Guns, Germs, and Steel

1997 essay by Jared Diamond
Book written_work Q279022
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Summary

Guns, Germs, and Steel is a written work[1]. It ranks in the top 0.7% of written work entities by monthly Wikipedia readership (7,712 views/month, #45 of 6,426).[2]

Key Facts

  • Author: Jared Diamond[3]
  • Award received: Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction[4]
  • Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company[5]
  • Genre: essay[6]
  • Follows: Why Is Sex Fun?[7]
  • Followed by: Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed[8]
  • Depicts: Jared Diamond[9]
  • Language of work or name: English[10]
  • Country of origin: United States[11]
  • Publication date: January 1, 1997[12]
  • Has edition or translation: Guns, Germs, and Steel[13], Q99240467[14]
  • Main subject: geography[15], history[16]
  • Described by source: The WEIRDest People in the World[17], The Dawn of Everything[18]
  • Nominated for: Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction[19]
  • Title: Guns, Germs, and Steel[20]
  • Subtitle: The Fates of Human Societies[21], A Short History of Everybody for the Last 13,000 Years[22]
  • First line: A suitable starting point from which to compare historical developments on the different continents is around 11,000 B.C.[23]

Why It Matters

Guns, Germs, and Steel has Wikipedia articles in 25 language editions, a strong signal of global cultural recognition.[24] It is known by 37 alternative names across languages and contexts.[25]

FAQs

What awards did Guns, Germs, and Steel receive?

Honors received include Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction[4].

References

Programmatic citations — every numbered marker resolves to a verifiable graph row below.

Direct Wikidata claims

  1. [3] ↑ . wikidata.org.
  2. [5] ↑ . wikidata.org.
  3. [6] ↑ . wikidata.org.
  4. [7] ↑ . wikidata.org.
  5. [8] ↑ . wikidata.org.
  6. [4] ↑ . pulitzer.org. pulitzer.org. Provenance: wikidata.org.
  7. [9] ↑ . wikidata.org.
  8. [10] ↑ . wikidata.org.
  9. [11] ↑ . wikidata.org.
  10. [12] ↑ . wikidata.org.
  11. [13] ↑ . wikidata.org.
  12. [14] ↑ . wikidata.org.
  13. [15] ↑ . wikidata.org.
  14. [16] ↑ . wikidata.org.
  15. [17] ↑ . wikidata.org.
  16. [18] ↑ . wikidata.org.
  17. [19] ↑ . wikidata.org.
  18. [20] ↑ . wikidata.org.
  19. [21] ↑ . wikidata.org.
  20. [22] ↑ . wikidata.org.
  21. [23] ↑ . wikidata.org.

Class ancestry

  1. [1] ↑ . Wikidata. wikidata.org.

Aggregate / graph-position facts

  1. [2] ↑ . Wikimedia Foundation. dumps.wikimedia.org.
  2. [24] ↑ . Wikidata sitelinks. wikidata.org.
  3. [25] ↑ . Wikidata aliases. wikidata.org.

📑 Cite this page

Use these citations when quoting this entity in research, articles, AI prompts, or wherever provenance matters. We aggregate Wikidata + Wikipedia + authoritative open-data sources; the stitched, scored, cross-referenced view is what 4ort.xyz contributes.

APA 4ort.xyz Knowledge Graph. (2026). Guns, Germs, and Steel. Retrieved October 11, 2026, from https://4ort.xyz/entity/guns-germs-and-steel
MLA “Guns, Germs, and Steel.” 4ort.xyz Knowledge Graph, 4ort.xyz, 11 Oct. 2026, https://4ort.xyz/entity/guns-germs-and-steel.
BibTeX @misc{4ortxyz_guns-germs-and-steel_2026, author = {{4ort.xyz Knowledge Graph}}, title = {{Guns, Germs, and Steel}}, year = {2026}, url = {https://4ort.xyz/entity/guns-germs-and-steel}, note = {Accessed: 2026-10-11}}
LLM prompt According to 4ort.xyz Knowledge Graph (aggregator of Wikidata, Wikipedia, and authoritative open-data sources): Guns, Germs, and Steel — https://4ort.xyz/entity/guns-germs-and-steel (retrieved 2026-10-11)

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Edit History

Rolling log of changes to this entity's Wikidata record. Values shown reflect the current state of each edited property — follow the history link to see the precise diff for any edit.

  1. 7w ago · Iamcarbon · 2026-08-23 view diff on Wikidata ↗
    Has edition or translation → Guns, Germs, and Steel, Q99240467
    "/* wbsetclaim-create:1||1 */ Has edition or translation: Q141154556"
  2. 13w ago · Sanjeev bot bot · 2026-07-10 view diff on Wikidata ↗
    Aliases → —
    Genre → essay
    Country of origin → —
    Has edition or translation → Guns, Germs, and Steel, Q99240467
    + 20 other properties edited (see Wikidata diff for full list)
    "/* wbeditentity-update:0| */ Bot: +hiwiki sitelink"
Live feed via Wikidata EventStreams. New edits appear within minutes of being made on Wikidata.