I have not viewed all the clips posted, yet, I plan to. Thanks for the post.

The documentary is not including Native Americans and other first peoples. The Atlas of Indian Nations by Anton Treuer, also published by National Geographic, says the first peoples in the south cultivated the land 1,000's of years ago. The book states the Indian Nations are more ancient than Egypt, some 12,000 - 15,000 years ago on land that was not covered in Ice here in America. I had borrowed this amazing book from the library, so I don't have it now to read up on the facts in it. But, I think the Native Americans were farming before the middle east he refers to.

Just finished watching the first episode, and look forward to the rest. I read Jared Diamond’s book when it was first published in 1997. In fact, I mentioned it to a friend just a few days ago, so it was a surprise to see your post. Coincidence?

The book has been on my mind lately, because the issue of racism has been on the front burner since tRump became the poster boy for the latest stupid re-emergence of “white supremacy” movements—or, the absurd notion that humans with a lack of melatonin are inherently superior to everyone else.

I've been binge watching them all day unable to tear myself away.

Thanks so much for posting them!

Guns, Germs, and Steel
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Guns, Germs, and Steel Ggas human soc.jpg
Cover of the first edition, featuring the painting Pizarro seizing the Inca of Peru by John Everett Millais
Author Jared Diamond
Country United States
Language English
Subject Geography, History, social evolution, ethnology, cultural diffusion
Published 1997 (W. W. Norton)
Media type Print (Hardcover and Paperback), audio CD, audio cassette, audio download
Pages 480 pages (1st edition, hardcover)
ISBN 0-393-03891-2 (1st edition, hardcover)
OCLC 35792200
Dewey Decimal
303.4 21
LC Class HM206 .D48 1997
Preceded by Why Is Sex Fun? The Evolution of Human Sexuality
Followed by Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (also titled Guns, Germs and Steel: A short history of everybody for the last 13,000 years) is a 1997 transdisciplinary non-fiction book by Jared Diamond, professor of geography and physiology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). In 1998, Guns, Germs, and Steel won the Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction and the Aventis Prize for Best Science Book. A documentary based on the book, and produced by the National Geographic Society, was broadcast on PBS in July 2005.[1]

The book attempts to explain why Eurasian and North African civilizations have survived and conquered others, while arguing against the idea that Eurasian hegemony is due to any form of Eurasian intellectual, moral, or inherent genetic superiority. Diamond argues that the gaps in power and technology between human societies originate primarily in environmental differences, which are amplified by various positive feedback loops. When cultural or genetic differences have favored Eurasians (for example, written language or the development among Eurasians of resistance to endemic diseases), he asserts that these advantages occurred because of the influence of geography on societies and cultures (for example, by facilitating commerce and trade between different cultures) and were not inherent in the Eurasian genomes.
Contents

1 Synopsis
1.1 Title
1.2 Outline of theory
1.3 Agriculture
1.4 Geography
1.5 Germs
1.6 Success and failure
2 Intellectual background
3 Reception
4 Awards and honors
5 Publication
6 See also
7 Notes and references
8 Further reading
9 External links

Synopsis

The prologue opens with an account of Diamond's conversation with Yali, a New Guinean politician. The conversation turned to the obvious differences in power and technology between Yali's people and the Europeans who dominated the land for 200 years, differences that neither of them considered due to any genetic superiority of Europeans. Yali asked, using the local term "cargo" for inventions and manufactured goods, "Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people had little cargo of our own?" (p. 14)

Diamond realized the same question seemed to apply elsewhere: "People of Eurasian origin ... dominate ... the world in wealth and power." Other peoples, after having thrown off colonial domination, still lag in wealth and power. Still others, he says, "have been decimated, subjugated, and in some cases even exterminated by European colonialists." (p. 15)

The peoples of other continents (sub-Saharan Africans, Native Americans, Aboriginal Australians and New Guineans, and the original inhabitants of tropical Southeast Asia) have been largely conquered, displaced and in some extreme cases – referring to Native Americans, Aboriginal Australians, and South Africa's indigenous Khoisan peoples – largely exterminated by farm-based societies such as Eurasians and Bantu. He believes this is due to these societies' technologic and immunologic advantages, stemming from the early rise of agriculture after the last Ice Age.
Title

The book's title is a reference to the means by which farm-based societies conquered populations of other areas and maintained dominance, despite sometimes being vastly outnumbered – superior weapons provided immediate military superiority (guns); Eurasian diseases weakened and reduced local populations, who had no immunity, making it easier to maintain control over them (germs); and durable means of transport (steel) enabled imperialism.

Diamond argues geographic, climatic and environmental characteristics which favored early development of stable agricultural societies ultimately led to immunity to diseases endemic in agricultural animals and the development of powerful, organized states capable of dominating others.
Outline of theory

Diamond argues that Eurasian civilization is not so much a product of ingenuity, but of opportunity and necessity. That is, civilization is not created out of superior intelligence, but is the result of a chain of developments, each made possible by certain preconditions.

The first step towards civilization is the move from nomadic hunter-gatherer to rooted agrarian society. Several conditions are necessary for this transition to occur: access to high-carbohydrate vegetation that endures storage; a climate dry enough to allow storage; and access to animals docile enough for domestication and versatile enough to survive captivity. Control of crops and livestock leads to food surpluses. Surpluses free people to specialize in activities other than sustenance and support population growth. The combination of specialization and population growth leads to the accumulation of social and technologic innovations which build on each other. Large societies develop ruling classes and supporting bureaucracies, which in turn lead to the organization of nation-states and empires.[2]

Although agriculture arose in several parts of the world, Eurasia gained an early advantage due to the greater availability of suitable plant and animal species for domestication. In particular, Eurasia has barley, two varieties of wheat, and three protein-rich pulses for food; flax for textiles; and goats, sheep, and cattle. Eurasian grains were richer in protein, easier to sow, and easier to store than American maize or tropical bananas.

As early Western Asian civilizations began to trade, they found additional useful animals in adjacent territories, most notably horses and donkeys for use in transport. Diamond identifies 13 species of large animals over 100 pounds (45 kg) domesticated in Eurasia, compared with just one in South America (counting the llama and alpaca as breeds within the same species) and none at all in the rest of the world. Australia and North America suffered from a lack of useful animals due to extinction, probably by human hunting, shortly after the end of the Pleistocene, whilst the only domesticated animals in New Guinea came from the East Asian mainland during the Austronesian settlement some 4,000–5,000 years ago. Sub-Saharan biological relatives of the horse including zebras and onagers proved untameable; and although African elephants can be tamed, it is very difficult to breed them in captivity;[2][3] Diamond describes the small number of domesticated species (14 out of 148 "candidates&quot as an instance of the Anna Karenina principle: many promising species have just one of several significant difficulties that prevent domestication. He also makes the intriguing argument that all large mammals that could be domesticated, have been.[4]

Eurasians domesticated goats and sheep for hides, clothing, and cheese; cows for milk; bullocks for tillage of fields and transport; and benign animals such as pigs and chickens. Large domestic animals such as horses and camels offered the considerable military and economic advantages of mobile transport.

<snip>

I have been meaning to read the book since it came out and just never got around to it, this bridges my laziness.

I think you will enjoy it; especially the explanation of biological evolution.