different courses for different peoples because of differences among peoples' environments, not because of biological differences among peoples themselves." (pg 25).
Diamond states that the environmental factors such as the plants and animals in a certain region gave some civilizations advantages over other civilizations. The first section of the book discusses the evolution and the colonization of human beings. His examination of how the societies on the Polynesian islands developed due to the different environments in them lets him examine how environments has shaped human history. The rise of food production, the environment, the climate, and even the number of mammals affected the different historical advancement of different civilizations. Later in the book, Diamond applies what he explained about the environmental factors to different parts of the world.
The author, Jared Diamond, wanted to explain to the reader why human history was different for every society and every nation in the world. Diamond wanted the reader to think about his theory and understand the grand pattern of history.
A lesson from the book would be to ask yourself questions about things that are really outside the box, or even things that are really simple. Questioning things lead to answers and discovery about the past, present, and even future.
This book mostly goes over about 10,000 years of history to come up with a theory and a discovery. This lesson applies to everything because everything can be