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Guns, Germs, and Steel
- The Fates of Human Societies
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 5 hrs and 58 mins
- Abridged Audiobook
- Categories: Politics & Social Sciences, Social Sciences
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Homo Deus
- A Brief History of Tomorrow
- Written by: Yuval Noah Harari
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 14 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Homo Deus explores the projects, dreams, and nightmares that will shape the 21st century - from overcoming death to creating artificial life. It asks the fundamental questions: Where do we go from here? And how will we protect this fragile world from our own destructive powers? This is the next stage of evolution. This is Homo Deus.
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Accept minor defects and enjoy this book
- By Reza on 2017-12-10
Written by: Yuval Noah Harari
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Sapiens
- A Brief History of Humankind
- Written by: Yuval Noah Harari
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 15 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One hundred thousand years ago, at least six species of human inhabited the Earth. Today there is just one. Us. Homo Sapiens. How did our species succeed in the battle for dominance? Why did our foraging ancestors come together to create cities and kingdoms? How did we come to believe in gods, nations, and human rights; to trust money, books, and laws; and to be enslaved by bureaucracy, timetables, and consumerism? And what will our world be like in the millennia to come? In Sapiens, Dr. Yuval Noah Harari spans the whole of human history.
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Not sure I learned anything.
- By Amazon Customer on 2019-10-20
Written by: Yuval Noah Harari
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Collapse
- How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
- Written by: Jared Diamond
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 27 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Jared Diamond’s follow-up to the Pulitzer-Prize winning Guns, Germs and Steel, the author explores how climate change, the population explosion, and political discord create the conditions for the collapse of civilization. Environmental damage, climate change, globalization, rapid population growth, and unwise political choices were all factors in the demise of societies around the world, but some found solutions and persisted.
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Ought to be a textbook
- By Derek on 2020-04-25
Written by: Jared Diamond
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21 Lessons for the 21st Century
- Written by: Yuval Noah Harari
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 11 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Yuval Noah Harari’s 21 Lessons for the 21st Century is a probing and visionary investigation into today’s most urgent issues as we move into the uncharted territory of the future. As technology advances faster than our understanding of it, hacking becomes a tactic of war, and the world feels more polarized than ever, Harari addresses the challenge of navigating life in the face of constant and disorienting change and raises the important questions we need to ask ourselves in order to survive.
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Eloquent & insightful, yet lacking in direction
- By Francois Lanthier Nadeau on 2019-01-09
Written by: Yuval Noah Harari
-
Upheaval
- Turning Points for Nations in Crisis
- Written by: Jared Diamond
- Narrated by: Henry Strozier
- Length: 18 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In his earlier best sellers Guns, Germs and Steel and Collapse, Jared Diamond transformed our understanding of what makes civilizations rise and fall. Now, in the final audiobook in this monumental trilogy, he reveals how successful nations recover from crisis through selective change - a coping mechanism more commonly associated with personal trauma.
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waste of time
- By Pouyan on 2020-05-19
Written by: Jared Diamond
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The Guns of August
- Written by: Barbara W. Tuchman
- Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon
- Length: 19 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this Pulitzer Prize-winning classic, historian Barbara Tuchman brings to life the people and events that led up to World War I. This was the last gasp of the Gilded Age, of Kings and Kaisers and Czars, of pointed or plumed hats, colored uniforms, and all the pomp and romance that went along with war. How quickly it all changed...and how horrible it became.
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bored
- By Amazon Customer on 2021-08-11
Written by: Barbara W. Tuchman
-
Homo Deus
- A Brief History of Tomorrow
- Written by: Yuval Noah Harari
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 14 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Homo Deus explores the projects, dreams, and nightmares that will shape the 21st century - from overcoming death to creating artificial life. It asks the fundamental questions: Where do we go from here? And how will we protect this fragile world from our own destructive powers? This is the next stage of evolution. This is Homo Deus.
-
-
Accept minor defects and enjoy this book
- By Reza on 2017-12-10
Written by: Yuval Noah Harari
-
Sapiens
- A Brief History of Humankind
- Written by: Yuval Noah Harari
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 15 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One hundred thousand years ago, at least six species of human inhabited the Earth. Today there is just one. Us. Homo Sapiens. How did our species succeed in the battle for dominance? Why did our foraging ancestors come together to create cities and kingdoms? How did we come to believe in gods, nations, and human rights; to trust money, books, and laws; and to be enslaved by bureaucracy, timetables, and consumerism? And what will our world be like in the millennia to come? In Sapiens, Dr. Yuval Noah Harari spans the whole of human history.
-
-
Not sure I learned anything.
- By Amazon Customer on 2019-10-20
Written by: Yuval Noah Harari
-
Collapse
- How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
- Written by: Jared Diamond
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 27 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Jared Diamond’s follow-up to the Pulitzer-Prize winning Guns, Germs and Steel, the author explores how climate change, the population explosion, and political discord create the conditions for the collapse of civilization. Environmental damage, climate change, globalization, rapid population growth, and unwise political choices were all factors in the demise of societies around the world, but some found solutions and persisted.
-
-
Ought to be a textbook
- By Derek on 2020-04-25
Written by: Jared Diamond
-
21 Lessons for the 21st Century
- Written by: Yuval Noah Harari
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 11 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Yuval Noah Harari’s 21 Lessons for the 21st Century is a probing and visionary investigation into today’s most urgent issues as we move into the uncharted territory of the future. As technology advances faster than our understanding of it, hacking becomes a tactic of war, and the world feels more polarized than ever, Harari addresses the challenge of navigating life in the face of constant and disorienting change and raises the important questions we need to ask ourselves in order to survive.
-
-
Eloquent & insightful, yet lacking in direction
- By Francois Lanthier Nadeau on 2019-01-09
Written by: Yuval Noah Harari
-
Upheaval
- Turning Points for Nations in Crisis
- Written by: Jared Diamond
- Narrated by: Henry Strozier
- Length: 18 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In his earlier best sellers Guns, Germs and Steel and Collapse, Jared Diamond transformed our understanding of what makes civilizations rise and fall. Now, in the final audiobook in this monumental trilogy, he reveals how successful nations recover from crisis through selective change - a coping mechanism more commonly associated with personal trauma.
-
-
waste of time
- By Pouyan on 2020-05-19
Written by: Jared Diamond
-
The Guns of August
- Written by: Barbara W. Tuchman
- Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon
- Length: 19 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this Pulitzer Prize-winning classic, historian Barbara Tuchman brings to life the people and events that led up to World War I. This was the last gasp of the Gilded Age, of Kings and Kaisers and Czars, of pointed or plumed hats, colored uniforms, and all the pomp and romance that went along with war. How quickly it all changed...and how horrible it became.
-
-
bored
- By Amazon Customer on 2021-08-11
Written by: Barbara W. Tuchman
Publisher's Summary
Pulitzer Prize Winner, General Nonfiction, 1998
In this groundbreaking work, evolutionary biologist Jared Diamond stunningly dismantles racially based theories of human history by revealing the environmental factors actually responsible for history's broadest patterns. It is a story that spans 13,000 years of human history, beginning when Stone Age hunter-gatherers constituted the entire human population. Guns, Germs, and Steel is a world history that really is a history of all the world's peoples, a unified narrative of human life.
What the critics say
"The scope and explanatory power of this book are astounding." (The New Yorker)
"Guns, Germs, and Steel is an artful, informative, and delightful book....There is nothing like a radically new angle of vision for bringing out unsuspected dimensions of a subject." (The New York Review of Books)
More from the same
What listeners say about Guns, Germs, and Steel
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
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Performance
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- keek
- 2020-06-01
love it
Amazing amazing amazing book. Most insightful and interesting human history ever written!!
I'm just disappointed I didnt have knowledge about this book earlier
2 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Susan
- 2006-12-21
Where is the Unabridged?
I listened to this abridged book for a book club and I thought it was very interesting. However, I missed important concepts that the other readers in my book club picked up from the reading the entire book. When and if the unabridged is available, I want to listen to that.
50 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Carol L.
- 2006-09-19
Badly Abridged
This book is actually quite excellent, his science is quite sound, and his theory is amazing.
But, some of the complaints of other reviewers stem from the extent to which this book was abridged. Not only were critical details sliced out throughout the audiobook, but the ENTIRE LAST 1/4 was just chopped off! Answers about race, trade and other issues are addresed here. I only found out, when I saw the DVD of it by PBS, and saw an entire episode of what I thought was completely new material! I like "Collapse" even more, and was upset to learn it was just as badly chopped up. Five stars for Diamond, 0 stars for the publisher for ripping us all off!
65 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Paul B
- 2009-05-17
Abridged
Interesting concepts. The abridged version missed many of the detail and richness that may have made the book a best seller. It felt as if the narrator read only the first and last sentence of each paragraph.
39 people found this helpful
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- Alex
- 2005-10-22
The review mentioning New Guinea is wrong.
"Then he proceeds by asserting that the inhabitants of Papua New Guinea are genetically superior to whites. This self-contradiction is not rendered any less stupid by the fact that it's done without reference to any evidence beyond the mere hunch of the author."
This reviewer says it is the "mere hunch" of the author. I disagree strongly. The author states it as a theory and gives several good reasons from his years of study. He does NOT say that they are inherently better than whites, but they are genetically superior because they have be more self-sufficient and the ones who are not self-sufficient die off much more quickly. If I had lived at another time, I may have been an invalid or died at an early age due to an accident with my poor eyesight and allergies. In this age, I am probably healthier than most. Not my favorite book, but certainly not bad.
42 people found this helpful
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- Joel Langenfeld
- 2005-10-07
flawed review
The author of that particular review seems to have taken issue with an imagined slight against northern Europeans.
>>He starts the book by stating that he's out to destroy the claim that genetic differences is the cause of the global disparity in civilizational achivement between different peoples and races, a claim he considers low and immoral. Then he proceeds by asserting that the inhabitants of Papua New Guinea are genetically superior to whites. This self-contradiction is not rendered any less stupid by the fact that it's done without reference to any evidence beyond the mere hunch of the author. <<
That is a mischaracterization of a key thesis. Diamond refuted the notion that genetic variation between races lead to a disparity of intelligence producing a decisive competitive advantage to Indo-europeans. Diamond noted that many of the indigenous people he'd encountered may have relied on primitive technologies, however in no way did they appear to be "slow thinking". However, he made no claims that New Guineans or any other race enjoyed "genetically superior intelligence".
He did however note that by virtue of centuries of living with domesticated animals and high population densities, the Indo-europeans and Asians enjoyed a relative resistance to diseases characteristic of those environments. This in turn led to a decisive advantage as these peoples unwittingly unleashed their germs (note the title) on unresistant populations.
>>it might very well be that once the civilizational process is begun, there emerges a feedback effect, which by making the more intelligent in each generation more fit for reproduction, gradually increases the overall cognitive ability of the peoples inhabiting the evolving civilisations. <<
The reviewer is obvioulsy offering a pet idea that lacks substantiation. I think we can forgive Diamond for not including it.
33 people found this helpful
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- Chy H.
- 2018-09-09
what the hell
im reading the book as I listen to the audio and the chapters aren't matching up. And this book has way more than 5 chapters
3 people found this helpful
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Overall
- ldv
- 2010-02-04
great book
wished there was an unabridged version
6 people found this helpful
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- Francisco
- 2008-04-15
Better as text
This is an excellent book, as is also Collapse by the same author. But it is a good example of a book that is, IMHO, unsuited for audiobook format.
6 people found this helpful
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- Tom Glazier
- 2019-03-02
Political Correct BS
Politically correct line of crap, cannot seem to figure out western culture and the British enlightenment, giving common people the ability to question authority, along with an economic system that allowed average people to create personal wealth, is the reason it came out on top. I do agree with his assessment that western culture has its share of dummies and would list him as an educated fool that is pushing an agenda only the young and gullible like those found on leftie collage campuses would swallow.
2 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Amazon Customer
- 2007-08-22
a bit repetitive
In this book, the author makes a (lengthy) argument for his main thesis, namely an explanation for why the European culture at the end of the Middle Ages (and later) appeared "superior" in some ways over many other cultures such as eg the Native Americans or peoples in Africa or Australia.
I won't tell you what his explanation is though because you should read the book for that :)
The writing is easy to follow and logical and the conclusion is convincing. It is overall entertaining and at times somewhat boring.
One keeps wondering why the author needs so many pages for something that could be explained on a few.
Despite of that, it is overall worthwhile reading and it is also a famous book so good to have it in your library.
5 people found this helpful