Guns, Germs, and Steel

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? That's the question that sparked this Pulitzer Prize-winning book. Many Westerners suspect they know the answer: "We're morally or genetically superior to those folks." Author Diamond thinks not. We had animals one could domesticate, latitudinal expanses that allowed us to steal each other's inventions and nasty germs. In other words: the dumb luck to be born on the right continent. Doug Ordunio reads the book as if he had written it, with the quiet passion of an erudite man. B.H.C. (c) AudioFile 2000, Portland, Maine


Grover Gardener does as well with scientific material as he does with more traditional literature, giving it spirit and vitality while sounding as interested in the information as readers will be. Although he doesn't pronounce "bonobo" (pigmy chimp) like the keepers in the zoo, nor "Tenochtitl‡n" like a Mexican, his technical pronunciation is otherwise flawless. The abridgment to one-third of the original does no serious damage, but only deprives readers the privilege of enjoying more of this Pulitzer Prize-winning book about the evolution of civilization. Few writers could ever take so complex a subject and render it as palatable and memorable as Professor Diamond. J.A.H. (c) AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine